Journal shut over boiled-eggs-back-to-raw claim

Torrents of ridicule have been heaped on Xiezhen Dili, or Pictorial Geography, after it published a paper in March claiming that after training, students with “superpowers” have used “idea and energy transmission” to turn more than 40 boiled eggs back to raw eggs.

Guo Ping, the first author of the paper and director of Chunlin Education, apologized for the incident on Tuesday and said she was sorry that the paper has caused so much trouble.

Pictorial Geography, classified as an academic periodical, published academic thesis without authorization from the state press and publication administrative departments, according to the Press and Publication Bureau of Jilin Province.

The bureau asked Pictorial Geography to suspend operations and the person responsible for the incident to resign, as the periodical had failed to comply with “normal and formal reviews and proofreading,” which is a practice all the publications in China are asked to follow.

Chunlin Education has been shut down and Guo has resigned as the school’s director. Further investigations are ongoing.