Weekend reads: Top Alzheimer’s researcher on leave; president calls for superconductivity researcher to be fired; continued citation of retracted papers

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Embattled rocket scientist loses paper following Retraction Watch report
• University of Newcastle investigating top melanoma researchers
• Another Springer Nature journal has retracted over 300 papers since July
• Complaint from engineering software company prompts two retractions

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. 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):

• “Top Alzheimer’s researcher goes ‘on leave’ amid misconduct concerns.”
• “University Boss Calls for the Firing of Embattled Superconductivity Scientist.”
• “Why do some retracted articles continue to get cited?”
• Marty Makary says that “editorial boards, the gatekeepers of peer-reviewed publishing ‘tend to be composed of like-minded friends‘.”
• “[T]he Soviet Union’s All-Union Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (VINITI) stands out as a major, but under-explored, precursor to today’s preprint repositories.”
• “[P]utting your work out and having half of stats Twitter critique” may be a better paper check than peer review, says researcher in the midst of a social media war.
• “The university refuses to take the initiative to have the controversial research articles withdrawn, while the co-author wonders about the harsh criticism.”
• “ChatGPT is transforming peer review — how can we use it responsibly?”
• “The results showed that unethical behaviour was not uncommon and that editors and experienced reviewers encountered it more frequently.”
• “Retraction of Articles in Open Access Journals.”
• “How Generative AI Could Transform Scholarly Publishing: Themes and Reflections from Interviews with Industry Leaders.”
• “Publishers blast ‘biased’ EU report on research copyright.”
• “We’re enthusiastic about the opportunities for AI to streamline and improve the publication process,” says a Wiley senior vice president.
• “Distributed peer review: how Ukraine has reaped the benefits and minimized the risks.”
• “Is there a ‘Goldilocks zone’ for paper length?”
• “The antibodies don’t work! The race to rid labs of molecules that ruin experiments.” And from 2018.
• “The delicate nature of a constructive peer review: pearls from the editorial board” of Neurosurgical Review.
• “Corruption in science: fraud in research publications” from thesis supervisors and journal reviewers.
• “The ugly phenomenon of predatory journals: what they are and how to avoid them.”
• “The rise of predatory publishing and journals.”
• “Negative performance feedback from algorithms or humans? [E]ffect of medical researchers’ algorithm aversion on scientific misconduct.”
• “It is important to note that the pressure to publish in top-tier journals does not necessarily create difficulties for every scientist to do honest research.”
• “Peer Review is Broken: Some Ideas for Fixing it.”
• “’They Only Silence the Truth’: COVID-19 retractions and the politicization of science.”
• Researchers developed a new methodology for identifying fake papers “which automatically tracks and groups suspicious figures and documents.”
• “Navigating research integrity in the age of AI.”
• “These 7 watchdogs scour scientific papers for problems — and often find them.”
• In one research survey, “over 70% of responses were flagged as fraudulent” based on IP addresses and time stamps.
• “Will AI worsen our dysfunctional publishing system?”
• Researchers investigate “the links between questionable research practices, scientific norms and organisational culture.”
• “Why has NIH’s dental institute director been missing for 6 months” following “alleged workplace misconduct—and discrimination suit against the agency?”
• Biomedical researchers opt “against trying to publish replication efforts, survey finds.”
• “How I hunt down fake degrees and zombie universities.”
• A meta-analysis reaffirms shortcomings in Nature paper about Google AI.
• “AI-generated images threaten science — here’s how researchers hope to spot them.”
• “Can you publish too many papers?”
• “Why we need an African future for African research publishing.”
• “Court Rules In Favour” of university lecturer dismissed following plagiarism accusations.
• “What the right’s ‘plagiarism war’ really tells us about academic writing.”
• “Ranking Pressure Takes Toll On Research Credibility.”
• “The Obsolescence of Traditional Peer Review: Why AI Should Replace Human Validation in Scientific Research.”
• “Developments in research integrity” at Australian universities, which have a “self-regulation” model. 
• “Still just Nature and Science? A longitudinal cross-country analysis of journalistic source selection in science news coverage.” 80% of stories focused on just 25% of all journals.

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