Science has published an expression of concern for a recent article on a receptor for bitter taste while the authors’ institution investigates “potential discrepancies” with a figure.
The article, “Structural basis for strychnine activation of human bitter taste receptor TAS2R46,” was published in September of this year.
According to the abstract:
Continue reading Science paper on sense of taste gets expression of concern as university investigates
A scientist who lost 11 papers for fake peer review and other reasons went to court to pin the misconduct on a coauthor – and received a favorable judgment.
The retractions for Aram Mokarizadeh, a biomedical researcher previously affiliated with the Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences in Iran, were part of a batch of 58 papers in seven journals that Springer and BioMed Central pulled in 2016 after an investigation found “evidence of plagiarism, peer review and authorship manipulation, suggestive of attempts to subvert the peer review and publication system to inappropriately obtain or allocate authorship.”
After our story on the case appeared, Mokarizadeh told us that a coauthor was “responsible for all problems associated with retraction,” and that he had brought a case to court in Iran to prove it.
Continue reading Scientist goes to court to clear his name after fake peer review retractionsNearly a year after marking a paper on the elusive “Majorana” particle with an expression of concern, and almost three years after publishing a critique of its reproducibility, Science has retracted the article due to “serious irregularities and discrepancies” in the data.
A few papers about Majorana particles, which would be useful in quantum computing if scientists could indeed produce and detect them, have been retracted, flagged with expressions of concern, or otherwise proven difficult to reproduce.
The latest article to be retracted, “Chiral Majorana fermion modes in a quantum anomalous Hall insula- tor–superconductor structure,” has been cited more than 400 times since it was published in 2017, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. About 10 percent of those citations have come since Science’s editors published their expression of concern last December.
The retraction notice states:
Continue reading Another ‘Majorana’ particle paper retracted, this time from Science
Weeks after the British Medical Journal corrected a press release about nine retractions and dozens of expressions of concern to mark articles by a prominent concussion expert, a spokesperson for the journal told us it’s still “an ongoing effort” to identify all the articles on which the expert is the sole author.
The concussion researcher, Paul McCrory, was editor in chief of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, published by the BMJ, from 2001-2008, and published many editorials on which he was the only listed author. McCrory also chaired the influential Concussion in Sport Group, was involved in drafting consensus statements on concussion in sports, and consulted with leagues.
Ten of those articles, however, have been retracted this year for plagiarism, recycling his own work, and misrepresenting a reference.
In comments to us, his only public statements to date about the matter, McCrory acknowledged some of the plagiarism as unintentional “errors,” and offered “my sincere and humble apologies.” He no longer chairs the Concussion in Sport Group, and the Australian Football League has critically reviewed his work for the league, the Guardian Australia reported.
Continue reading BMJ says it’s “an ongoing effort” to find articles by plagiarizing concussion researcher Paul McCrory
A psychiatrist studying the development of psychosis faked data from studies of brain imaging in a grant application to the National Institutes of Health, a U.S, government watchdog has found.
The federal Office of Research Integrity (ORI) announced sanctions against Romina Mizrahi, associate chair of research in McGill University’s department of psychiatry in Montreal, Canada, for “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly falsifying data” in a grant application to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Mizrahi submitted the grant application in question, R01 MH118495-01, “Imaging nociceptin receptors in clinical high risk and first episode psychosis,” in February 2018; it does not appear to have been funded.
According to ORI, Mizrahi:
Continue reading Psychiatrist in Canada faked brain imaging data in grant application, U.S. federal watchdog says
The editor in chief of the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT) has resigned with more than a year left of his term, according to an email announcing his move to colleagues.
In the email, first reproduced in Steve Kirsch’s Substack newsletter, the editor, Jose L. Domingo, cited “deep discrepancies” with the journal’s direction under publisher Elsevier as the reason for his early resignation. He shared the email with us when we reached out for comment.
Domingo, a professor of toxicology and environmental Health at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Spain, listed three main points of contention: an agreement for the journal to publish documents for the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials, which Domingo believed to be a “drag” on the journal’s impact factor; FCT’s recent designation as the official journal of the Chinese Society of Toxicology; and a February editorial he wrote requesting submissions “on the potential toxic effects of COVID-19 vaccines.”
He wrote:
Continue reading Journal editor in chief who published controversial Covid papers resigns
Following a Retraction Watch story about a 2004 paper that had been copied twice since its publication, one of the journals involved has taken down its version of the article.
Last month, we reported that an undergraduate student researching her thesis had found two papers that copied material from “Models of the medical consultation: opportunities and limitations of a game theory perspective,” published in BMJ Quality and Safety by psychologist Andrew Colman and two colleagues.
One of the plagiarizing articles, “Relevance of Game Theory Models in Medical Consultation: Special Reference to Decision Making,” appeared last year in the International Journal of Research in Engineering, Science and Management (IJRESM). Colman said that the article had copied the structure and main ideas of his, although the text was paraphrased, and it included a figure he had created.
We had emailed the journal before our story was published on Oct. 17 to ask if it would investigate the allegations. We received this reply on November 5th:
Continue reading “A huge relief”: Journal takes down plagiarized paper after Retraction Watch reporting
A few years ago, funding for the UCLA pathology lab where Janina Jiang had worked since 2010 was running out.
The head of the lab was grateful when another scientist offered to chip in $50,000 to keep Jiang on for six more months.
But some of the experiments Jiang – perhaps feeling that her job was on the line, a colleague speculated – ran for that scientist raised suspicions. Other experiments didn’t corroborate her results, and Jiang failed to provide all her raw data.
Jiang’s benefactor asked another staff scientist to review and reanalyze her work.
What he found spurred an institutional investigation, which in July 2021 found Jiang faked data representing flow cytometry experiments in several figures included in 11 grant proposals, resulting in 19 counts of research misconduct.
Continue reading Exclusive: UCLA found a longtime researcher faked data – but made a strange mistake in its report
An office of the National Institutes of Health requested earlier this year that a university designate a new principal investigator (PI) for two grants after the institution found she had violated its policy in a research misconduct investigation, Retraction Watch has learned.
The NIH’s Office of Extramural Research, which oversees funding granted to external institutions, made the request after SUNY Downstate sent the office a summary of its investigation report that found Stacy Blain, an associate professor in the departments of pediatrics and cell biology at Downstate, had committed research misconduct in 11 instances.
As we reported in August, Blain is suing SUNY for discrimination and retaliation related to the finding of research misconduct, seeking, among other things, reinstatement on the grants.
Continue reading NIH asked to replace a PI on grants after university said she violated policy
Nick Wise had always been “slightly interested” in research integrity and fraud, just from working in science.
Then, last July, from following image sleuth Elisabeth Bik on Twitter, he learned about the work of Guillaume Cabanac, Cyril Labbé, and Alexander Magazinov identifying “tortured phrases” in published papers.
Such phrases – such as “bosom peril,” meaning “breast cancer” – are computer-generated with translation or paraphrasing software, perhaps by authors seeking to fill out their manuscripts or avoid plagiarism detection.
Cabanac, Labbé, and Magazinov had started with tortured phrases in the field of computer science, so Wise decided to try his hand at finding them in his own field, fluid dynamics.
He got a thesaurus widget, started plugging in phrases like “heat transfer,” and Googled the results – “heat move,” “warmth exchange,” etc.
“Up popped a load of papers,” said Wise, age 30, who recently wrapped up his PhD in architectural fluid dynamics at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom and will be starting a postdoc there soon.
It was the beginning of a sleuthing hobby that has already resulted in more than 850 retractions.
Continue reading Meet a sleuth whose work has resulted in more than 850 retractions