A group of virologists from Kazakhstan and Russia have lost their 2011 bird flu article in Virologica Sinica. Their offense: plagiarizing from a previous article by a team from Sweden on a similar topic.
The paper, “Phylogenetic Analysis of the Non-structural (NS) Gene of Influenza A Viruses Isolated in Kazakhstan in 2002–2009,” which purported to show that: Continue reading Plagiarism forces retraction of Slavic bird flu paper
We’ve been alerted to a third retracted paper, and a retracted book chapter, for Stefano Ramello, a self-styled “independent researcher” into sexual identity.
Turns out there wasn’t so much independence after all.
The article, “Same sex acts involving older men. An ethnographic study,” had appeared in the April 2013 issue of the Journal of Aging Studies. According to the retraction notice: Continue reading “He certainly has some chutzpah!” More plagiarism retractions for sex researcher Ramello
Add to the retraction pile for a pair of chemists in Iran who duplicated their work — and reviewed their own articles to boot.
The authors, Kobra Pourabdollah and Bahram Mokhtari, are affiliated with the Razi Chemistry Research Center in the Shahreza Branch of Islamic Azad University. In September, we reported on the retractions of three articles by the researchers in Synthesis and Reactivity in Inorganic, Metal-Organic, and Nano-Metal Chemistry.
Readers then alerted us to five other retractions in the Journal of Coordination Chemistry — although these papers did not appear (at least by the retraction notice) to have involved self-reviewing.
The duo now also has lost a 2012 article in Spectroscopy Letters: An International Journal for Rapid Communication. , which has been cited twice, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. According to the notice: Continue reading More retractions for authors who duplicated — and did their own peer review
We’ve found a third retraction for Karel Bezouška, the Czech scientist, who, as we reported this summer, broke into a lab in an attempt to tamper with experiments trying to replicate his own falsified data.
The article, “Molecular Characterization of Binding of Calcium and Carbohydrates by an Early Activation Antigen of Lymphocytes CD69,” had appeared in 2003 in Biochemistry. and has been cited 29 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading Third retraction for Karel Bezouška, of lab break-in fame
The Journal of Neuroscience has retracted a 2011 paper by a group of UCLA researchers after the institution concluded that a post-doc at the institution had falsified data.
The article, “Epigenetic Enhancement of BDNF Signaling Rescues Synaptic Plasticity in Aging,” came from the lab of Cui-Wei “Tracy” Xie, a behavioral scientist. It has been cited 42 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading UCLA probe ends in retraction for neuroscience post-doc
Carcinogenesis has the publishing world’s version of a twin problem: two dysfunctional articles yet one gets retracted while the other merely suffers a correction. Is it nature — or nurture?
Here are the details. One article, “Chemopreventive effect of dietary glutamine on colitis-associated colon tumorigenesis in mice,” came from a group in China. Published earlier this year, the authors seem to have had some trouble with their figures. As the corrigendum explains: Continue reading Journal takes different tacks on two cancer papers with image problems
We’re always glad to have guest posts, and here’s one from François-Xavier Coudert, reporting from France.
As we reported the other day, a Nature editorial suggested that police involvement might be an appropriate response to research misconduct. The French seem to agree, based on reports in the media there, as Coudert writes:
A husband-wife team of French odontology researchers at l’université Paul-Sabatier in Toulouse have been on trial in that country for research misconduct. Christine Marchal-Sixou, an associate professor, faces a charge of plagiarism, and Michel Sixou, full professor and dean of the faculty of dental medicine until September, has been charged with complicity. Continue reading France tries husband-wife team for research misconduct in plagiarism case
The author of a paper on the phenomenon of the vanishing twin has lost the article for failure to list his co-author on the article.
The paper, “Genotyping Analysis of Circulating Fetal Cells Reveals High Frequency of Vanishing Twin Following Transfer of Multiple Embryos,” had appeared earlier this year in Avicenna Journal of Medical Biotechnology, a publication of the Avicenna Research Institute, in Tehran, Iran. The author was Hussein Mouawia, a biologist at Lebanese University in Beirut.
According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Vanishing citation for vanishing twin paper
The paper is dead. Long live the paper!
Earlier this year, we brought you the case of a group of Brazilian insect researchers who lost two 15-year-old papers in different journals for duplication. One of those papers has been resurrected, albeit in a rather puzzling way.
The article, “Non-local interactions and the dynamics of dispersal in immature insects,” had appeared in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, which had issued the following retraction notice:
Continue reading A retracted retraction? Authors salvage entomology paper with image issues
Nearly six months after first expressing concern about the validity of a 2010 paper on multiple sclerosis, Nature Medicine has retracted the article for containing “erroneous” data — which in this case don’t seem to have existed, making them more fabricated than wrong.
The paper, “Crucial role of interleukin-7 in T helper type 17 survival and expansion in autoimmune disease,” came from a group led by Jingwu Zhang, who at the time ran GlaxoSmithKline’s Research and Development Center in Shanghai.
In June, the journal issued an expression of concern about the article after readers discovered problems with the data, as reported by Nature Medicine’s blog.
Continue reading Nature Medicine retracts MS paper with ghost data by former GSK researcher