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The week at Retraction Watch featured:
- Meet the postdoc who says he’s been trying to retract his own paper since 2016
- Nanotech group that retracted Nature study pulls two more papers
- JAMA journal retracts, replaces paper linking nonionizing radiation to ADHD
- Former Cleveland Clinic researcher’s papers “more likely than not” included falsified images, says investigation
- “Serious non-compliance” prompts retraction of book on social justice in Hawai’i
Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 85.
Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):
- A journal retracts a paper because a Monash University professor plagiarized a student.
- “Another theme…is that some universities are mishandling allegations of misconduct.”
- The lesson to take away from extreme cases of scientific and scholarly mispractice is not, “Hey, these dudes are horrible. Me and my friends aren’t like that!”
- “In September 1995, Burgett wrote a letter in support of a female colleague of Leach’s alleging that Leach had submitted a paper to American Antiquity, a scholarly journal, that plagiarized her work. ‘The individual in question is one of the most unscrupulous, dishonest, underhanded, scam artists I have ever had the misfortune of having to deal with in my 15 years as a professional archaeologist,’ Burgett wrote.”
- “A Chinese woman who is a visiting medical researcher at Stanford University has been charged with destroying evidence to conceal her affiliation with China’s armed forces.”
- “If you’re…not following Retraction Watch, you’re missing one of the great stories in the history of science right now.”
- “Are publications on zoological taxonomy under attack?” An analysis of a story of alleged self-citation issues at a journal that we reported on last year.
- “Then…an independent peer review by external experts of this first version allowed the published report to be more in line with the reality of scientific knowledge, which shows, for example, that sublethal effects of pesticide exposure can impair the ability of bees to provide pollination.”
- All about “a striking correction in ecology.”
- “Algeria has approved new measures for combating academic fraud at universities and other higher education institutions in an effort to protect academic integrity.”
- “New, more inclusive journal policies ease author name changes on published papers.”
- A purported ayurvedic treatment for COVID-19, Coronil, “gets another boost, courtesy a dubious clinical trial.”
- Sci-Hub creator Alexandra Elbakyan discusses “the legal issues between Elsevier and Sci-Hub around the world, and the tension between piracy and sharing.”
- “At present, there are no resources that concisely summarise the publication culture of a research group to help the researcher make an informed decision before joining.” “So you want to be a Super Researcher.
- How much do preprints about COVID-19 change during peer review? asks a new bioRxiv preprint.
- “China has revised a regulation on integrity and ethics in medical research, making clear the rules and red lines for relevant practices by medical researchers and institutes.”
- Lancet editors describe their correction practices.
- “[H]ow recognising and ‘staying with’ discomfort can positively shape qualitative research methods.”
- “[W]hy won’t Oxford University or the government disclose the ‘long list’ of financial interests of a high profile researcher?”
- “How COVID-19 could make science” — or at least peer review — “kinder.”
- “A Quality Checklist for Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Education.”
- “At every respected institution, plagiarism is unacceptable and intolerable. The Iowa State Daily is no exception. As of Friday, Editorial Board member McKenzie McCray was fired for plagiarism.”
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