Paper that said cooked eggs can hatch chicks slammed

Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province, has set up a working group to investigate a local vocational training school that published an academic paper about making cooked eggs hatch chicks.

The paper, titled "Turning Cooked Eggs into Raw Eggs－an Experimental Report on Hatching Chicks", was recently published on Pictorial Geography, and its authors include Guo Ping, the school's headmaster.

The paper describes how teachers and students at the school have been able to turn cooked eggs into raw eggs through "parapsychological consciousness" and have successfully converted 40 eggs that hatched into chicks.

It soon sparked wide criticism online, with many people calling the results pseudoscience, questioning the academic integrity of the school and raising doubts on how such a paper passed the journal's review process.

The Zhengzhou government confirmed on Tuesday that a working team consisting of staff from the city's human resources bureau, market supervision and public security bureau has been established to launch a comprehensive investigation into the school.

The authorities added that they will seriously deal with any problems found during the probe in accordance with laws.

The Jilin Provincial Press and Publication Bureau－which, according to public information, supervised the journal concerned－also announced on Tuesday that it has suspended the journal for rectification.

It said the bureau has asked the journal to carry out a self-examination and self-correction, and a special working team has also been set up to conduct a field investigation, hold talks with people in charge and inspect random issues and materials to verify the situation.

The paper came under fire on Chinese social media on Monday morning. Media reports showed that Guo, the paper's original author, responded to the widespread criticism online on Monday afternoon, saying that the paper is entirely true and the experiment involved the unknown science of turning back time and predicting the future.

The journal also responded on Monday via media portals that the paper sounds metaphysical and would not be accepted through the normal review process.

Zhengzhou's human resources bureau also said on Monday that it had already sent personnel to the school for investigation and would mete out punishment if any instruction outside approved academic content is discovered.