[icermann]

I think many of us has heard about the Xerox copying machine changing digits on copies, using a "visually similar enough" replacement algorithm. https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/6/4594482/xerox-copiers-rand...

I wonder if you could get the same unexpected result when copying images of Western blots?

It's probably not the case here but it could be devastating for a researcher to be accused of fabricating data by using an affected copier/image editor/file format.

[appleflaxen]

No. The xerox machine had a digital analysis phase with a feedback loop between the image being recorded and the output being printed.

A western blot is a direct measurement.

It's like asking whether the xerox example might explain why the splatter pattern is identical in sections of two putatively different Jackson Pollock paintings.

[icermann]

Maybe I didn't make myself clear, but the image in the article looks like it could have made both one and two passes through a Xerox machine before it ended up in the paper.