In yesterday’s Weekend Reads, we highlighted a piece by Hope Jahren explaining why she wouldn’t agree to a Q&A with Nature. We found out after Weekend Reads had posted that the story had moved on, so here’s an update.
Jahren was objecting — as did a number of people — to a letter published in Nature earlier in the week by Lukas Koube of Sherman, Texas, which began: Continue reading Nature apologizes for publishing letter dismissing need for gender balance
Here’s some of what crossed our desks this week:
Benjamin Jacob Hayempour, the researcher who threatened to sue us for asking questions about a retraction for plagiarism, has had another paper withdrawn.
The paper, published online in the journal Cureus, was titled “Novel Determinants of Tumour Radiosensitivity Post-Large-Scale Compound Library Screening” and had been available at http://www.cureus.com/articles/2394-novel-determinants-of-tumour-radiosensitivity-post-large-scale-compound-library-screening since January 13, but that URL now redirects to Cureus’s homepage.
We asked Cureus editor-in-chief John Adler for details, and he responded: Continue reading Author who threatened to sue Retraction Watch has another paper withdrawn
The publisher of a journal apparently favored by climate change skeptics has shuttered it, saying that the editors changed the aim of the title and committed malpractice by using a peer reviewer selection process based on nepotism.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading “Climate skeptic” journal shuttered following “malpractice” in “nepotistic” reviewer selections
Scientists: Have you ever found it difficult to keep track of all those papers you publish? Who can blame you? So many journals, so much pressure to publish or perish.
That must have been what happened to a quintet of authors from Shanghai who’ve just had to retract an article from the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. Here’s the notice (sadly, behind a paywall) [see note at end of post] for “Role of clofazimine in the treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis: a retrospective observational cohort assessment:” Continue reading We did what? Authors retract paper after forgetting they’d published the same study elsewhere
With all the fuss about Yoshitaka Fujii, the current record holder for most retractions, you can be forgiven for forgetting that Joachim Boldt once owned that title, at least for about a year.
Well, Boldt has another retraction, although he’d need to double his tally (which is in the range of 90) to match Fujii’s “impressive” haul.
The new paper is, well, old, having been published in 1996, some 14 years before Boldt’s tribulations began. The article was titled “Influence of different volume therapy regimens on regulators of the circulation in the critically ill.” It appeared in the British Journal of Anaesthesia, and has been cited 45 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
According to the notice: Continue reading Another retraction for former record holder Joachim Boldt
The debate over the retraction of a highly controversial paper on the effects of GMOs on rats continues unabated. This week, Adriane Fugh-Berman and Thomas Sherman wrote on the Hastings Center website that Continue reading Journal editor defends retraction of GMO-rats study while authors reveal some of paper’s history
Last month, we wrote about the retraction of a study in the Journal of Surgical Oncology (JSO) for duplication. But we were a bit frustrated by the lack of information in the notice. As we wrote at the time:
It would be nice to know a couple of things here. For example, when and where was the duplicated paper published? And who were the authors?
Well, we’ve heard from the journal, and have some updates. Brittany White, managing editor of the JSO, tells us, on behalf of editor-in-chief Stephen F. Sener, that: Continue reading Surgery journal adds detail to retraction notice following Retraction Watch coverage
Last month, we brought you the story of two retractions by Yale’s Laurie Santos because the team discovered errors in the way the first author had coded the data. That first author, Neha Mahajan, took full responsibility for the coding problems, according to the retraction notices, and a university investigation cleared her of any “intentional, knowing, reckless, or grossly negligent action.”
But a few of our readers noted that the papers refer to a second coder on some of the experiments, and have questioned whether that’s compatible with Mahajan being solely responsible for the errors.
We asked Santos earlier this week to explain the apparent discrepancy, which she did along with a description of how her lab has made changes to prevent such errors in the future: Continue reading Psychology researcher explains how retraction-causing errors led to change in her lab
As a reporter on the police beat many years ago, one of us (Adam) used to hang out with a press officer whose desk at the station had the following sign: “Uma boca fechado não recolhe nenhum pé.”
At least, that’s what it would have been had we been in Rio. In Palmer Park, Maryland, the sign read: “A Closed Mouth Gathers No Foot.”
A group of Brazilian researchers has retracted their 2009 article on gut bacteria for plagiarism — but not before one of them decried such behavior as the nadir of scientific misconduct. Continue reading Researcher who called plagiarism “the worst type of fraud” retracts paper for…plagiarism