Another busy week here at Retraction Watch, with many in the scientific world glued to their browsers for more information on the latest stem cell controversy. Hear Ivan on the BBC discussing what that story means for post-publication peer review. Elsewhere around the web:
- Is research misconduct the equivalent of doping? (in Swedish)
- “If one scholar plagiarizes another, but everybody keeps quiet, did it really happen?”
- “I have great difficulty understanding why anyone would even try to publish plagiarized content,” writes journal editor Udo Schuklenk.
- In I, Science, Dalmeet Singh Chawla weighs in on the rise in retractions.
- “Perhaps the greatest risk of this story is a loss of credibility for the scientists and environmental groups who tell it,” Yale postdoc Arthur Middleton writes of the story of wolves in Yellowstone.
- “Science is now able to self-correct instantly,” says PubPeer. “Post-publication peer review is here to stay.”
- What role do lawyers play “in preventing horror stories like the Tuskegee study and thalidomide tragedy?” (free registration required)
- How researchers can remove they hype from hypertension. (subscription required)
- There has been a “limited retraction” of some claims made in a 2012 BBC interview of BritainsDNA managing director Alistair Moffat, who is also rector of the University of St. Andrews. More on the story here.
- Failure to report failure to replicate: A look by Zen Faulkes.
- How similar are results reported in journals and in ClinicalTrials.gov?
- How can journals improve the press releases they send out?
- Sloppy researchers beware. A new institute headed by John Ioannidis has you in its sights.
- “In sum, we need to stop talking about the future of science journalism,” writes Dominique Brossard.
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Obokata retracts her doctoral thesis: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/03/16/national/just-stap-it-obokata-to-withdraw-her-thesis/#.UyYblKy9LCQ
this may have serious consequences on her career and subsequent research! Pity!
Here’s Paul Knoepfler’s post about the various reactions from RIKEN and Harvard.
“Harvard’s Role in STAP Stem Cell Debacle”
http://www.ipscell.com/2014/03/harvards-role-in-stap-stem-cell-debacle/
Aren’t doctoral thesis committees supposed to catch these sorts of things in their PhD student’s work? Mine certainly did; had to do a couple re-writes!
Seems like the real focus is actually the group’s sub-leader, Dr. Sasai Yoshiki. Incidentally, the position that Sasai holds will have a billion-yen-a-year salary (roughly 1 million US$), so this as well as the funding that Riken was supposed to receive starting April may have been factors that made this case much more politicized than other misconduct by other Japanese professors.
Main source: http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20140316-00001307-bengocom-soci
In fact, the PhD thesis has not been retracted. She has voluntarily indicated that she is willing to retract it, but her university has yet to decide as this is the first such case in its history. Obokata is now being officially “tracked” 24 hours a day, presumably because there is a risk of suicide. Few science-related stories have actually hit headlines in Japan this many times and for this long, so this could bring about some interesting reform in 2014. Maybe this is the year of post-publication peer review, after all.
Sources:
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20140317-00000053-jij-sctch
http://www.asahi.com/articles/photo/AS20140315000093.html (hierarchical structure shown here)
http://www.asahi.com/articles/photo/AS20140315000093.html
http://www.tokyo-sports.co.jp/nonsec/social/245124/