By Sheeva Azma

A retracted science paper from the now-dismantled MIT Media Lab OpenAg project finds its backstory in the Epstein files, highlighting the eponymous trafficker’s role in scientific misconduct.

On October 25, 2021, The open access science journal PLoS ONE retracted a 2019 article titled “Flavor-cyber-agriculture: Optimization of plant metabolites in an open-source control environment through surrogate modeling.”

The now-retracted paper, published by the now-defunct OpenAg project at the MIT Media Lab, claims to provide proof-of-concept for a “Food Computer” to optimize the flavor and quality of foods, and specifically, in this paper, basil. 

“An experimental container, called the Food Computer (FC), was built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with sensors, actuators, and computer control,” the article’s abstract states in a handwavy way, without providing concrete detail.

I’m surprised that the phrase “food computer” has zero mentions in the Epstein files.

The MIT OpenAg Food Computer paper, published in 2019, was retracted in 2021

As written, the paper is hard to understand, in my opinion, but from what I could gather, the scientists alleged that their Food Computer was able to make basil, the plant they chose to study for their experimental construct, taste better by providing “all-day light” to it. Why you would need a computer to do that is anyone’s guess, as farmers and agriculture research labs do that kind of experimenting all the time, but hey, remember, this paper was ultimately retracted.

If you’ll recall, I recently wrote about how MIT Media Lab researchers collaborated with Jeffrey Epstein on a related project on plant sentience that reportedly never took off, though preliminary background research was conducted by the researchers, as I wrote in my blog, “Epstein’s last sciencing.”

Notably, the machinery the Open Ag project acquired for the plant sentience project was used in this now-retracted paper (we’ll get to that a bit later).

The paper was retracted on the basis of concerns with reporting and methodology, per PLoS ONE. Per Science News, the retraction came on the heels of “the filing in August of a wrongful termination lawsuit against MIT by Babak Babakinejad, a scientist who ran the food computer project. He says he was fired after he complained about the paper to MIT officials. MIT’s news office ended up widely promoting it.”

“The future of agriculture is computerized,” wrote the MIT News Office in 2019 (it added an editor’s note about the retraction of the “research discussed in this article” in 2021).

That same earlier blurb from Science News notes: “The retraction adds to a string of troubles for the Media Lab, whose former director, Joi Ito, resigned in 2019 over a separate controversy involving donations from sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.”

Well, thanks to the Epstein files, it turns out that those two scandals were not so separate after all.

Epstein helped make the hiring decision for one of the authors of this paper

The Epstein files reveal background on the paper that is not included in the pages of the paper itself.

To overview, the retracted paper has six authors – four with the MIT Media Lab OpenAg project.

The project appears to be led by Caleb Harper, who discusses the project with Jeffrey Epstein in the Epstein files. He is listed as one of two co-corresponding authors. Caleb Harper has 162 Epstein files mentions for his name.

The second co-corresponding author on this particular paper is Risto Miikkulainen, affiliated both with the University of Texas in Austin as well as Cognizant Technology Solutions in Silicon Valley. He has one Epstein files mention – possibly a citation of his work – in a document on artificial general intelligence by a researcher Epstein helped fund.

Another researcher, Elliot Myerson, has the same affiliations as Miikkulainen, but no Epstein files mentions. 

Looking at the author list, and reviewing correspondences between Harper and Jeffrey Epstein, one can reasonably conclude that this project was led by Harper as director of OpenAg, with help from the UT/Cognizant researchers.

Besides Harper, the other MIT Media Lab researchers are Arielle Johnson, John de la Parra, and Timothy L. Savas. 

Notably, I could not find any current mentions of John de la Parra on the MIT Media Lab website except for a minor credit on this produce chemotyping project, even though the other people bylined on this now-retracted paper are listed as alumni of the Lab. He now appears to work at the Rockefeller Foundation, where he has been since 2020. I did find that he is an esteemed alumnus (class of 1998) of Alabama School of Math and Science: “Ethnobotanist, plant chemist, and lecturer, Dr. John de la Parra is one of the many innovators and scholars that ASMS is proud to call an alumnus,” wrote ASMS on their website in January 2021, several months before this paper was retracted.

All except one of the four bylined Media Lab researchers on this paper, Savas (who I searched for in the Epstein files both by his name and by his former email at Media Lab – he no longer works there), have mentions in the Epstein files. 

Arielle Johnson has a single mention with her full name – where she talks about buying lab equipment used in this redacted study – but there are 75 mentions of “Arielle” in the files, including both her and another Arielle. There is an email from Joi Ito from May 3, 2018, arranging a meeting between himself, Johnson, and Epstein, and calling her a “plant/smell/flavor scientist.”

“Though you like pickles, I assume Arielle is not dipped in brine,” Epstein writes back to Ito, seemingly out of nowhere (at least to me – perhaps there was a story there).

It should be noted that, per the MIT report on Epstein ties, since Epstein was called “Voldemort” and staff at the Media Lab objected to his visits, these visits in 2017 and 2018 took place at Harvard, within the Program of Evolutionary Dynamics, instead.

Shortly thereafter, Arielle was out – “Arielle wanted to get out of the lab and move back to NYC with her husband – got a book deal and is consulting a food television show I think. She is still around as a Director’s Fellow and is a resource as needed,” Caleb Harper writes Epstein on June 18, 2018. 

The “competing interests” funding acknowledgements of this paper list Target Corporation as supporting three of the four MIT Media Lab researchers mentioned in the Epstein files: Harper, Johnson, and Savas.

The remaining MIT Media Lab staff member, John de la Parra, is a hire that Caleb Harper actually ran by Epstein. He has 94 mentions in the files. 

Per the Epstein files, though the paper was received by PLoS ONE on September 12, it looks like de La Parra was not hired until after August 1, 2018.

I say that because that day is when Harper wrote to Epstein and sent de la Parra’s LinkedIn page to him, saying, “Check this guy out. […] What do you think?”

“Yes,” writes back Epstein.

“Sweet! I’m going to start with him on a short contract (6-8 weeks) to make sure he is the right fit,” replies Harper

The researchers, who included people from the MIT Media Lab, had sent this paper in, per PLoS ONE, on September 12, 2018. This means that de la Parra was only on staff for about a month when this paper was submitted.

Notably, the Acknowledgements and Author Contributions sections of this paper do not credit Ed Boyden and Joi Ito, or Jeffrey Epstein, for the background discussions happening on plant science (and, by now, even help with hiring decisions) – for the related study on plant sentience – that I discussed in “Epstein’s last sciencing.” The donations to MIT from Epstein around this time were so shrouded in secrecy that many were listed as anonymous, and so it also remains unclear to me whether any MIT Media Lab donations from Epstein went directly to this project. If so, they are certainly not mentioned here.

Scientists told Epstein the machinery used for this paper would be used for the plant sentience study

Another peculiar thing about this paper is that it uses the machinery that the former Director of the Media Lab and friend of Epstein, Joi Ito, told Epstein would be used for the plant sentience study I talked about in “Epstein’s last sciencing.” However, that research was never funded, per the MIT report on Epstein ties, and it never formally took off.

“This machine will kick off the collaboration between Caleb and Ed to work on the plant/animal stuff,” Ito tells Epstein on September 7, 2017, forwarding Epstein an email from Arielle Johnson about refurbished machinery  being acquired.

The email forwarded was written on September 5, 2017, and was from Arielle Johnson to Caleb Harper, Ed Boyden, and Joi Ito. She stated: 

“We are getting a Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer System from Agilent Technologies with a 7890B model GC and a 5975 triple qudrupole electron impact mass spec. The autosampler is made by a different company called Gerstel. It is a Gerstel MPS model autosampler. The whole setup works together to accurately extract, sample, separate, and identify/quantify mixtures of volatile (i.e. in equilibrium conditions, spending a significant amount of time in the gas phase) molecules.” 

Indeed, the now-retracted article’s methods section, on page 5, talks about both a “Gerstel MultiPurpose Sampler 2 (MPS2) autosampler” and “an Agilent Model 7890,” though it is a “single quadrupole” and not a triple quadrupole as promised.

RIP, Food Computer project

In the end, OpenAg was dismantled, thanks to pressure from the media and journalist investigation of the two (!) Media Lab whistleblowers who came forward publicly after Epstein’s death.

Somehow, despite it all, the Food Computer lives on – on the MIT Media Lab website. There’s a whole page about it at MIT, which simply describes it as having run from 2015-2020 without any mention of retractions. There was even a “build your own food computer” page which is defunct now but with no explanation about what happened with it all. This article makes no mention of it being completely made up.

If you’re interested in the actual timeline of this research in the Epstein files, keep reading.

Timeline of former OpenAg Director and “Food Computer” researcher Caleb Harper’s activities in the Epstein files

As I mentioned, Caleb Harper was director of the former MIT Open Ag project. He was also co-corresponding author of the now-retracted paper touting a “food computer” that never made it to a real prototype. 

Harper has 162 mentions in the Epstein files. I read through them all, put the ones I found interesting in chronological order, added in the timeline of the paper itself being submitted and accepted, and added a bit of context, and the story it all tells is so much larger than this one person or lab. It is a story of how a known predator was involved in (yet another case of) scientific misconduct that literally led to a paper being retracted from the scientific literature. Marc Hauser, an Epstein friend, left Harvard in 2011 due to eight counts of scientific misconduct.

This, to me, raises the question of: should we start investigating scientists in the Epstein files for scientific misconduct, even if we do not investigate them for any of the potential other terrible things they could have done?

Anyway, here is the timeline. It’s kind of a long read – even though the events only span from May 2017 to Epstein’s arrest by federal authorities in July 2019 – about two years.

May 6, 2017: Epstein visits Harvard on a Sunday, asks for Harper’s email

Epstein is scheduled to visit Harvard on May 6, 2017 – which was a Sunday – to meet with his friend, MIT Media Lab Director Joi Ito, who had arranged for him to meet with Arielle Johnson and Caleb Harper of OpenAg. According to this email, That day, Epstein also meets with a few other of his scientist friends and a man allegedly named Adam Madars who is a new hire from Ito at the Media Lab (though I could not find anything else about him on the Media Lab website). 

Though many at this meeting are affiliated with the MIT Media Lab, Epstein is not doing in-person meetings there anymore due to complaints from staff there, so these meetings are scheduled to take place at the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard (PED), located not too far from MIT.

“Caleb email?” writes Epstein to his friend Ito. Ito, who is also soon to be a dad at this point (per this itinerary a few months later mentioning his baby), writes back with something redacted that looks like it could be an email address, so I assume this marks the official start of the Caleb Harper emails in the Epstein files. It is interesting to note that in this version of the same Ito-Epstein email, the word “baby” is redacted, and we can see that Ito has shared something in brackets to Epstein – presumably Harper’s email, as they begin chatting in the ensuing days.

May 8, 2017: Epstein introduces Harper to a redacted person

“Caleb [redacted] [redacted] Caleb,” writes Epstein a couple days later. The redacted person writes back, “nice to be in touch – sounds from Jeffrey like a lot of great ideas in progress. Would love to talk more if you have a moment.” The coordination goes on and though Harper asks Epstein if he’d like to be moved to BCC so that the two, Harper and [redacted], can talk privately, Epstein says he’d like to stay “in” (in his words) the email conversation. It’s unclear who [redacted] is, but the inclusion of a former administrative assistant to OpenAg, Whitney Burke (who has 5 Epstein files mentions in that capacity), suggests that Harper, who directs OpenAg, is planning to meet with [redacted].

September 7, 2017: Epstein learns about the lab equipment to be used in the plant sentience study, which ends up being used in the now-redacted OpenAg Food Computer paper

“This machine will kick off the collaboration between Caleb and Ed to work on the plant/animal stuff,” writes Ito to Epstein, forwarding an email from Arielle Johnson, written two days prior. Johnson’s email included details about acquiring refurbished laboratory equipment. Incidentally, this lab equipment is mentioned in the methods section of the now-redacted 2019 PLoS ONE paper published by OpenAg about a “Food Computer” which, the researchers claimed, was a prototype machine for a way to optimize taste and quality of food, using a basil plant as a test case.

April 20, 2018: 60 Minutes publishes a segment on the MIT Media Lab

In the midst of all of this, 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley visited the MIT Media Lab to talk about the futuristic technologies being developed there. I found this segment published April 20, 2018, as well as this longer segment in 60 Minutes Overtime published on April 22, 2018. The internet isn’t what it used to be – I thought I could find the segment online and freely accessible, but the full-length video titled “Making ideas into reality at MIT’s ‘Future Factory’,” which was published on April 22, 2018, appears to be paywalled on the CBS website. “For more than 30 years, MIT has been recruiting people with crazy ideas to work in their Media Lab, where life-changing inventions are created,” reads the caption of the paywalled video. (Note: I only learned about this happening thanks to this Epstein files email.)

April 25, 2018: Epstein says “yes” to meeting with Harper and Boyden, both of MIT Media Lab

Per planning email discussion, an upcoming meeting between Epstein and some scientists was to be held on May 6, 2018, from 1-3 pm, once again at the Harvard PED.

A redacted person forwards a message from Ito that reads: “Should I invite Madars as usual? Do you think he’d be interested in Gary Gensler? I’ll think of others. Caleb Harper, the plant guy? Ed Boyden?”

“Yes to all,” Epstein replies.

Lesley Groff, Epstein’s administrative assistant, follows up with Ito a few days later about inviting the Media Lab peeps, congratulating Ito the recent 60 Minutes segment (“FYI-LOVED the 60 Minutes segment on the MIT Media Lab! So Impressive”).

“Jeffrey can go up to 5:30 pm with guests,” Groff tells Ito.

This May 2018 itinerary shows a tentative, but still jam-packed, schedule of the day. Leonid Peshkin of Harvard is a highly anticipated “get” for the Epstein scientist lineup (scheduled for 4 pm that day).

May 6, 2018: Scientist meetup at Harvard PED

A few days before the day of scientist-heavy Epstein meetings at the Harvard PED, the schedule is relatively finalized. An itinerary in the Epstein files shows a well-represented Media Lab contingent, including not only director Joi Ito but also his new hire, Adam, as well as Caleb Harper (“the plant guy”), and Arielle Johnson (“plant/favor [sic] scientist”), reportedly between 11 am and 3 pm. “I am not positive of the order Joi’s guests will come. I just know he has confirmed the ones that say confirmed and they will come between 11:30-3pm,” a redacted person writes.

At 5:44 pm that day, Harper sends Epstein an email with a link to Semiosis, a science fiction novel about humans living on a faraway planet that have to learn how to talk to sentient plants.

July 7, 2018: Epstein (possibly) sends Harper a book about plants

An email from Epstein to Harper contains only the file Goethe_MetamorphosisPlants2009.pdf. It is not clear what the file is, but based on its file name, it could be a PDF of the book The Metamorphosis of Plants by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published in hardcover by MIT Press in 2009.

“Will check it out!” replies Harper.

July 17, 2018: Epstein forwards plant research from a British mycologist to Harper

Epstein forwards Harper “Some papers that you may like to glance over,” writes Merlin Sheldrake, a British mycologist (scientist who studies fungus) and writer who, per his own words, had chatted with Epstein. The papers appear to be about plant communication, including signaling under plant stress.

On that same day, Harper sends Epstein a photo which we cannot see in the files – it is a broken link there. 

Epstein responds and says “Liked it.” 

He also writes back and says, “Fun, isn’t it?” 

Harper responds, “Very…I wonder if I can prove it.”

Epstein writes back to his own email and says, “I’ll fund it. Mancuso also fun,” referring to Stefano Mancuso, the Italian plant biologist.

The next day, Harper writes back and says, “I’ve ordered it 🙂 thx” (we’re not sure what this was – perhaps referring to something in the picture?) and continues with a budget request.

June 18, 2018: Harper fires Johnson and another staff member because “it wasn’t working out” and asks Epstein for funds – “MIT won’t let me hire PhD Research Scientists”

In the same email chain I was talking about on June 17, 2018, Harper continues the conversation and asks for money from Epstein. He says, “I recently let contracts lapse on Arielle and my molecular biologist as it wasn’t working out. I’d want to add the following team and would need to do a search to get the best. MIT won’t let me hire PhD Research Scientists, and likely quality people wouldn’t accept, without secure multiyear funding. I’d propose 500k a yr for 3 yrs with the expectation we evaluate progress after year one as to year 2 and 3.”

The total comes out to $500k/year for three years, amounting to a $1.5 million total ask. 

Harper states that Target [Corporation, per the now-retracted paper] paid for installation and development of the Food Computers, but that “with stock price decline is stopping support for non essential research.” He also states that “my salary is covered in other sponsored accounts plus my team of engineers on staff (backend /front end software, data science , electrical, embedded systems and mechanical engineers)”

Harper continues: “I know it’s a big ask, and would understand if it’s out of ball park, but I think that’s what it would take to make meaningful and rigorous progress on figuring out if plants can think and communicate. Thoughts?”

“Not [out] of the ballpark,” Epstein replies, while also inquiring what happened to the two scientists Harper fired.

Harper tells Epstein that “Arielle [Johnson] wanted to get out of the lab and move back to NYC with her husband – got a book deal and is consulting a food television show I think. She is still around as a directors fellow and is a resource as needed.

Molecular biologist just wasn’t working out in terms of progress – not sure what he is doing now – probably going back to neuroscience (I got him from the broad institute hoping his background could be usefully applied out of discipline in plant science)”

Epstein forwards this conversation to Ito. 

July 5, 2018: Harper circles back with Epstein

“Checking back in on this,” Harper writes to Epstein.

“im ready . can discuss more when i return to states next wed great,” writes back Epstein.

August 1-3, 2018: Epstein says “yes” to Harper hiring John de la Parra, co-author of now-redacted paper

“Check this guy out,” Harper writes to Epstein, sharing a link to de la Parra’s LinkedIn. Harper also forwards this email from the midst of his hiring process to Epstein. “This would be the first guy to join the team researching plant sentience i’d like you to fund if you are still interested. He is coming back next Thursday for more in-depth brainstorming and design of experiment review with us. What do you think?”

“Yes,” says Epstein.

Harper replies, “Sweet! I’m going to start with him on a short contract (6-8 weeks) to make sure he is the right fit.” 

August 31, 2018: “Nexzt step?”

Jeffrey Epstein’s emails are so littered with typos. He follows up with Harper regarding “nexzt steps”…about which part of all of this, it’s not clear.

September 6, 2018: Harper updates Epstein on OpenAg happenings and tells Epstein about the now-redacted paper

Harper, who had been delayed in responding thanks to his travels in Eastern Europe, per the emails, provides some updates to Epstein.

Harper tells Epstein he hired John de la Parra (who is “perfect for the team – brilliant,” Harper says), who will go full-time in November 2018. In the meantime, with de la Parra working half-time, the two are working on a white paper which they will send out and discuss with Ed Boyden and Martin Nowak. “With advisory from Ed, Martin and Lazlo [Barabási, a Hungarian physicist] and building up my team here – I think we are in great shape,” Harper tells Epstein.

However, there is a catch: “I cant hire John full time and start spending money on other staff/prototype development/experiment costs until Joi signals to me that the budget we talked about has landed at ML. Is it possible to move forward with that?”

Harper also attaches a couple papers, including “a flavor paper we just sent to PLOS , its pretty basic but has some good underpinnings that we will expand on with further experiments.”

He invites Epstein to see the lab out in Middleton, MA, and ends his email by saying: “the real question….what are these plants thinking in my lab today and what language are they speaking…”

September 12, 2018: The academic journal PLoS ONE receives the now-retracted OpenAg Food Computer paper to review

The now-retracted paper notes that the date of submission to PLoS ONE for “Flavor-cyber-agriculture: Optimization of plant metabolites in an open-source control environment through surrogate modeling” was September 12, 2018. It lists the authors as Johnson, Harper, de la Parra, and three others. Neither the MIT Media Lab itself, Epstein, Boyden, or Ito are specifically listed in acknowledgements or funding sources.

September 14, 2018: Harper emails Epstein a picture of the so-called “Food Computers”

Harper sends Epstein an image unavailable to us in the Epstein files and says, “Our newest designs for the personal food computers that ship to 25 middle schools in Boston for our next crowd sourced and distributed “basil computing” experiment. All cloud enabled with a fun UI to keep the kids engaged.” It is important to note here that the Food Computers did not actually work.

On this day, the two also email back and forth about mutant plants mentioned in National Geographic. 

September 15, 2018: Epstein emails Harper a Nature paper about plant sentience

Epstein sends Harper a link to a Nature paper called “Nervous system-like signaling in plant defense.”

September 19, 2018: Harper asks Epstein for contacts studying philosophy of plant intelligence

Harper asks Epstein, “Have you read this? Looking for frameworks of establishing that beings/machines/plants are “intelligent” and am light in the philosophy side.”

(Note: It’s unclear what “this” is.)

Epstein writes back, “max a friend.”

Harper replies to Epstein about Max – that “maybe he will join the team of collaborators then – l’ve asked Joi for an intro. Also have a call w/joi about this project this week to let him know you’ve OK’d my proposal.”

September 24, 2018: Harper prompts Epstein to move forward on the plant sentience project

Harper gives the summary/TLDR (too long; didn’t read) to Epstein: “Im working with Joi now to accept the funding and he needs to know when it would start and how (from whom?) we would receive it to move forward with logistics. I would prefer a Dec. 01 2018 start date if possible. I have the plant biochemist I mentioned to you set up to start then and that would give me time to identify a proper bio-statistician. IF thats OK I’ll move forward with that.” He attaches a draft outline doc for “internal use” for Joi to coordinate funding “with the VP office” as well as an executive summary.

Epstein forwards this email to Ito and says, “Talk?”

“How about this weekend?” says Ito.

They decide to chat about it early morning that Saturday.

September 25, 2018: Epstein proposes a research idea that Harper finds “interesting”

Epstein and Harper talk more shop in the plant biology space. 

Epstein emails Harper to “look at pollen grains and virus structures?”

“Hmmm interesting idea,” replies Harper.

October 11, 2018: de la Parra to meet with Epstein in Harper’s absence

Harper tells Epstein’s administrative assistant that “Joi forwarded me a message about mtg w/ JE on Monday. Unfortunately I am in Scotland but I would suggest that he meet with John De La Parra from my group and I have checked that he can meet between 1-5p. He is CCd here for your convenience.”

“Sorry to miss you Monday – you’ll enjoy John … interested to hear your thoughts after,” writes Harper to Epstein.

Epstein approves the idea of meeting with de la Parra on October 15th. The emails reveal coordination with de la Parra and he gives his cell phone number to Epstein’s people.

“I am downstairs in the lobby,” writes de la Parra to Lesley Groff, Epstein’s administrative assistant, on October 15.

November 8, 2018: Harper asks Epstein about the funds for the plant sentience project

Throughout the fall, Harper checks in with Epstein about funding. On November 18, he sends a follow-up to a follow-up regarding “moving forward on hiring John for the plant sentience project” and perform experiments. “If you are still interested in supporting the project, it would be really helpful to know. I’ve cleared the ability to take the funds with Joi.”

“I’m waiting on Joi,” Epstein responds.

November 27, 2018: Harper, de la Parra, and Epstein plan to meet at Harvard on a Sunday afternoon

Epstein’s administrative assistant writes to both Harper and de la Parra: “Hello Caleb and nice to hear from you also…so you and John are confirmed to meet with Jeffrey on Sunday Dec. 2nd at 2pm in Martin Nowak’s office- I Brattle Square, Suite 6! May I please get your cell number Caleb…I have John’s… I will also pass along the cell number of the assistant traveling with Jeffrey once I know who it is!”

In an email titled “Caleb Harper- the plant guy,” an assistant writes Epstein, “Caleb Harper has confirmed he will also come see you at 2pm on Sunday (along with John De La Parra).”

“Great,” replies Epstein.

“The day is shaping up nicely for Jeffrey,” Epstein’s assistant writes to Martin Nowak, who directs the PED, which is the site of this meeting. 

Side note: Seth Lloyd, an MIT mechanical engineering professor who visited Epstein in prison, also gets added to the itinerary. The plan is for Lloyd to be joining at lunch and then staying all day – less than a year later, Lloyd issued a Medium article apology for it all.

November 23, 2018: “Are you serious about those 100Gs?”

Merlin Sheldrake, the mycologist who provided initial research insight for the plant sentience project, asks Epstein if he is “serious” about throwing $100,000 at a study of electric fungus.

“Yes, serious,” replies Epstein.

“Great,” says Sheldrake.

December 2, 2018: Epstein scientist meetup at Harvard

The itinerary of the Harvard trip where Ito, de la Parra, and Harper all meet with Epstein is in the Epstein files. (In fact, an entire December itinerary can be found here.)

Groff, Epstein’s administrative assistant, shares with Martin Nowak the contact information for an assistant that is traveling with Jeffrey Epstein for this series of meetings. Epstein’s young, female assistants (as he called them) are a category from which survivors of Epstein have come forward, but it is unclear by the wording here how this woman is assisting, and her identity is redacted, so we don’t have many clues as to why she is attending or in which meetings the scientists might see her.

After the day of meetings, at night, Epstein emails Harper and says, “How much does John need [asap]?” He follows up two days later with the same question: “your gmail is not working,. what do you need immediatly to keep john happy”?

March 5, 2019: Now-retracted PLoS ONE paper accepted

The now-retracted paper is accepted to the peer-reviewed, academic, open-source journal PLoS ONE on March 5, 2019.

May 22, 2019: Epstein’s assistant connects a woman with “the plant guy”

This email conversation between Epstein’s administrative assistant and a woman named Victoria R. Montgomery-Brown reveals that Epstein was to be the link between “the plant guy,” Caleb Harper, and Montgomery Brown.

July 6, 2019: Epstein gets arrested by federal authorities and goes to jail

Epstein is apprehended by federal authorities and held in jail awaiting trial, where he died on August 10, 2019, ending his scientific contributions. A month after his death, not one, but two whistleblowers come forward with allegations of misconduct at the MIT Media Lab, which causes the OpenAg project to shut down in April 2020.

April 2020: OpenAg shuts down

IEEE reports that, following media investigations of whistleblower reports, OpenAg shut down permanently at the end of April 2020.

October 2021: OpenAg’s PLoS ONE Paper retracted

Citing methodological and reporting concerns, PLoS ONE retracts the OpenAg Food Computer paper.

So…there is the story behind the retraction that we would probably not have known without the Epstein files.

Should scientists mentioned in the Epstein files be investigated for scientific misconduct? 

OpenAg is not the only Epstein-affiliated group of researchers investigated for scientific misconduct. Perhaps Epstein affiliation is a marker of various forms of misconduct in and of itself?

There’s way more science in the Epstein files. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, our blog, and Substack, for more.