Here’s a tale of a paper retracted because other articles published years later seemed to plagiarize it – and its unhappy authors, whose behavior the journal says hints at paper mill activity. On January 16 of this year, Maria Zalm, a senior editor at PLOS ONE and team manager for publication ethics, asked the authors … Continue reading Send lawyers, Einstein and Maugham: Authors object to PLOS ONE retraction
The megajournal PLOS ONE will be correcting about 1,000 papers over the next few months, Retraction Watch has learned, and will add an author proof step – a first for the journal. The corrections are for “errors in author names, affiliations, titles and references; to make minor updates to the acknowledgements, funding statements, and data … Continue reading Exclusive: PLOS ONE to correct 1,000 papers, add author proof step
In March, an editor at PLOS ONE noticed something odd among a stack of agriculture manuscripts he was handling. One author had submitted at least 40 manuscripts over a 10-month period, much more than expected from any one person. The editor told the ethics team at the journal about the anomaly, and they started an … Continue reading Exclusive: PLOS ONE to retract more than 100 papers for manipulated peer review
A group of nutrition researchers in Canada led by the prominent diabetes scientist Emile Levy has lost three papers in PLOS ONE over concerns about the integrity of the data. The concerns were raised nearly eight years ago by Elisabeth Bik, early in her career as a data sleuth. In May 2014, Bik told us, … Continue reading 8 years after three papers are flagged — and after losing original correspondence — PLOS ONE retracts
After an author requested a slew of changes to a published paper, journal editors reviewed the study and spotted “additional concerns” that led to its retraction. The study, titled “Pressure regulated basis for gene transcription by delta-cell micro-compliance modeled in silico: Biphenyl, bisphenol and small molecule ligand models of cell contraction-expansion,” was published in PLOS … Continue reading An author asked for multiple corrections to a paper. PLOS ONE decided to retract it.
PLOS ONE has retracted a paper on pneumonia in people with Covid-19 after the authors could not allay concerns about the integrity of their data. The article, “Lung ultrasound score in establishing the timing of intubation in COVID-19 interstitial pneumonia: A preliminary retrospective observational study,” appeared in September and was written by a group from … Continue reading PLOS ONE retracts paper purporting to be about lung ultrasound for COVID-19 but that had suspicious overlap with pre-pandemic article
A group of veterinary researchers at the University of California, Davis, has received an expression of concern for their May 2020 study on heart disease in dogs, for failing to adequately disclose conflicts of interest and for other aspects of the article. The paper, “Development of plasma and whole blood taurine reference ranges and identification … Continue reading PLOS ONE issues expression of concern for study of dog food and heart problems for failure to disclose conflicts of interest, other issues
A team of researchers in Saudi Arabia, led by an ex-pat from Johns Hopkins University, has lost three papers for problems with the images in their articles. The three retractions pushed the journal — which has become a “major retraction engine” for reasons we explain here and here — over 100 for 2019. In December, … Continue reading PLOS ONE retracts a paper first flagged in 2015 — and breaks the 100 retraction barrier for 2019
A researcher at the University of Cambridge has had two papers subjected to expressions of concern by the editors of PLOS ONE for image problems. The expressions of concern for “The Coordination of Cell Growth during Fission Yeast Mating Requires Ras1-GTP Hydrolysis” and “The Role of the RACK1 Ortholog Cpc2p in Modulating Pheromone-Induced Cell Cycle … Continue reading ‘Exceptionally silly mistakes’: PLOS ONE flags two papers by Cambridge researcher for image issues
A group of genetics researchers in Italy has lost a 2014 paper in PLOS ONE for a range of image problems and a glaring conflict of interest. The article, titled “Neuronal differentiation dictates estrogen-dependent survival and ERK1/2 kinetic by means of caveolin-1,” came from a team led by Luca Colucci-D’Amato, of the Second University of … Continue reading PLOS ONE realizes an academic editor had a conflict of interest that the publisher says it now tries harder to avoid