News elsewhere about scientific integrity, publishing, and related issues abounded this week: Continue reading Weekend reads: Death of a scientist; Science, the Lake Wobegon of experiments
Author: Ivan Oransky
COPD paper in JCI retracted following PubPeer critiques
A 2011 paper in the Journal of Clinical Investigation whose PubPeer entry we highlighted in September has been retracted.
Here’s the notice for “Denitrosylation of HDAC2 by targeting Nrf2 restores glucocorticosteroid sensitivity in macrophages from COPD patients,” a 2011 paper by researchers at Johns Hopkins and Imperial College: Continue reading COPD paper in JCI retracted following PubPeer critiques
PubPeer Selections: More questions about stem cells, price-shopping access charges
Here’s another installment of PubPeer Selections: Continue reading PubPeer Selections: More questions about stem cells, price-shopping access charges
Shigeaki Kato up to 33 retractions, with five papers cited a total of 450 times
Former University of Tokyo researcher Shigeaki Kato continues to put big numbers on the board.
Last month, we reported on his 26th, 27th, and 28th retractions, all in Nature Cell Biology and cited close to 700 times. Yesterday, EMBO Journal and EMBO Reports published a total of five more retractions for the endocrinology researcher, who resigned from the university in 2012 following investigations found he had faked images.
Here’s the notice for “A cell cycle-dependent co-repressor mediates photoreceptor cell-specific nuclear receptor function:” Continue reading Shigeaki Kato up to 33 retractions, with five papers cited a total of 450 times
Nature issues Expression of Concern for paper by author who threatened to sue Retraction Watch
Nature has issued an Expression of Concern for a paper co-authored by a scientist who threatened to sue us last year for writing about another Expression of Concern for one of his other papers.
Here’s the “Editorial Expression of Concern” for “Non-adaptive origins of interactome complexity:”
Weekend reads: Former vice chancellor sent to jail for plagiarism; peer reviewers getting tired
This week, we published a feature in Nature on how some researchers are gaming peer review systems to review their own papers. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
PubPeer Selections: Male vs. female brains, health care serial killers, corrections on the way
Retraction appears for social psychologist Jens Förster
A retraction has appeared for Jens Förster, the former University of Amsterdam social psychologist whose work has come under serious scrutiny by two official committees.
Here’s the notice for 2012’s “Sense Creative! The Impact of Global and Local Vision, Hearing, Touching, Tasting and Smelling on Creative and Analytic Thought,” a paper which first appeared in Social Psychological and Personality Science:
Continue reading Retraction appears for social psychologist Jens Förster
The Peer Review Scam: How authors are reviewing their own papers
Yesterday, we reported on the discovery by BioMed Central that there were about 50 papers in their editorial system whose authors had recommended fake peer reviewers. Those “reviewers” had submitted reviews of a number of manuscripts, and five of the papers had been published. (BMC posted a blog examining the case this morning.)
For some Retraction Watch readers, the elements of the story may have seemed familiar. Fake reviews — often involving self-peer review — have been the basis for a growing number of retractions.
As it happens, we’ve been working for a few months on a feature for the news section of Nature on the larger phenomenon. In the piece, out today and titled “The Peer Review Scam,” we write: Continue reading The Peer Review Scam: How authors are reviewing their own papers
Publisher discovers 50 manuscripts involving fake peer reviewers
BioMed Central has uncovered about fifty manuscripts in their editorial system that involved fake peer reviewers, Retraction Watch has learned.
Most of the cases were not published because they were discovered by a manuscript editor on a final pre-publication check. The five or so that have been published will go through some sort of re-review, which may result in expressions of concern or retraction.
The narrative seems similar to that in the growing number of cases of peer review manipulation we’ve seen recently. What tipped off the editor was minor spelling mistakes in the reviewers’ names, and odd non-institutional email addresses that were often changed once reviews had been submitted, in an apparent attempt to cover the fakers’ tracks. Those “reviewers” had turned in reports across several journals, spanning several subjects.
It would seem that a third party, perhaps marketing services helping authors have papers accepted, was involved.
The publisher has let all of its external editors in chief know about the situation. To prevent it from happening again, authors will not be able to recommend reviewers for their papers. Here’s a message from BioMed Central senior managing editor Diana Marshall that went out to a number of journal editors earlier today: Continue reading Publisher discovers 50 manuscripts involving fake peer reviewers