The week at Retraction Watch featured a revoked PhD, more news about Paolo Macchiarini, and a head-scratcher about a retraction involving astronauts. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
- Stanford professor Mark Jacobson has sued a critic and the National Academy of Sciences for $10 million, over a PNAS paper questioning his work. (Mashable)
- Anna Azvolinksky considers “How to fire a professor” for unethical or illegal conduct. (The Scientist)
- “It’s stuff you love tainted by people you hate.” “Can we still rely on science done by sexual harassers?” asks Adam Rogers. (WIRED)
- “Do we need an adoption service for orphan data?” asks Neuroskeptic. (Discover)
- The value of a more “humane” set of metrics in the humanities and social sciences “may be in creating — even forcing — time and space for a more intentional, less reactive approach to professional development and to appreciating a rich diversity of scholarly contributions,” writes Karin Wulf. (The Scholarly Kitchen)
- “Will tweeting about your research paper get you more citations?” asks Craig McClain, who answers, “Meh.” (Deep Sea News)
- There is “much more to scientific impact than citations,” says Nature.
- “After this story was posted, the chief subject of the article, Sheri Sletten, told the Times that her account of reuniting with gunshot victim Matt Lewan after he was released from the hospital was false.” (Los Angeles Times)
- The “award was originally named the Golden Snot but was changed after being considered indecent.” An attempt to prevent plagiarism in China using humor. (Asa Butcher, GB Times)
- “The bias begins with suggestions from authors.” Brooks Hanson and Jory Lerback talk to The Scholarly Kitchen about what has happened since their study of gender bias in peer review. (We talked to them about the study in January.)
- Got a tip? A new hotline for whistleblowers wants to expose “anti-science action” in the Federal government. (Motherboard)
- PubMed 2.0: NIH staff describe improvements and updates to everyone’s favorite search engine for biomedical research. (eLife)
- “The case for ‘blinding’ to make journal peer review fair seems less and less plausible to me for the long run,” says Hilda Bastian. (Absolutely Maybe)
- Springer Nature is blocking access to articles in China, at the Chinese government’s request. (AP via Fresno Bee)
- “Psychologists really are trying to turn their field around,” says Bethany Brookshire. (Scicurious)
- A blog post finds “a model of scientific integrity” in some researchers from Wayne State University. (ConscienHealth)
- Is a research integrity code for universities in the UK working? (Nature Index)
- Jessica Polka considers whether comment sections on preprint papers are worth it. (ASCB Post)
- “Einstein strongly disagreed with the idea that an editor could review his work without his consent.” Or, the importance of expertise. (Daniel Bloch, The Conversation)
- Happy Halloween: Phil Davis interviews a ghost (writer) for medical journals. (The Scholarly Kitchen)
- Authors are eager to publish in predatory journals (New York Times), but you already knew that.
- Some “called the college’s actions unreasonable, shocking and embarrassing for the school.” But a history professor didn’t plagiarize in newspaper column, a school investigation says. (Durango Herald)
- David Eisner reviews the reasons research can’t be reproduced. (Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology)
- “Who owns patient data in clinical research?” asks Charlotte Huang. (CollabRx)
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