New professor at »aging« exhibition

Ian Hickson, professor in molecular aging, had his new job at the University of Copenhagen marked with an inauguration event Monday at the Panum Institute, complete with choral music. The ceremony also marked the opening of a new exhibition on aging by the Medical Museion in the Panum Institute buildings.

See pictures of the exhibition here

The celebrated cancer researcher, who joins the Faculty of Health Science's Centre for Healthy Aging after 20 years at Oxford University, was full of self-deprecating humour as he recounted his career so far:

Newsroom's choice: Penkowa for dummies

It has dead mothers suddenly turning up at receptions, powerful men enchanted by charming women, forged documents, raids by plain-clothed fraud detectives, spin doctors, and a student assistant that cried for help, but was not heard.

If not the biggest case of scientific fraud in world history, it is probably the most complicated one. It has shaken the University of Copenhagen, has made university politics an issue in the upcoming Danish national election, and has had staff and students clicking the refresh button on their preferred media sites for months on end.

Blood, phlegm and bile at Medical Museion

In the 19th century, humans understood the body as a system in balance between liquids. Blood, phlegm, yellow and black bile. Treating patients could be quite dramatic, removing and adding one of these liquids.

We are at the Balance and Metabolism exhibition, in the 224-year-old museum building of the Medical Museion. It is about the old idea of the chemical body and what constitutes a healthy body, historically, and in the present day.

Freak rain storm drowned skeletons

A cloudburst that dumped two months of rain on the inner city in two hours on 2 July also swamped the Æbelholt skeleton collection at the University’s Medical Museion.

The collection of 600 skeletons from the medieval Æbelholt monastery’s ruins stored in the cellar all turned out to be waterlogged after the 30 centimetre surge of water into the museum’s yard and cellars finally had subsided.

Klarlund Pedersen reported for fraud

Just as the Milena Penkowa saga cools down, the University of Copenhagen's scientific fraud case has been widened to other scientists.

Esteemed sports and exercise expert Bente Klarlund Pedersen, has been reported to the Committee on Scientific Dishonesty UVVU by one of her colleagues for systematically attempting to hide scientific fraud.

According to the tabloid B.T., the case has been kept under wraps by the University of Copenhagen as a personnel case.

'Deliberate' fraud

Day six: Like the Tour de France

In many ways, the six friends from Ventoux are riding just like the Tour de France. The distance of the stages is the same, and the daily programme consists of sleeping, biking and a giant intake of everything eatable or drinkable, and heavily loaded with carbohydrates.

Just like the Tour de France, this trip has a rest day. Or almost, a rest day, as the group rode ‘only’ 99.8 km.

By bike to northern Norway, in only two weeks

Cyclists are like migratory birds. When the weather is bad, they normally head off to warmer climates. Not six recreational cyclists from Denmark, who used the weekend's bout of bad weather in Denmark as their cue to head off to the northernmost part of Europe – Nordkapp, or North Cape in Norway.

290 PhD students want Penkowa re-examined

The University's legal advisors, 'Kammeradvokaten', released the long-awaited report on the Penkowa case on 22 March.

Since then, 494 researchers from the University of Copenhagen have signed petitions calling for a new, independent Penkowa inquest.

290 signatures were added to this number yesterday, 28 April, when the University Board of Executives received a new petition.

In an accompanying press release, the 290 PhD students write that they support the existing call for an independent inquest of the Penkowa case, including management’s handling of it.

Milena Penkowa fights back in media interview

There is absolutely no substance to claims of scientific fraud. And no: She has not been in any kind of personal relationship with Rector Ralf Hemmingsen.

This is certainly according to the brain scientist Milena Penkowa herself, who finally speaks out in one of the largest cases of claimed scientific fraud at the University of Copenhagen. Her statements come in an interview in the Danish daily Politiken, cited in the Danish section of this site, Uniavisen.dk.

»It has been difficult, to say the least, to have to listen to such monstrous, false claims,« says Penkowa.