Scientists have discovered the skull of a new dinosaur, a feathered relative of the Triceratops, according to new findings released in Current Biology today.
Now, we know what you may be thinking – we don’t normally cover science news. We’re writing about this paper because of a little note we saw in the acknowledgements:
A new group of experts is suggesting there’s something fishy in the body of work of social psychologist Jens Förster.
The University of Amsterdam, Förster’s former employer, commissioned three statistical experts to examine his publication record, looking for signs that the data are not authentic.
Well, they found some signs:
The New York Times has an editorial today with which we wholeheartedly agree: The newspaper is calling on scientists — and even the government — to pay more attention to misconduct in research. (It also doesn’t hurt that the paper mentions us.)
The proximate cause of the editorial, titled “Scientists Who Cheat,” is the retraction by Science of the gay marriage study by Michael LaCour, which we — and the Times, among others — have covered extensively.
As the editorial rightly notes, the pressures to publish are pushing some researchers to make up data. (Monday’s paper also carries a page 1 article about the dangers of splashy science that’s worth reading.) Continue reading New York Times pushes for more focus, funding on research misconduct
The careers site of Science magazine has pulled an advice column posted today from virologist Alice Huang, who suggested a postdoc tolerate an advisor’s roving eye.
In the retraction note, Science Careers apologizes for publishing the post, even if it was for just a few hours. “We regret that the article had not undergone proper editorial review prior to posting.”
Luckily, we found a web archive, courtesy of Kelly Hills (@rocza).
Here’s the question, from a reader whom we presume to be female:
A former employee in the public health division of the Oregon Health Authority committed misconduct in 56 case reports about Clostridium difficile infections in Klamath County, Oregon, as well as in a manuscript submitted to JAMA Internal Medicine and a published report in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report in March, 2012.
Ryan Asherin, previously a Surveillance Officer and Principal Investigator at the OHA, was a busy man. According to the details from a report by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity, Asherin:
Continue reading Oregon public health employee faked 56 infection case reports: ORI
Following revelations in io9.com this week from John Bohannon about how he successfully “created” health news by conducting a flawed trial of the health benefits of chocolate and gaming the data to produce statistically significant results, the journal that ultimately published the findings is now claiming the paper wasn’t accepted.
Trouble is, we’ve got correspondence from Bohannon showing that’s false. Here’s a quote from an email from publisher Carlos Vazquez to which Bohannon responded on March 2:
Following revelations of data issues and other problems (which crashed our server last week), Science is retracting a paper claiming that short conversations could change people’s minds on same-sex marriage.
The co-author who admitted to faking the data “does not agree” to the retraction, according to Science. Here’s more from the note: Continue reading Science retracts troubled gay canvassing study against LaCour’s objections
The Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has released an English translation of an external review that found Paolo Macchiarini, a celebrated surgeon who is credited with creating tracheas from cadavers and patients’ own stem cells, committed misconduct in a series of papers describing the work.
You can read the entire report, news of which was first reported by Science, here. The investigator, Bengt Gerdin, of Uppsala University, considered a series of allegations about Macchiarini’s papers, and found a number of them lived up to the verdict of misconduct. There were seven affected papers, not six, as was reported last week based on the initial findings (reported in Swedish).
For instance, in a 2014 Nature Communications paper describing the procedure in rats, Gerdin found that the scientists erred when none of the listed authors could assume responsibility for a CT image showing rats with “a smooth and patent oesophagus” (the researcher who took it asked to be left off the author list when he disagreed with how it was being interpreted), among other issues: Continue reading Misconduct found in 7 papers by Macchiarini, says English write-up of investigation
The British Journal of Sports Medicine has “temporarily removed” an editorial arguing that physical activity alone will not cure the obesity epidemic, following an expression of concern.
In its place stands the following message:
This paper has been temporarily removed following an expression of concern.
First author Assem Malhotra, based at the Department of Cardiology, Frimley Park Hospital and Consultant Clinical Associate to the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, told us the paper was pulled due to a “technical issue,” and an “official explanation” would be forthcoming.
Indeed, just this morning, we received a statement from Fiona Godlee, editor of the British Medical Journal, which publishes the British Journal of Sports Medicine:
Public health expert Stephen Leeder has been ousted as editor of Australia’s top medical journal after he questioned the decision to outsource the journal’s production and other tasks to publishing giant Elsevier.
Leeder, emeritus professor at the University of Sydney, told the Medical Observer he was asked to leave when he and the journal’s publisher, AMPCo, couldn’t see eye to eye on the decision: