Weekend reads: How a rejected study led to a $3.8 million grant; a ‘nasty’ publishing scheme; the ‘darker side of science’

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• How a now-retracted study got published in the first place, leading to a $3.8 million NIH grant
• Did a ‘nasty’ publishing scheme help an Indian dental school win high rankings?
• “Flagrant and frankly, inexcusable” data duplication leads to retraction
• Journal pulls paper from Ethiopia for unlicensed use of questionnaire

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to more than 300. There are now 40,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains 200 titles. 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):

• “A researcher who publishes a study every two days reveals the darker side of science.”
• Hydroxychloroquine-COVID-19 paper we first reported on in April 2020 should be retracted: Letter.
• “Study by Didier Raoult on hydroxychloroquine: the drug policeman will take legal action.”
• It’s unfortunate that “there is a developing trend of universities seeking to revoke the degrees of former students who were found responsible for research misconduct,” say lawyers who represent scientists accused of misconduct.
• “Editorial Independence is Dead, Long Live Editorial Independence: Principles, Compliance, and Recommendations.”
• “Lab safety and research productivity are not at odds.”
• “Is it time to worry about fake science?”
• “Distinguishing academic science writing from humans or ChatGPT with over 99% accuracy using off-the-shelf machine learning tools.”
• Nature explains why it “will not allow the use of generative AI in images and video.”
• “Study finds too much ‘research waste’ in health projects,” and says more publications are needed.
• “Peer review before trial conduct could increase research value and reduce waste.”
• “How shoddy data becomes sensational research.” An essay by Gary Smith, whose book we have excerpted.
• “Preprint clubs: why it takes a village to do peer review.”
• “Responsible research practices could be more strongly endorsed by Australian university codes of research conduct.”
• “Early-career researchers in Australia report dissatisfaction, bullying and questionable research practices.”
• “Journal resignations ‘can drive scholar-led publishing revolution.'”
• “Tanzania’s researchers offered US$22,000 to publish in international journals.”
• “Rejection Rates Should Not Be a Measure of Journal Quality.”
• “Addressing assessing for a better research environment.”
• How often do historians misquote? In citations in five leading journals, a study finds “an error rate of 24.27%.”
• “Africa’s journals struggle to compete on unequal playing field.”
• A urologist who blamed Big Pharma for his woes earns yet another retraction.

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