Weekend reads: A costly code glitch; sparks fly over a heart trial; cancer researcher faced five investigations

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• the retraction of a study that claimed high heels made women more attractive;
• an update from a whistleblower in a case involving 30 retractions;
• a journal’s NBA moment;
• an investigation at a Harvard cancer lab;
• and a major milestone for our database.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

• “A Code Glitch May Have Caused Errors In More Than 100 Published Studies.”
• A heart trial has controversy “explode on an international stage.”
• A cancer researcher is subject to a “series of high-stakes confidential inquiries and secret reports.”
• Take a look at the 1992 rejection letter from Nature for work that shared this year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology.
• “From the meeting, I got the impression that to ‘publish or perish’ is a horrible stress on early researchers.” (Ochieng Ogogo, SciDevNet)
• “It’s Time For The Academic World To See The Positive Side Of Negative Results.”
• In an about-face, a “journal has decided not to publish a…paper that casts doubt on” Syria’s responsibility for a chemical attack.
• “Fads may come and go, but criticizing academics for their bad writing never goes out of style.” In defense of bad academic writing.
• A report from an influential group that studies the economic burden of medical care has been reissued, after being withdrawn.
• “The head, Department of Biochemistry, University of Ibadan, Prof. Ebenezer Farombi, has cautioned researchers against unethical conduct in the cause of duty, saying technology advances at an ever increasing rate.”
• South Korea’s justice minister has stepped down, a month after the retraction of a paper his daughter co-authored.
• “So, publishers will re-invent themselves as public relation services, and each of us will submit our work for consideration for expert social engineering.”
• “Overall, 13% of PhDs reported that they knew of people in their immediate research environment who had committed serious forms of scientific dishonesty. A small percentage of PhDs (1.4%) indicated that they themselves had committed such acts.” (The 1.4% reflected just one of 72 people.)
• Authors of a letter say that a recent report “made numerous baseless and unfounded criticisms against concussion researchers.”
• “In October, the Commission for Combating the Falsification of Scientific Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences completes the verification of 2500 articles that were proposed to be withdrawn from Russian journals.”
• A detailed retraction from The EMBO Journal.
• “‘Barbaric’ tests on monkeys lead to calls for closure of German lab.”
• One researcher has 8% of all retractions in Spain. Read our coverage of his case — and his retractions — here.
• Libya wants to “raise the quality of research and restore the credibility of its scientific publications.” The measures it’s taking, however, including financial incentives, have been linked to making problems worse.
• The reasons for retractions in anesthesiology.
• Judit Bar-Ilan, who published a number of studies about retractions, has died.
• “There is a lack of information about [research integrity] on the websites of French universities and research organizations, which may reflect a lack of information and commitment in the institutions themselves.”
• “Evaluating PhD students by their publications may have the outward appearance of a meritocracy, but as long as students from minority groups do not enjoy the same privileges as their peers, the playing field is anything but level, argues Alon Zivony.”
• “[N]ot reporting a retraction leaves people unaware of…how retractions can sometimes actually advance our scientific understanding.”

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].