Weekend reads, double edition: Science’s ‘nasty Photoshopping problem’; Dr. Oz’s publication ban; image manipulation detection software

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This week, it’s a special double edition of Weekend Reads, thanks to a site outage that meant we couldn’t post last Saturday. The last two weeks at Retraction Watch featured:

• How many ducks do you need to line up to get a publication retracted?
• Exclusive: Elsevier retracting 500 papers for shoddy peer review
• “Horrible!”: Scientist finds plagiarized copy of his paper – and can’t get the journal that published it to pay attention
• NIH asked to replace a PI on grants after university said she violated policy
• When editors confuse direct criticism with being impolite, science loses
• Iran’s science minister earns four retractions
• Meet a sleuth whose work has resulted in more than 850 retractions
• US federal research watchdog wants your input (deadline passed 10/31)

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 267. There are more than 36,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

• “Science Has a Nasty Photoshopping Problem.”
• “Mehmet Oz’s medical research was rejected in 2003, resulting in 2-year ban.”
• Software that “performs image manipulation detection on…automatically extracted figures.”
• A response from attorneys, research integrity officers, and others to the U.S. ORI’s call for feedback on its regulations.
• “But some faculty say the problem is not that such freedom is in short supply, but that some of their colleagues are using that freedom as cover for unscientific and harmful ideas — and shirking responsibility for the consequences.”
• “Top Hong Kong scientist retracts articles years after publication following mistakes spotted in images.”
• “Cluj university’s ethics commission finds “citation errors” in interior minister’s doctoral thesis.”
• “But once news of the study began spreading on social media, it provoked a firestorm of criticism and eventually a letter to PNAS signed by over 250 scientists calling for a retraction.”
• “Inside Story: Rogue Academics in Sri Lanka.”
• “Faculty ‘really had no clue‘ about their responsibilities towards their data before the policy was developed, Pigg said.”
• “eLife won’t reject papers once they are under review — what researchers think.”
• “In comparison to researchers in the US, European researchers admit to more QRPs and are less confident in maintaining high RI [research integrity] standards.”
• “Flagship publishers accepted hundreds flawed papers despite claiming to enforce peer review.”
• Embattled Ohio State cancer researcher Carlo Croce has had his 12th and 13th retractions. For more background, see this post.
• “What Happens to Science When Model Organisms Become Endangered?”
• “The Wire Retracts Its Meta Stories.”
• Three months after we reported on the outcome of an investigation at The Ohio State University, PLOS ONE has retracted a paper the. university flagged.
• “Due to an editorial error, this Expression of Concern was mistakenly associated with the wrong article by some of the same authors.”
• “Beware ballooning publication rates, says research fraudbuster.”
• “US scientists wary of author publication fees under Biden order.”
• “When Bad Actors Hijack Good Research.”
• Plagiarism is “‘Embarrassing blemish’ to McCrory’s reputation, but no taint on AFL work: report.”
• “Hotspots of academic misconduct and misrepresentations among academics in the Republic of Poland, a European Union member state.”
• “Will the infamous masturbation paper increase ethical oversight?”
• “Science Needs Better Fraud Detection – And More Whistleblowers.”
• “Scientific Integrity Requires Publishing Rebuttals and Retracting Problematic Papers.”
• “For a long time, publishing scientific research made no money.” Lessons from the history of the Philosophical Transactions.
• “The mishandling of scientifically flawed articles about radiation exposure, retracted for ethical reasons…”
• In anesthesiology, citing retracted papers “remains a common occurrence.” See here for more.
• “The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this article because we have evidence to suggest that authorship for this article was offered for sale before the article was submitted to the journal.”
• “He’s an Outspoken Defender of Meat. Industry Funds His Research, Files Show.”
• “Reflections on guest editing a Frontiers journal.” They’re critical.
• “Destroying eLife’s reputation for selectivity does not serve science.”
• “Could AI help you to write your next paper?”
• “Conflicting interests: when whistleblowers profit from allegations of scientific misconduct.”
• “Wikipedia’s Citations Are Influencing Scholars and Publishers.”
• “A History of Scientific Journals: Publishing at the Royal Society, 1665-2015.”
• A group of cardiology researchers at Temple has had a paper retracted amid investigations.
• “Does the peer review process need blockchain?”
• “Homeopathy in cancer patients: almost too good to be true.” A paper earns an expression of concern.

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