Year: 2014

Does irony have a place in science?

sciengethicsTake us at our word when we tell you this isn’t some exercise in meta-irony or meta-criticism or any other meta-bullshit, but a pair of researchers at Drexel University in Philadelphia have published a paper calling for an end to irony in science.

First, some background: In 2001, an Israeli researcher named Leonard Leibovici wrote a letter to the famously lighthearted Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal describing a randomized controlled trial in which intercessory prayer at a distance — in other words, people praying for other, sick people — was found to improve the health of patients with bloodstream infections. All the more remarkable was that this prayer was “retroactive,” as in, it purportedly occurred years after those sick patients had either left the hospital or died. Continue reading Does irony have a place in science?

Peer review isn’t good at “dealing with exceptional or unconventional submissions,” says study

pnascoverOne of the complaints about peer review — a widely used but poorly studied process — is that it tends to reward papers that push science forward incrementally, but isn’t very good at identifying paradigm-shifting work. Put another way, peer review rewards mediocrity at the expense of breakthroughs.

A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by Kyle Silera, Kirby Leeb, and Lisa Bero provides some support for that idea.

Here’s the abstract: Continue reading Peer review isn’t good at “dealing with exceptional or unconventional submissions,” says study

Paper that formed basis of study retracted earlier this year retracted itself, from Science

science dec 2014Back in May, we reported on a retraction from Molecular Cell that referred to a 2012 study the same group had published in Science. (A few weeks later, the lab head told us just how painful the process was.)

Now, the Science paper has been retracted. Here’s the notice: Continue reading Paper that formed basis of study retracted earlier this year retracted itself, from Science

Researchers retract paper for which first author won an award — but won’t sign notice

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Riccardo Bernasconi

Most of the authors of two Molecular Cell papers have retracted them after becoming aware of inappropriate image manipulation by the first author of both — who refused to sign the notices.

One of the papers, “Role of the SEL1L:LC3-I Complex as an ERAD Tuning Receptor in the Mammalian ER,” earned first author Riccardo Bernasconi, who successfully defended his PhD in 2010, the STSBC-Roche Diagnostics award in 2012. Here’s the notice for that paper: Continue reading Researchers retract paper for which first author won an award — but won’t sign notice

Weekend reads: Authorship for sale, STAP stem cell scandal finally over?

booksThis was a week of stem cell retractions, fake peer reviews, legal threats, and we announced that we’ve been awarded a $400,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Continue reading Weekend reads: Authorship for sale, STAP stem cell scandal finally over?

Elsevier retracting 16 papers for faked peer review

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Khalid Zaman

Fake peer reviews: They’re all the rage.

Sixteen papers are being retracted across three Elsevier journals after the publisher discovered that one of the authors, Khalid Zaman, orchestrated fake peer reviews by submitting false contact information for his suggested reviewers.

This particular kind of scam has been haunting online peer review for a few years now, as loyal Retraction Watch readers know. This one is a classic of the genre: According to Elsevier’s director of publishing services, Catriona Fennell, an editor first became suspicious after noticing that Zaman’s suggested reviewers, all with non-institutional addresses, were unusually kind to the economist’s work.

Elsevier has actually hired a full-time staff member with a PhD in physics and history as a managing editor to do the grunt work on cases like this. Flags were first raised in August, at which point the ethics watchdog went to town digging through all of Zaman’s other publications looking for suspicious reviews coming from non-institutional addresses provided by the scientist, an economist at COMSATS Information Technology Center in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Here’s the main notice: Continue reading Elsevier retracting 16 papers for faked peer review

Are companies selling fake peer reviews to help papers get published?

copeFaked peer reviews — a subject about which we’ve been writing more and more recently — are concerning enough to a number of publishers that they’ve approached the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) to work together on a solution.

In the past, we have reported on a number of cases in which authors were able to submit their own peer reviews, using fake email addresses for recommended reviewers. But what seems to be happening now is that companies are offering manuscript preparation services that go as far as submitting fake peer reviews. And that, no surprise, worries publishers.

Here’s COPE’s statement out today: Continue reading Are companies selling fake peer reviews to help papers get published?

That new beetle? Actually, it’s really an old beetle

Acanthophorus_serraticornis
Acanthophorus serraticornis via Wikimedia Commons.

A team of entomologists in India had to put their new species celebration on hold last year, when they found out their discovery had already been discovered.

The Journal of Insect Science paper, initially published in December 2012, was retracted in October 2013, after several entomologists confirmed that the beetle was actually a previously identified species called Acanthophorus serraticornis. (The notice has a November 2014 date, but we understand that’s because the journal switched servers.)

Here’s the notice for “A new record of longicorn beetle, Acanthophorus rugiceps, from India as a root borer on physic nut, Jatropha curcas, with a description of life stages, biology, and seasonal dynamics”: Continue reading That new beetle? Actually, it’s really an old beetle

Stem cell researcher retracts neuron paper for “image aberrations”

embo journalJens Christian Schwamborn, a stem cell researcher at the University of Luxembourg, is retracting a 2007 paper on how to grow brain cells.

The paper, “Ubiquitination of the GTPase Rap1B by the ubiquitin ligase Smurf2 is required for the establishment of neuronal polarity,” was published while Schwamborn was at Westfälische Wilhelms‐Universität Münster in Germany. An anonymous critic had sent questions about the study to Germany’s DFG in the middle of last year, and later to Paul Brookes, who posted them on PubMed Commons.

Those criticisms match the problems listed in the detailed notice: Continue reading Stem cell researcher retracts neuron paper for “image aberrations”

Stem cell researchers sue Harvard, claiming faulty investigation lost them job offers

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Piero Anversa

Piero Anversa, a stem cell researcher at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and a colleague, Annarosa Leri, have sued Harvard over an investigation into their work that they claim has cost them millions in a forfeited sale of their company, and job offers.

The team has had a paper in Circulation retracted, and a paper in The Lancet subject to an expression of concern.

In the suit, first reported by the Boston Business Journal and the Boston Globe, Anversa and Leri blame a co-author for the issues in the papers, and claim that their Continue reading Stem cell researchers sue Harvard, claiming faulty investigation lost them job offers