"I Published a Fake Paper on Pregnancy Cravings for Prime Numbers"

From Retraction Watch (Pascual Chiago); you can see the published paper here (perma.cc version in case the original gets taken down). An excerpt:

I had grown weary of the constant stream and abuse of spam invitations to submit manuscripts to journals and to attend fake conferences on the other side of the world, a trend extensively studied in academia. The last straw: a solicitation from the Clinical Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, well outside my work in mathematics education.

Accepting the challenge, I decided to submit a deliberately nonsensical, AI-generated manuscript in response to observe how the individuals behind these supposed journals operate.

In October 2025, I wrote to someone named Henry Jackson, who had sent the article invitation in August (despite the fact that no such person is listed on the journal’s website). I sent a manuscript generated entirely by ChatGPT to test how far a publication created with zero genuine effort could go and whether there was any filtering mechanism in place to prevent a meaningless article from being published.

I proposed the following title in my reply: “Obstetric Paradoxes and Didactic Equations: The Impact of Mathematical Teaching on Childbirth and Beyond.” The abstract read:

In an unprecedented quantum leap in interdisciplinary research, we introduce the concept of ‘Gyneco-Obstetric Algebraic Didactics’ (GOAD). This paper explores the impact of teaching mathematical models using obstetric metaphors on the cognitive flexibility of third-trimester patients and first-year mathematics students alike. Through the introduction of the Ovary-Function Theorem (OFT) and the application of the Cervix-Dilation Equation , the study reveals that explaining non-Euclidean spaces through pelvic retroversion significantly improves calculus test scores and reduces birth anxiety by 13.7%. A case study with pregnant mathematicians and aspiring gynecologists demonstrates that integrating the Fibonacci sequence into labor progression charts induces spontaneous appreciation for abstract algebra and mild cravings for prime numbers. These findings challenge the traditional boundaries between prenatal care and set theory, suggesting that mathematical didactics and obstetric gynecology, when merged, can birth new paradigms in both fields. Further research is encouraged, especially in the context of cesarean matrices and post-partum group theory.

There’s more.

Referring to our own family’s pregnancy experience, my wife has many virtues, but I regret to say that “spontaneous appreciation for abstract algebra and mild cravings for prime numbers” have not been among them. (Indeed, I’m more likely to experience mild cravings for prime numbers than she has ever been.) Maybe, though, that’s because we didn’t integrate the Fibonacci sequence into labor progression charts.

The post “I Published a Fake Paper on Pregnancy Cravings for Prime Numbers” appeared first on Reason.com.