When US has not yet recovered from Michael Jackson's leaving, China has been slipped into the grief by Professor Ji Xianlin's passing away, who is a prominent academic in China.

Ji Xianlin died Saturday at a hospital in Beijing, a month short of his 98th birthday. Peking University created a memorial area open to the public and thousands of people came everyday to pay their respects. Most had never seen him, but said they had felt his influence.

Recently a UK-based academic publication announced that at least 70 papers it had published on newly discovered crystal structures were falsified. The magazine, Acta Crystallographica, named two scientists from Jinggangshan University in Jiangxi province as the culprits behind what it termed "scientific fraud".

The two have since withdrawn their papers. This case has re-ignited the debate on academic corruption in China and its roots. Survey website ifeng.com recently carried out an online poll on the topic.

It asked respondents: Do you feel the rapid growth in the number of Chinese Universities had led to falling standards is the primary cause of academic corruption?

China ranks second behind the United States by number of academic papers published every year. But, a recent study by Wuhan University says Chinese academics and students often buy and sell scientific papers to swell publications lists. Many of the purported authors never write the papers they sign. And those that do write their own papers often bribe the publisher to get their work published.

The report says more than 100 million dollars changes hands every year for ghost-written academic papers. And the market has apparently grown five fold in just the past three years. The report's authors say that some hard-up masters or doctorate students are making a living by churning out papers for others.

Others mass-produce scientific papers to boos their pay. Just last month, two lecturers from central China were sacked after it was discovered that they'd falsified 70 papers in two years. Critics say part of the problem lies in the official requirement on academic publication for degrees and job promotions.

 Others say the problem is down to a lack of a proper code of conduct. Our researcher Helen Hu has been looking at online reaction and we can join her in the news room now.

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