Integrity Report: Gel-confined strain amplifies FRET efficiency toward red emission enhancement beyond pressure quenching (Sci. Adv. 12, eaec0830)

Academic fraud report · Geng Detector

Summary

This report evaluates a Science Advances paper (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aec0830) on pressure-induced FRET enhancement in composite gels. The overall verdict is highly suspicious. The principal finding is an internal mathematical contradiction in the core result: the abstract states red emission reaches 355% of ambient green emission (3.55x), and the main text repeats 3.55, yet the same paragraph then claims 4.51-fold enhancement at 80 K as a comparison, which is internally inconsistent. A secondary concern is methodological inconsistency: the Materials and Methods section states high-pressure ADXRD was performed at the 4W2 station at Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility (BSRF, lambda = 0.6199 Å), whereas the Acknowledgments attribute the same ADXRD measurements to BL15U1 at Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF), two physically distinct facilities. Image-level and statistical forensic checks were not possible from the supplied text-only PDF; pixel and supplementary table analyses remain pending. The contradictions are textual and verifiable, but the underlying cause (typo, copy-paste error, or fabrication) cannot be determined from this report alone.

Verdict

Highly suspicious. The paper contains an internal numerical contradiction in its headline claim and an inconsistent attribution of the synchrotron ADXRD measurements between the Methods section and the Acknowledgments. Both issues affect the credibility of the reported high-pressure results.

Key findings

Internal contradiction in core enhancement factor. The abstract and main text give 3.55x (355%) red-vs-green enhancement at 6.7 GPa, but the same paragraph in the main text compares this against a "4.51-fold" pressure enhancement, with no reconciliation of the two numbers.
Conflicting synchrotron beamline attribution. Methods credits ADXRD measurements (λ = 0.6199 Å) to the 4W2 High-Pressure Station at BSRF; Acknowledgments credits the ADXRD measurements to BL15U1 at SSRF. These are two separate synchrotron facilities.
Possible Methods-section template reuse. The mismatch is consistent with copy-paste of a Methods template from a prior BSRF-based study without updating the beamline name, while the Acknowledgments were edited to reflect the actual SSRF allocation.
Image and statistical forensic checks not performed. Only text was available; ELA, background-noise, splicing, and digit-distribution analyses could not be carried out in this pass.

Evidence highlights

Abstract wording: "red emission intensity at 355% of ambient green emission intensity."
Main-text calculation: "ΔI MHG(6.7 GPa)/I MHG(P0) = 3.55."
Same paragraph, later sentence: "far below the 4.51-fold enhancement achieved under pressure."
Methods sentence: "In situ high-pressure ADXRD measurements (λ = 0.6199 Å) were performed at the 4W2 High-Pressure Station in Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility."
Acknowledgments sentence: "In situ high-pressure synchrotron ADXRD measurements were performed at BL15U1 at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF). The authors thank the staff from SSRF at BL15U1..."
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aec0830; Sci. Adv. 12, eaec0830; published 29 May 2026.

Notes

The numerical contradiction could in principle arise from a typographical or rounding error, but the gap between 3.55 and 4.51 (~27%) is too large to be explained by rounding alone and is not addressed anywhere in the text.
The beamline discrepancy could similarly be a Methods-template error rather than falsification, but the contradiction itself is objective and verifiable in the published version.
Pixel-level image analysis (Figures 1–4) and digit-distribution / p-value scrutiny of Supplementary Tables were not possible from the text-only input; these remain recommended next steps.
Recommended actions: contact corresponding authors (Guanjun Xiao, Haotong Wei, Bo Zou) for raw data and beamtime allocation records; post the 3.55 vs 4.51 and BSRF vs SSRF inconsistencies on PubPeer; audit related publications from the same group for Methods-template reuse; notify Science Advances editorial office.
This report is AI-assisted and intended for academic discussion only; final determination of misconduct requires institutional investigation.