Thousands of papers get published every week, but every now and then a truly strange one pops up. On December 23, a new journal called Life published a paper by Case Western Reserve University biochemist Eric Andrulis called “Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life.”

At Ars Technica, John Timmer unpacks this 105-page paper and delves into the weirdness, in a post called “How the craziest f#@!ing paper got published and promoted.”

Timmer goes on to look at how the paper glided smoothly into the science media machine, first with a press release from Case Western , and then with reprints of said press release at outlets like Science Daily and Physorg, without anyone wondering if it