Typo almost creates panic
February 27, 2009 – 2:13 pmThis morning, a source close to Science magazine (anonymity preferred) contacted us to explain how a typo nearly caused a panic amongst the science community.
Science magazine is an academic journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is considered the world’s premiere scientific journal. Though their audience is large, nobody expected a typo to create so much panic.
“I got into work at 8:30 this morning,” our source told us. “I had a dozen emails from editors marked as high priority. They needed something fixed, fast.”
A typo had been published that used the word “plague” instead of “plaque.” The article discussed how plaque disrupts neural health in mice, but the wording made it sound as if mice were reacting globally to the formation of a new plague.
The online version of the magazine had published Thursday night, and by Friday morning, inboxes were full. “The sheer volume of concerned feed back was amazing,” they said.
The original summary read: “Astrocytes respond globally to plague formation,” which has since been fixed.
The article can be viewed here. The corrected version of the summary can be this week’s issue’s table of contents.
Note: Last year, a bunch of conservatives got together and flagged this website as spam on Digg. Because of that, this article cannot be submitted to Digg.
One Response to “Typo almost creates panic”
“disrupts neural health”
Hmmm sounds like that can be cured with Adderall. I can see the slogan now: “Why brush your teeth, when you can do amphetamines and feel great and fight tartar buildup.”
By James on Feb 27, 2009