Uncle Tom Cobley - Scientific Papers

Scientific Papers

There have been instances of scientific papers — where multiple authorship is common — published with "Cobley, U. T." humorously listed as one among a long list of otherwise genuine authors. Two papers indexed by ISI include U. T. Cobley as a co-author:

• Nosten F, Luxemburger C, Kyle DE, Ballou WR, Wittes J, Wah E, Chongsuphajaisiddhi T, Gordon DM, White NJ, Sadoff JC, Heppner DG, Bathe K, Blood J, Brockman A, Cobley UT, Hacking D, Hogg D, U KH, Maelankiri L, Chuanak N, Permpanich B, Price R, Raimond D, Schabenberger O, Singharaj P, Singhasivanon P, Slight T, Tulayon S, Tway KL, Ynint T, VincentiDelmas M, deVries A, Webster HK, Randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial of SPf66 malaria vaccine in children in northwestern Thailand, LANCET 348 (9029): 701-707, doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(96)04465-0, SEP 14 1996. (UT Cobley is listed as a member of the Shoklo SPf66 Malaria Vaccine Trial Group)
• Batich C, Heilbron.E, Hornung V, Ashe AJ, Clark DT, Cobley UT, Kilcast D, Scanlan I, Applications Of Photoelectron Spectroscopy .41. Photoelectron Spectra Of Phosphabenzene, Arsabenzene, And Stibabenzene, Journal Of The American Chemical Society 95 (3): 928-930, doi:10.1021/ja00784a054, 1973

There are also some cases of papers listed with U. T. Cobley as an author in reference lists, even though the name does not appear in the original paper. This also shows how citation errors are perpetuated, presumably reflecting a reliance on other citations without checking the original source. Thus a paper by Cross, Heyworth, Murrell, Bockamp, Dexter and Green, published in the journal Oncogene in 1994 is frequently listed with the authors cited as "Cross, M. A., Heyworth, C. M., Murrell, A. M., Bockamp, E.-O., Cobley, U. T., Dexter, T. M. & Green, A. R.". However, Cobley does not appear in the original.