Weekend reads: The black market for papers; the secret life of retractions; a ‘troublesome pattern’

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Science rescinds expression of concern issued last month
• Exclusive: Public health journal says it will retract vaping paper for questions authors say were addressed in peer review
• Exclusive: City of Hope cancer researcher goes to court to fight misconduct finding
• Meet the author who has published more than 500 letters to the editor in a year

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to nearly 350. There are now 41,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in Edifix, 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):

• “‘Paper’ sold for $2,000: the black market of academic texts damages the credibility of science.”
• “The Secret Life of Retractions in Scientific Publications.”
• “‘Troublesome pattern’: More papers from heads of shuttered clinic under investigation.”
• “The battle for research integrity is winnable.”
• “Research anomalies in criminology: How serious? How extensive over time? And who was responsible?” A look at the Eric Stewart case.
• “Journal Investigation Appears To Find No Data for Paper Published The Very Same Year.”
• JAMA’s “Guidance for Authors, Peer Reviewers, and Editors on Use of AI, Language Models, and Chatbots.”
• A co-author of a preprint retracted for likely being written by ChatGPT tells Weekendivasen he’s not very good at AI.
• “They asked ChatGPT to write a scientific paper: why it made a big deal.”
• “NTU investigating senior professor accused of plagiarising former student’s work.”
• Japan’s National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center is investigating allegations about two of its researchers that surfaced on PubPeer. Via Lemonstoism
• A paper in the U.S. CDC’s MMWR on the timing of introducing complementary foods to infants is retracted and replaced.
• Three papers by a former Yale researcher found by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity to have committed misconduct have been retracted.
• “Implementing statcheck during peer review is related to a steep decline in statistical reporting errors.”
• Is Hindawi “well-positioned for revitalization?”
• “Theorists are good peer reviewers – but tend to prefer significance over rigour.” That’s according to a new study.
• “ChatGPT identifies gender disparities in scientific peer review.”
• Professor “sees second paper retracted under accusations of data fabrication.”
• “Is biomedical research self-correcting?”
• “Elisabeth Bik, a lynx eye against falsified images.”
• The true cost of science’s language barrier for non-native English speakers.”
• The world’s retraction record holder earns a slew of expressions of concern.
• As recognition in peer review is yet to be applied across the sector, I would like to see ghost-written peer review reports become a thing of the past.”
• “Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s resignation shows what happens when you don’t pay attention to lab culture.”
• “Meet Sheila Garrity, the New Director of the HHS Office of Research Integrity.”
• “I have been contacted by a whistleblower with a remarkable story of corruption of the academic peer-review process involving a paper published in 2022.”
• “Science Has a Reproducibility Problem. Can Sample Sharing Help?”
• “Theoretical arguments and empirical investigations indicate that a high proportion of published findings do not replicate and are likely false.”
• “Best poster award.”

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