Weekend reads: Why 500 retractions per month matter; another EOC for former Stanford president; and an argument for ‘slow science’

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Corrections, biases, and humility in science: Q&A with Tuan V. Nguyen
• Up in smoke: Publisher pulls vaping paper nearly two years after complaint
• Fed up, author issues her own retraction after journal ghosts her
• Lawsuit fails to block retraction of paper claiming to link heart-related deaths to COVID-19 vaccines
• ‘Kicking the can down the road’: Science flags insect meta-analysis based on allegedly buggy database
• Fabricated allegations of image manipulation baffle expert

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 400 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 63,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up over 640, and our mass resignations list has 50 entries. We keep tabs on all this and more. If you value this work, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

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

• “Science journals retract 500 papers a month. This is why it matters,” by our Ivan Oransky and Alice Dreger. 
• Another expression of concern for former Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Four of his papers have been retracted.
• “I’m going to halve my publication output. You should consider slow science, too.”
• “When science discourages correction: How publishers profit from mistakes.”
• A ‘bizarre’ linguistics paper claiming the ancient Greeks forbade reference to water as ‘H₂O’ has been retracted by a Springer Nature journal.
• “Lithium mining study is retracted despite authors’ protests.”
• AI conference “accepted research papers with 100+ AI-hallucinated citations, new report claims.”
• Study on women’s soccer retracted after ex-coach’s doctorate was revoked for research misconduct and a thesis leader was asked to withdraw the work.
• Researchers find “over 50% of previously detected hijacked journals are active.”
• “Researchers admit to questionable research practices that they do not perceive to be serious.”
• “How chasing a high-impact publication nearly broke me.”
• “Contaminating the evidence: the reproducibility crisis and fraud in infectious disease research.”
• “Three major research universities opt out of new Elsevier deal.”
• “To Combat Academic Fraud, Scholars Confront Hallowed Tradition.”
• “Why scholarly publishing needs a neutral governance body for the AI age.”
• “Six steps to protect researchers’ digital security.”
• “Scientists should be celebrated for more than just flashy findings, argues a philosopher.”
• “From model collapse to citation collapse: risks of over-reliance on AI in the academy.”
• “Trump Administration Orders USDA Employees to Investigate Foreign Researchers They Work With.”
• Researchers analyze “the concept of independence in psychedelic research” to manage potential bias.
• “Nearly one-third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry, preprint claims.”
• Romanian university “to examine plagiarism complaints” of justice minister’s doctoral thesis.
• “Qualitative researchers’ AI rejection is based on identity, not reason,” says CEO of AI platform. 
• In an interview with former Hindawi CEO Paul Peters, Wiley’s Liz Ferguson describes the Hindawi acquisition and cleanup from the publisher’s perspective.
• “Behind new dietary guidelines: Industry-funded studies, opaque science, crushing deadline pressure.”
• “Why 500 Publications in One Year Actually Matters for the Cases You See Today” in veterinary research. 
• “AI research should always be verified, especially in court.”
• “LLMs in Peer Review—How Publishing Policies Must Advance”: A response to “Invisible Text Injection and Peer Review by AI Models.”
• Institute knew its women in STEM initiative had released a poster series of its “supporters” sourced almost entirely from free stock photo websites “And Said Nothing.”
• “Biomedical and life science articles by female researchers spend longer under review,” say researchers.
• “While the forests are burning, are we watering our own trees?”
• “Revenge of the Fish”: More on the nonexistent fish species appearing in the literature. 

Upcoming Talks

• “Maintaining Integrity in Peer-Reviewed Publications,” Jefferson Anesthesia Conference 2026, featuring our Adam Marcus (February 2, Big Sky, Montana)
• “Responding to Research Misconduct Allegations,” an AAAS EurekAlert! webinar featuring our Ivan Oransky (February 3, virtual)
• “Scientific Integrity Challenged by New Editorial Practices,” featuring our Ivan Oransky (February 12, virtual) 

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