The Riken institute released the final findings Tuesday of an investigation into two controversial stem cell papers, in what appears to be a hasty attempt at preserving its chances of being upgraded by the government to a high-powered science research center.
The final report, released just over two weeks after an interim report, assigned blame to lead author Haruko Obokata for fabrication and falsification of data used in the articles that appeared in the British science journal Nature in late January.
But it failed to clear up some allegations, including the veracity of so-called STAP cells as claimed by the articles' authors.