Weekend reads: A new retraction record; corrections by Harvard president; when patents cite retracted papers

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• BMJ retracts article about effect of UK sugar tax after authors find error
• ‘A bit of a surprise’: Transportation officials pushed to retract archaeology article on work they funded
• Journal retracts 31 papers, bans authors and reviewers after losing its impact factor
• Copy and euphemize: When ‘an honor mistake’ means plagiarism
• ‘Trump’ vs. ‘Indiana Jones’: Paper reviving bitter quarrel over dino fossil pulled for murky reasons
• ‘I felt like a fraud’: A biologist goes public about a retraction

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to over 375. There are more than 45,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains well over 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? Or The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List?

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

• “More than 10,000 research papers were retracted in 2023 — a new record.”
• Harvard president corrects two papers after plagiarism allegations.
• “We found that while citations to papers dropped steeply after the paper was retracted, there was no reduction in citations to patents with the very same incorrect information.”
• “How to level the global publishing playing field.”
• “Work of autism researcher questioned again.”
• “The Future of Philosophy Journals.”
• “Of the respondents 8 (3.4%) reported to have committed scientific fraud in the past 5 years, whereas 66 respondents (28.4%) reported to have witnessed or suspected scientific fraud by anyone from their department in the past 5 years.”
• U.S. Office of Research Integrity deputy director Wanda Jones is retiring.
• “Can science publishing be both open and equitable?”
• “Counting scientists’ productivity with numbers undermines science.”
• “In a startling revelation, India’s drug regulator has found large scale ‘data manipulation’ and non-compliance with good laboratory practices (GLP) by public testing laboratories.”
• “In this study of 3 leading general medical journals, one-fifth of initial editorial decisions for published articles were likely based at least partially on reviews of such short length that they were unlikely to be of high quality.”
• “Archaeology society votes to ban photos of Indigenous burial offerings.”
• “Federal agency’s plan to disclose university misconduct findings splits academics.”
• “Retail Group Retracts Startling Claim About ‘Organized’ Shoplifting.”
• “New proposals for scientific misconduct investigations worry some research universities.”
• “UNSW to be investigated over ‘preliminary’ research misconduct inquiry that has taken two years.”
• “The threat of paper mills to social science journals: The case of the Tanu.pro paper mill in Mind, Brain & Education.”
• “MIT ordered to produce internal report into research misconduct at OpenAg.”
• “[H]ow identifiers, metadata and shared infrastructures bolster research integrity.”
• “Harvard Law Review Faces Internal Turmoil After Vote to Block Piece by Palestinian Scholar.”
• “Where Did the Open Access Movement Go Wrong?: An Interview with Richard Poynder.”
• “Dino extinction researcher committed research misconduct—but not fraud.”
• “How do tweeters feel about scientific misinformation?” A look at posts about retracted papers.
• “Scientific fraud is more open than secret.”
• “The Fragility of Scientific Rigour and Integrity in ‘Sped up Science’: Research Misconduct, Bias, and Hype and in the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
• “Year after year: Tortured conference series thriving in Computer Science.”
• “Robot chemist sparks row with claim it created new materials.” One scientist says the paper in question should be retracted.
• “The amount of research in the last seven years has grown by 50 per cent.”
• “In summary, gender representation has increased, although with country-specific variability.”
• “How Bibliometrics and School Rankings Reward Unreliable Science.” A webinar in Nigeria by our Ivan Oransky.

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