SCIENCE: Polar Bear Scientist Faces New Questions. “A wildlife biologist is continuing to face questions about an influential paper he wrote on apparently drowned polar bears, with government investigators reportedly asking whether he improperly steered a research contract to another scientist as a reward for reviewing that paper. . . . Monnett’s report on what he observed raised public alarm about the threat of climate change and melting ice, and the sighting of dead bears was cited by Al Gore in his movie An Inconvenient Truth. The dead bears became a potent symbol of the perils that the bears face as the sea ice retreats. But now Monett is under an official investigation by the Department of Interior’s Office of Inspector General.”

In The Appearance of Impropriety, we noted that a lot of science-fraud investigations come up short, so don’t jump the gun on this one.