Recently, Mere-O featured a story in the Independent about previously unknown Greek texts being deciphered.
It turns out the story may not be a story at all. From Hannibal at arstechnica:
So as of right now, the rest of the papyrological community is waiting to hear Dirk Obbink at Oxford either back up for disavow the claims made in the article. At the very best, the Independent’s reporters are covering some kind of new imaging breakthrough in an extremely hyperbolic fashion. And at the worst, they’re trying to make a major story out of 20-year-old news.
Hannibal (ostensibly) is “currently taking a papyrology seminar at University of Chicago with the head of the SBL papyrology group and…working on texts from Oxyrhynchus.”
Two retractions in as much as a week. Ouch!
(ht: a good friend who really needs to be blogging)