Science has changed an expression of concern on a 2022 paper to an erratum after removing one of the coauthors — who was found to have committed misconduct — and allowing the researchers to repeat experiments.
Two months after publishing the article in September 2022, Science issued an editorial expression of concern, stating a post-publication analysis had found one figure with “potential discrepancies.”
Marc Tessier-Lavigne, whose resignation as president of Stanford University becomes effective today, is retracting two papers from Science following an institutional investigation that found data manipulation in multiple figures.
Anonymous users on PubPeer postedconcerns about potentially manipulated images in the papers as early as 2015. Reporting by The Stanford Daily in November 2022 spurred the university to launch an investigation into several of Tessier-Lavigne’s papers, how he responded when others identified issues in his articles, and the culture of his lab.
The university published the final report last month, finding that four of the five papers it reviewed on which Tessier-Lavigne was a principal author contained “apparent manipulation of research data by others.” Tessier-Lavigne, the investigation committee concluded:
Science has published an expression of concern for a recent article on a receptor for bitter taste while the authors’ institution investigates “potential discrepancies” with a figure.
Science has issued an expression of concern for a 2014 paper on the harmful effects of ocean acidification on fish and coral after the first author of the article was accused of fabricating data in the study and other research.
The work – cited 171 times so far, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science – received immediate challenge from other researchers, who questioned the validity of the findings.
Sometimes scientific findings can be too hot to handle. Literally.
A team of researchers in India and Japan who reported breakthrough results in two papers about electromagnetics, including an article in Science, are retracting the articles because the exciting data resulted from experimental error. To be precise: unbeknownst to them, inadvertent heating of their samples had contaminated their data.
The first author of both articles is Chanchal Sow, of the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur. The last author on both is Yoshiteru Maeno, a professor of physics at Kyoto University.
Science is retracting a 2017 paper about the deadly Kumamoto earthquake about a month after the university announced that the paper’s first author, Aiming Lin, had committed misconduct, including falsification of data and plagiarism.
Science editor in chief Jeremy Berg told us in late March that the journal had been trying to obtain more information in preparation for writing an expression of concern. Here’s today’s retraction notice:
A University of Cambridge researcher — Steve Jackson — and a former researcher at the University of Bristol — Abderrahmane Kaidi — have accomplished a two-fer: Retracting a paper in Nature, and one in Science, on the same day.
A researcher at Kyoto University in Japan faked some of the data in a 2017 paper in Science about the deadly Kumamoto earthquake, the university said.
According to mediareports about a press conference held today, Kyoto found that the paper’s first author, Aiming Lin, had committed misconduct, including falsification of data and plagiarism. They recommended that Lin retract the paper, and said he would face sanctions, while his co-authors were cleared of wrongdoing.
Science has issued an expression of concern for a widely covered materials science paper published on Friday, citing issues with the supplementary data.
The paper — which caught the attention of multiple news outlets — added properties to cotton fibers in vitro, potentially enabling researchers to manufacture fabric that can fluoresce or carry magnetic properties.
The move to issue an expression of concern was unusually quick. According to the journal, an expert who received the paper from a journalist under a media embargo contacted Science to flag issues in some of the supplementary data. At the time of this post, the paper does not yet have an entry on PubPeer.
Researchers at a prominent Japanese university have retracted a 2015 paper in Science,after an investigation uncovered image falsification and fabrication.
Last September, the University of Tokyo began an investigation of seven papers from the lab of cell biologist Yoshinori Watanabe after receiving anonymous allegations. In May 2017, the university determined that five papers contained falsified or fabricated images, and announced the results of its investigation on August 1. Two of the papers were published in Science, two in Nature and one in EMBO Reports.