Author: Adam Marcus

“Youth Guru” loses turkey-neck paper that overlapped with book chapter

Ronald Moy

A prominent cosmetic surgeon and his daughter have lost a 2017 paper on treating men with excessive neck flab — otherwise known as “turkey neck” — because much of the work appears to have duplicated a book chapter he co-authored about the topic.

The first author of the retracted article is Ronald L. Moy, a plastic surgeon to the stars in Beverly Hills, Calif., and a past president of both the American Academy of Dermatology and the American Society of Dermatology. In a 2012 article about area plastic surgeons, LA Confidential Magazine dubbed Moy the “youth guru” and a local leader in the use of “new research and a comprehensive approach to restore a youthful complexion—no cutting required.”

His co-author was his daughter, Lauren Moy, who appears to be working with him in his Rodeo Drive dermatology practice.

Continue reading “Youth Guru” loses turkey-neck paper that overlapped with book chapter

“Major advance” in solar power retracted for reproducibility issues

The authors of a highly cited 2016 research letter on a way to improve the efficiency of solar panels have retracted their work following “concerns about the reproducibility.”

Given the potential importance of the data, it would be nice to know what exactly went wrong, and why. However, the retraction notice doesn’t provide many details, and doesn’t even specify if the authors did indeed fail to reproduce the data.

The letter, titled “Graded bandgap perovskite solar cells,” was published in Nature Materials by a group out of the University of California at Berkeley and the affiliated Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The 2016 article has been cited 16 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, earning it the ranking of “highly cited.”

Berkeley heralded the findings in a press release as a “major advance” in the field of solar energy:

Continue reading “Major advance” in solar power retracted for reproducibility issues

Fracking paper overstated size of methane leak from Marcellus Shale, earning retraction

via Greens-EFA

Last spring, a group of environmental scientists reported an impressive finding: Hydraulic fracturing (better known as fracking) in the Marcellus Shale region of the eastern United States was leaking enough methane to power a city twice the size of Washington, D.C. (We didn’t come up with that comparison, apt though it may be.)

Turns out that wasn’t true. Continue reading Fracking paper overstated size of methane leak from Marcellus Shale, earning retraction

Boys will be boys: Data error prompts U-turn on study of sex differences in school

The authors of a 2017 paper on emotional and behavioral gaps between boys and girls have retracted the article after discovering a coding error that completely undermined their conclusions.

The revelation prompted the researchers to republish their findings in the same journal, this time with a title that flips the narrative.

The PsychJournal study, first published in March, looked at self-regulation — loosely defined as the ability to get stuff done and keep a lid on it —  in boys and girls in German elementary schools. Although previous studies had found girls might do better on this front, the authors, from the University of Leipzig and New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus, initially found the opposite:

Continue reading Boys will be boys: Data error prompts U-turn on study of sex differences in school

Reader complaints prompt retraction of meta-analysis of heart-failure drug

A cardiology journal has retracted a 2016 meta-analysis after the editors had an, ahem, change of heart about the rigor of the study.

The article, “Ivabradine as adjuvant treatment for chronic heart failure,” was published in the International Journal of Cardiology, an Elsevier title.

The authors, a group at the Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil, concluded that: Continue reading Reader complaints prompt retraction of meta-analysis of heart-failure drug

Rowdy Roddy Pilferer: Wrestling journal takes down plagiarized paper

A journal devoted to wrestling science — we’re not sure if it’s the only one — has given the old reverse frankensteiner to a 2016 article whose authors stole much of their text from a conference presentation one of them had reviewed for the meeting.

The article, “The Role of Goal Setting, Collectivism, and Task Orientation on Iranian Wrestling Teams Performance,” appeared in International Journal of Wrestling Science, a Taylor & Francis title. Its two authors were Hossein Abdolmaleki and Seyyed Bahador Zakizadeh, of the Islamic Azad University in Karaj, Iran.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Rowdy Roddy Pilferer: Wrestling journal takes down plagiarized paper

Bogus affiliation scuttles paper on Atlantic currents

An oceanography journal has retracted a 2017 paper by a group of researchers in China after learning from a reader that one of the authors had a bogus affiliation in the United States.

The paper, “Southward migrations of the Atlantic Equatorial Currents during the Younger Dryas,” appeared in early spring in Limnology and Oceanography, a publication of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (limnology is the study of fresh-water bodies). It had three authors: one from Shanghai, one from Wuhan and one, a Chaoyang Zhang, identified as being on the faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology (otherwise known as Georgia Tech). But that last part was false — no Chaoyang Zhang works at Georgia Tech.

Alarm bells sounded, the journal investigated and turned up other reasons to be concerned about the paper. According to the notice, which it sent to the entire association (more on that in a moment):  Continue reading Bogus affiliation scuttles paper on Atlantic currents

Engineering journal removes article co-authored by former president of Iran

Does failing to disclose that you were once a leader in the “Axis of Evil” deserve retraction?

An engineering journal has pulled a 2017 paper whose authors included Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Ahmadinejad, the notorious anti-Semitic and anti-West president of Iran from 2005 to 2013, was a civil engineer before entering politics — and remained active in the field while serving in government. But his failure to note his old day job appears to have cost him a paper in the electronic edition of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Journal. Continue reading Engineering journal removes article co-authored by former president of Iran

Lost citation snuffs out Aussie fire paper

A journal has retracted a 2016 paper on wildfires in Australia because the authors neglected to cite earlier work — an unintentional lapse, they said.

The article, “Projected changes in Australian fire regimes during the 21st century and consequences for Ecosystems,” appeared in the International Journal of Wildland Fire. The authors are Sandy Harrison and Douglas Kelley,  of the University of Reading, in the UK. Kelley appears to have done his share of the work as a PhD student at Macquarie University in Australia.

According to the notice: Continue reading Lost citation snuffs out Aussie fire paper

Newspaper series prompts CDC to correct paper on Legionnaire’s disease

Post-publication peer review isn’t just for scientists. Newspaper reporters can help correct the scientific record, too.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has corrected a journal article on Legionnaire’s disease after the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette revealed what seems to be efforts by the researchers to misrepresent their data.

In a series of articles last December, the newspaper raised questions about the CDC’s actions in the aftermath of outbreaks in 2011 and 2012 of Legionnaire’s that sickened 22 veterans, killing six. The Post-Gazette obtained emails from CDC scientists that appeared to reveal their disdain for the sterilization method the hospital had been using to suppress the growth of Legionella bacteria. That method, a copper-silver system, is widely considered to be effective. But according to the newspaper, the CDC investigators were so critical of the copper-silver disinfectant technology that the VA ultimately switched to a system based on chlorine.   Continue reading Newspaper series prompts CDC to correct paper on Legionnaire’s disease