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Dear RW readers, can you spare $25?
The week at Retraction Watch featured:
- As Springer Nature journal clears AI papers, one university’s retractions rise drastically
- Science is considering retracting ‘arsenic life’ paper
- Two papers coauthored by a dean retracted, with a third in question
- Science editor encourages addressing integrity questions publicly
- Announcing the Elisabeth Bik Science Integrity Fund
- Editors resign from sedimentology society journal amid ‘extraordinary and troubling times’
- Second paper by Nobel laureate Thomas Südhof retracted
Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 55,000 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):
- “Why I retracted part of my PhD dissertation.” A link to our coverage of the supervisor’s misconduct ruling.
- “Second top NIH official, who oversaw awarding of research grants, departs abruptly.”
- “Renowned scientific integrity investigator endows fund to support fellow sleuths.” Read our announcement of the Elisabeth Bik Science Integrity Fund here.
- “The Scientific Literature Can’t Save You Now”: Our Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky reflect on RFK Jr.’s use of scientific papers at his hearings.
- “Blurry Authorship: Originality in Science Before and After Large Language Models.”
- “Professor renowned for expunging fake research receives David Vaux Fellowship.”
- “Academic publishing could be facing a watershed moment.”
- “Exploring the Impact of Generative AI on Peer Review: Insights from Journal Reviewers.”
- “How much scholarly publishing is affected by US Presidential Executive Orders?”
- “Amid shakeup in U.S. science, researchers express alarm over integrity of key genetic databases.”
- “Ranking and citation rat race is hurting India’s academic reputation.”
- “Researchers face impossible decisions as U.S. aid freeze halts clinical trials.”
- Harvard inquiry clears political economist of research misconduct.
- “Alzheimer’s scientist resigns after university finds ‘data integrity concerns’ in papers.”
- “If one group weaponizes retractions…why shouldn’t another?” A Q&A with our Ivan Oransky.
- “University of Johannesburg PhD candidate found guilty of plagiarism.”
- “Journal editors, please read your own author guides,” researcher requests.
- “Scientists globally are racing to save vital health databases taken down amid Trump chaos.”
- “New journal co-founded by NIH nominee raises eyebrows, misinformation fears.”
- “Axing of standard publications list sparks quality fears” in India.
- “Oversight Still Fails—NSF Director’s Alleged Plagiarism Still Not Investigated,” says “independent analyst.”
- “Scholarly Publishing Based On a Zero Trust Architecture” from the executive director of NISO.
- “Not All ‘Predators’ Are the Same: Exploring the Spectrum of Questionable Journals.”
- “Scientific misconduct during the pandemic: Retractions in the field of COVID-19.” Featuring the RW Database.
- “The Trump Administration Is Targeting Science. The Scientific Integrity Act Could Help Protect It.”
- “Top NIH official suddenly steps down.”
- Trump administration pulls wildlife report and deletes a paper on suicide risk.
- “University imposes penalties to curb irregularities in research.”
- Researchers look at “Retracted Citations and Self-citations in Retracted Publications.”
- “Misconceptions about research quality assessment and research performance evaluation” in Indonesia.
- “Figure plagiarism and manipulation” are “an under-recognised problem in academia,” researchers say.
- “Brazilian ‘predatory journal’ targets Algerian professors: Ministry reacts.”
- “Judges suspend NIH plan to slash payments and order health agencies to restore web pages.”
- “Leyton Orient Head Coach Richie Wellens wishes to retract a comment made in a post-match interview.”
Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on X or Bluesky, 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].