Weekend reads: Australia focuses on misconduct; Retraction Watch prevails in a lawsuit; scammers threaten data quality

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Exclusive: World-renowned biologist accused of bullying student, stealing his work
• Exclusive: UCSF and VA found “pervasive” manipulation in lab of former center director
• Paper that helped form basis of pricy research tool retracted
• Ex-cops tangle with journals over strip clubs and sex crimes
• Paper that found ‘climate crisis’ to be ‘not evident yet’ retracted after re-review

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to more than 350. There are now 42,000 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):

• “Australia grapples with how to investigate scientific misconduct.”
• “Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre embroiled in ‘sham’ research scandal.”
• “Peter Mac scientists reminded to actually run their experiments.”
• We prevail in a lawsuit that “lets anti-SLAPP motions be brought not just by defendants who are being directly sued…but also by the ‘real parties in interest’ whose public records request triggered the lawsuit” (us).
• “Scammers threaten quality of research survey data.” And “preventing fraudulent responses in online public health surveys.”
• “Gender differences in submission behavior exacerbate publication disparities in elite journals.”
• “Reporting quality of abstracts and inconsistencies with full text articles in pediatric orthopedic publications.”
• “Emory University wanted only the finest antiquities. It didn’t ask a lot of questions.”
• “Support behind the scenes: the relationship between acknowledgement, coauthor, and citation in Nobel articles.”
• “A disgraced Harvard professor sued them for millions. Their recourse: GoFundMe.”
• “FDA Finalizes Guidance on Informed Consent for Clinical Investigations.”
• “Scientists who don’t speak fluent English get little help from journals, study finds.”
• “Every researcher can learn from Tessier-Lavigne’s downfall.”
• A neuroscience expression of concern in Science.
• “Scholars and Polish minister clash over trans sadomasochism study.”
• “ChatGPT applications in Academic Research.”
• “Khan tried to ‘silence’ scientists who questioned Ulez claims.”
• “Failed PhD: how scientists have bounced back from doctoral setbacks.”
• Lawyers who represent scientists accused of misconduct liken such allegations to McCarthyism. (In case it was unclear: We disagree. Strongly.)
• “The article was retracted by an international journal, the author at the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City admitted that he ‘didn’t participate in writing.'”
• “Incorporating implicit bias into research integrity education: Response to ‘Why and how to incorporate issues of race/ethnicity and gender in research integrity education.’”
• “Co-director of closed psychotherapy clinic retires amid retractions.”
• “Clara Locher flushes out the dangerous liaisons between researchers and scientific journals.”
• “Warnings of scientific ‘suicide’ as US-China research collaboration hangs in balance.”
• Average time to retraction for chemistry papers: 1.7 years. Average peer-review time of 71 days — but only 43 days for fraudulent papers.

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].