Faked data prompts retraction of Nature journal study claiming creation of a new form of carbon

The journal Nature Synthesis has pulled a high-profile article describing the creation of a new type of carbon after a university investigation found some data were made up.

“The authors of the original paper claimed to have created an entirely new form or carbon, graphyne, which is fundamentally different common diamond or graphite,” said Valentin Rodionov, an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, whose team has been investigating the now-retracted work for the past two years. 

“If true, this would have been a groundbreaking discovery,” Rodionov told Retraction Watch. His team described its findings in a commentary published on September 2 in the journal. 

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Exclusive: Editor resigns after he says publisher blocked criticism of decision to retract paper on gender dysphoria

Michael Bailey

A Springer Nature journal has rescinded the acceptance of a paper criticizing the publishing giant’s controversial retraction last year of an article that surveyed parents of children with gender dysphoria, leading an associate editor to resign, Retraction Watch has learned.

According to emails we obtained, the blocked paper was slated to appear as a commentary in a special issue of Springer Nature’s Current Psychology that aimed “to stimulate discussion of all aspects of the ‘unpublication’ of scientific articles.”

“This is the only time I’ve had an accepted paper overruled in 4 years” as an associate editor at this journal, Christopher Ferguson of Stetson University in Florida, one of two guest editors of the special issue, told us by email.

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Journal to retract two articles more than six months after VA said they had fake images

The Journal of Cellular Physiology, a Wiley title, will retract two articles by an arthritis researcher the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs found to have engaged in research misconduct, Retraction Watch has learned. 

Last November, the VA published findings stating Hee-Jeong Im Sampen, formerly a research biologist at the Jesse Brown Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Chicago, faked images and inflated sample sizes in three published papers, a grant application, a presentation, and an unpublished manuscript. 

Based on the findings, the VA banned Sampen, who publishes under the name Hee-Jeong Im, from conducting research for the department and requested retractions of the three publications. 

Two of the papers, “Development of an Experimental Animal Model for Lower Back Pain by Percutaneous Injury-Induced Lumbar Facet Joint Osteoarthritis” and “Environmental Disruption of Circadian Rhythm Predisposes Mice to Osteoarthritis-Like Changes in Knee Joint,” appeared in the Journal of Cellular Physiology in 2015, and don’t currently have any sort of notice about the VA finding they contain faked images. 

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