Search Results for: thomas

ICYMI: Second paper by Nobel laureate Thomas Südhof retracted

A 2017 paper coauthored by Nobel laureate Thomas Südhof has been retracted.  The article, “Conditional Deletion of All Neurexins Defines Diversity of Essential Synaptic Organizer Functions for Neurexins,” was published in Neuron in May 2017 and has been cited 145 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.  The retraction notice, issued February 11, states: We, … Continue reading ICYMI: Second paper by Nobel laureate Thomas Südhof retracted

Joseph Thomas just earned $33.8 million in a $112.5 million settlement with Duke. Here’s his story.

Tomorrow is Joe Thomas’s 35th birthday. And earlier this week, he received quite a birthday present, even if it wasn’t intended that way: Thomas earned a $33.75 million payout from a lawsuit he filed against Duke University six years ago. As Retraction Watch readers may recall, Thomas was the whistleblower in a case alleging scientific … Continue reading Joseph Thomas just earned $33.8 million in a $112.5 million settlement with Duke. Here’s his story.

Authors respond with ‘a bit like a threat’ after journal reveals postdoc’s identity

In March, Thomas Harvey sat in on a talk at the American Physical Society’s summit in Denver on a new model of the universe that claimed to eliminate the need for dark matter and dark energy. William George, a fluid dynamicist who spent his career studying turbulence and an emeritus professor at Chalmers University of … Continue reading Authors respond with ‘a bit like a threat’ after journal reveals postdoc’s identity

A company named Springer that isn’t the publisher is offering authorship for sale

Computer scientist Richard Fateman got an email in August that was completely “out of the blue”: an offer of coauthorship in articles headed for publication in prestigious journals, in exchange for a fraction of the publication costs.  Fateman, professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, retired 18 years ago, so he was alarmed by … Continue reading A company named Springer that isn’t the publisher is offering authorship for sale

RFK Jr. questions another publisher on expression of concern for a vaccine paper

The U.S. Secretary for Health and Human Services is once again questioning a publisher on an editorial action regarding a paper on vaccination. Published in Sage Open Medicine in 2020, the article looks at health outcomes in vaccinated versus unvaccinated children. Its authors are Brian Hooker and Neil Z. Miller, both longtime vaccine critics.  Sage … Continue reading RFK Jr. questions another publisher on expression of concern for a vaccine paper

Weekend reads: University and journal investigating gene-editing death; ADA ‘must take accountability’; psychedelic therapy paper faces retraction

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed. The week at Retraction Watch featured: In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 450 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 66,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions … Continue reading Weekend reads: University and journal investigating gene-editing death; ADA ‘must take accountability’; psychedelic therapy paper faces retraction

Federal lawsuit accuses four major publishers of extorting article processing charges

A lawsuit filed under the U.S. False Claims Act accuses four major publishers of perpetrating a decade-long scheme to defraud the government by charging exorbitant article processing charges.   The case, which became unsealed July 30, claims Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Informa forced U.S. research institutions to submit false claims to the government for reimbursement … Continue reading Federal lawsuit accuses four major publishers of extorting article processing charges

Weekend reads: Private info in ‘most’ arXiv preprints; why did George Church decline authorship; 28 misconduct cases in China 

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed. The week at Retraction Watch featured: In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 450 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 65,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions … Continue reading Weekend reads: Private info in ‘most’ arXiv preprints; why did George Church decline authorship; 28 misconduct cases in China 

Science flags paper that found AI chatbots help debunk conspiracy theories 

Science has issued an expression of concern for a highly publicized study looking into whether conversations with AI chatbots could convince conspiracy theorists to abandon their beliefs. The move came after the authors of the paper found inconsistencies in their dataset, but a reanalysis shows the findings still stand, they say.  The September 2024 article … Continue reading Science flags paper that found AI chatbots help debunk conspiracy theories 

Bloodhound code sniffs out copied-and-pasted numerical data

Markus Englund, a software developer and sleuth based in the Netherlands, first hit paydirt with invasive plant species in China. After having scanned 12 other published scientific datasets with his novel detection software with no results, he came across one showing something suspicious: rows and rows of measurements of plant roots repeated across entirely different … Continue reading Bloodhound code sniffs out copied-and-pasted numerical data