Another news clipping:
The Australian researchers found that roughly 1 in 5 of these papers included errors in their gene lists that were due to Excel automatically converting gene names to things like calendar dates or random numbers.
...Even more troubling, the researchers note that there's no way to permanently disable automatic date formatting within Excel. Researchers still have to remember to manually format columns to "Text" before you type anything in new Excel sheets — every. single. time.