The Journal of Neuroscience has retracted a 2011 paper by a group of UCLA researchers after the institution concluded that a post-doc at the institution had falsified data.
The article, “Epigenetic Enhancement of BDNF Signaling Rescues Synaptic Plasticity in Aging,” came from the lab of Cui-Wei “Tracy” Xie, a behavioral scientist. It has been cited 42 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Carcinogenesis has the publishing world’s version of a twin problem: two dysfunctional articles yet one gets retracted while the other merely suffers a correction. Is it nature — or nurture?
The authors of a 2008 study purporting to explain how the herbicide atrazine acts on cancer cells have asked the journal that published it to retract it for “inadvertent errors,” Retraction Watch has learned.
Shikeagi Kato, an endocrinology researcher who resigned from the University of Tokyo in March 2012 amid an investigation that concluded 43 of his papers should be retracted, has retracted five more papers.
By now, Retraction Watch readers may have heard about new Nobel laureate Randy Schekman’s pledge to boycott Cell, Nature, and Science — sometimes referred to the “glamour journals” — because they damage and distort science. Schekman has used the bully pulpit of the Nobels to spark a conversation that science dearly needs to have about the cult of the impact factor.
The argument isn’t airtight. Schekman — now editor of eLife, an open access journal — says that open access journals are a better way to go, although he doesn’t really connect mode of publishing with the quality of what’s published. Others have pointed out that the move will punish junior members of his lab while likely having no effect on the career of someone who has published dozens of studies in the three journals he’s criticizing, and has, well, won a Nobel.
We’re always glad to have guest posts, and here’s one from François-Xavier Coudert, reporting from France.
As we reported the other day, a Nature editorial suggested that police involvement might be an appropriate response to research misconduct. The French seem to agree, based on reports in the media there, as Coudert writes:
Unfortunately, due to an honest error from the author, a small portion of this otherwise reliable published article contains clinically inaccurate data. The publisher and author agree to retract the paper pending correction.
The Journal of Neuroscience has retracted a 2011 paper by a group of UCLA researchers after the institution concluded that a post-doc at the institution had falsified data.
