Weekend reads: Cassava’s Alzheimer’s drug fails; new journal hijacking scam; Hong Kong academic jailed

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Smithsonian Magazine pulls article for ‘errors’ after criticism of linked map of Israel
• Exclusive: New hijacking scam targets Elsevier, Springer Nature, and other major publishers
• Company linked to cloned journals of major publishers denies cloning journals of major publishers
• Cancer researcher admitted faking data

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 450. There are more than 50,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 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? What about The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List — or our list of nearly 100 papers with evidence they were written by ChatGPT?

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

• “Controversial Alzheimer’s drug from Cassava Sciences fails clinical testing.”
• “Hong Kong jails pro-democracy academic Benny Tai for 10 years.”
• “Revealed: Saudi Arabia accused of modifying official Cop29 negotiating text.”
• “Researchers urged to give local leaders credit on research papers.”
• “Standard Terminology for Peer Review: Where Next?”
• “Neglect of hidden academic labour ‘bad for science.'”
• Researcher tracks “trends in hoaxes of academic communication.”
• “Experts fail to reliably detect AI-generated histological data,” researchers find. 
• “Scientific publishers are producing more papers than ever: Concerns about some of their business models are building.”
• “The paper mills helping China commit scientific fraud.”
• “Stanford expert on ‘lying and technology'” cites two nonexistent papers under oath.
• “A call for research to address the threat of paper mills.”
• “Worryingly high prevalence of retraction among top-cited researchers.”
• “Business School Professors Contend With a Fraught Publishing Landscape.”
• “eLife reports submissions shift over Impact Factor loss.”
• Claim that scientist found Christopher Columbus’ remains criticized for “total lack of evidence,” presentation postponed.
• If research misconduct is labeled a “felony” and questionable research practices “misdemeanours,” how should plagiarism be labeled?
• “What are paper mills, how they act and their consequences to science: an introduction to the tip of the iceberg.”
• “Publishing in January and Impact on Citations: Does the Data Support the Strategy?”
• “Methods to reduce fraudulent participation and highlight autistic voices in research.”
• “Suspected Undeclared Use of Artificial Intelligence in the Academic Literature: An Analysis of the Academ-AI Dataset.”
• “Promoting equity in medical research: ensuring access to publishing opportunities for researchers in Syria and Palestine.”
• “Digital preservation is not keeping up with the growth of scholarly knowledge.”
• “Norway wrestles with plagiarism in year of high-profile cases.”
• “The reproducibility crisis and other problems in science,” a talk.
• Paper blaming COVID-19 vaccines for excess mortality 
  comes under scrutiny.
• “Case studies are vital to monitoring the development of open science.”
• “A study on the knowledge, attitude, and practice of research integrity among medical professionals in Ningxia, China.”
• “In the big data era, prioritize statistical significance in study design.”

Upcoming Testimony

• Canada Parliament House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research, Dec. 3, 2024, “Impact of the Criteria for Awarding Federal Funding on Research Excellence in Canada“

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