Recently, a sports science teacher at Hainan Normal University published a communication article on global cooperation in artificial intelligence (AI) in the top international academic journal “Nature.” The university initially praised it as a breakthrough, which was later found to be just a “Correspondence” with less than 200 English words, sparking widespread attention and discussion. Subsequently, Hainan Normal University quickly amended the article.
According to information on mainland Chinese microblogs, on March 24, Hainan Normal University announced on its official WeChat public account that Dr. Liu Haoyu, a young high-level talent in the sports science department, had published an article titled “Global cooperation is crucial for DeepSeek and broader AI research” in the prestigious academic journal “Nature” as the first author and corresponding author.
The university stated that this achievement not only marked a “zero breakthrough” for the sports science department in having a paper published in the main section of “Nature” but also provided new insights for the integration of sports science and artificial intelligence development.
This news quickly led to questioning and controversy among netizens. Some enthusiastic individuals found that the article was only published in the “Correspondence” section of “Nature,” was very short, and was not part of the main issue, contrary to what the school had promoted as a significant achievement.
It was discovered on Nature’s official website that the article consisted of only about 200 English words, with content completely unrelated to sports science. Hainan Normal University promoted a “reader’s letter” of less than 200 English words as a “communication article” published in the main section of “Nature” and touted it as a “zero breakthrough,” sparking skepticism from many netizens, who considered it an exaggeration.
As the controversy escalated, the university’s public account deleted the original post on March 26 and made modifications. The revised version removed descriptions related to “young high-level talent” and the “zero breakthrough,” redefining the nature of the article as a “communication.”
This action raised further skepticism, with netizens speculating whether the school had been forced to take deletion and modification measures due to public pressure.
Many mainland Chinese netizens sarcastically commented, saying, “Making a joke out of it,” “Fraudulent breakthrough,” “This kind of academic institution is frightening,” “Just by looking at the article title, you can tell something’s off,” and the like.