Four Scientific Journals Accept Fake Study About "Midi-Chlorians" From Star Wars | IFLScience

"The peer-review system is a process used to weed out weak scientific research using independent peers to check whether the study is legit, credible, and of decent quality. But recent years have seen a rise in so-called 'predatory journals', where it’s significantly easier to get past the reviewing process and have research quickly published (often for a small price, of course).

To highlight the flaws of 'predatory journals', a blogging neuroscientist writing under the alias Neuroskeptic managed to trick multiple scientific journals into publishing a nonsensical piece of research, dotted with massive factual errors, plagiarism, and Star Wars references. Neuroskeptic wrote about his 'experiment' in a blog post for Discover Magazine.  

The hoax study was all about 'midi-chlorians,' a fiction form of 'microscopic life form that resides within all living cells' that was first mentioned in everybody’s favorite Star Wars film, The Phantom Menace."