Another busy week at Retraction Watch. Here’s what was happening elsewhere around the web in science publishing and research integrity news: Continue reading Weekend reads: “Too much success” in psychology, why hoaxes aren’t the real problem in science
Author: Ivan Oransky
Penkowa-Pedersen paper retracted nearly three years after being subjected to Notice of Concern
We have an update on the complicated story of Milena Penkowa and Bente Klarlund Pedersen.
Two papers coauthored by the pair — who have both been found guilty of scientific dishonesty by the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty — have been retracted by the FASEB Journal.
Here’s one notice (both are unfortunately behind a paywall): Continue reading Penkowa-Pedersen paper retracted nearly three years after being subjected to Notice of Concern
Nobel Prize winner calls peer review “very distorted,” “completely corrupt,” and “simply a regression to the mean”
Sydney Brenner has been talking about what’s wrong with the scientific enterprise since long before he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2002.
And in a new interview, Brenner doesn’t hold back, saying that publishers hire “a lot of failed scientists, editors who are just like the people at Homeland Security, little power grabbers in their own sphere.”
In a King’s Review Q&A titled “How Academia and Publishing Are Destroying Scientific Innovation,” Brenner says: Continue reading Nobel Prize winner calls peer review “very distorted,” “completely corrupt,” and “simply a regression to the mean”
RIP, Ed Rickards: Duke watchdog who covered Anil Potti case dies at 72
It’s unusual for us to post obituaries on Retraction Watch — we’ve published just one so far in three-and-a-half years — but we wanted to pause for a moment to note the passing of a tireless crusader for transparency and accountability whose electronic path crossed with ours a number of times since 2012 because of our shared interest in the case of Anil Potti.
We learned of the death of Ed Rickards this weekend while Ivan was attending ScienceOnline 2014. The Duke Chronicle, the university’s student newspaper, reported on February 5: Continue reading RIP, Ed Rickards: Duke watchdog who covered Anil Potti case dies at 72
Weekend reads: How much can one scientist publish? And more stem cell misconduct
Another busy week at Retraction Watch, including a ScienceOnline 2014 session Ivan facilitated on post-publication peer review. Here’s a selection of what was happening elsewhere on the web: Continue reading Weekend reads: How much can one scientist publish? And more stem cell misconduct
“Unfortunately, scientific publishing is not immune to fraud and mistakes”: Springer responds to fake papers story
We have an update on the story of 120 bogus papers being removed by IEEE and Springer. The latter posted a statement earlier today, which we include in its entirety below: Continue reading “Unfortunately, scientific publishing is not immune to fraud and mistakes”: Springer responds to fake papers story
Nature paper retracted following multiple failures to reproduce results
An international team of researchers from the NIH, Harvard, the University of Michigan, and two Chinese universities — Fourth Military Medical University and China Medical University — has retracted their 2012 paper in Nature after they — and a number of other groups — were unable to reproduce the key results.
The original abstract for “The NAD-dependent deacetylase SIRT2 is required for programmed necrosis” said that the findings
implicate SIRT2 as an important regulator of programmed necrosis and indicate that inhibitors of this deacetylase may constitute a novel approach to protect against necrotic injuries, including ischaemic stroke and myocardial infarction.
But here’s the notice, by corresponding author Toren Finkel and colleagues: Continue reading Nature paper retracted following multiple failures to reproduce results
Should readers get a refund when they pay to access seriously flawed papers?
Time for another installment of Ask Retraction Watch:
Let’s say I’m collecting relevant papers to write a review, or preparing a project, and I have rather limited time. I find a few interesting papers, bump into some paywalls, ask the authors for the .pdf without any response, and finally I decide to pay, say, $20 USD each for 8 papers. However, upon reading these papers I notice that two or three of them present serious irregularities — say, they’re 90% similar to some other published papers. Well, I’ve just spent $160 USD on these papers, trusting the publisher in the mumbo jumbo that all papers “meet high quality international standards,” are “peer-reviewed by experts,” “handled by selected editors,” etc., and yet they are clearly deeply flawed. Moreover, I investigate further online and I find that these and other issues in the papers had been already pointed out by readers online, e.g., in PubPeer or Retraction Watch comments, more than a year before.
Should I be entitled to a refund?
Take our poll, and leave a comment: Continue reading Should readers get a refund when they pay to access seriously flawed papers?
Utrecht University finds “violation of academic integrity” by former researcher
We have an update on the case of Pankaj Dhonukshe, a scientist about whom we reported in November. Utrecht University has found that Dhonukshe, a former researcher at the Dutch university, committed “a violation of academic integrity” in work that led to a number of papers, including one published in Nature and once since retracted from Cell.
Here’s the university’s statement: Continue reading Utrecht University finds “violation of academic integrity” by former researcher
“Inconsistent errors” and unknowing authors force retraction of microbiology paper
A 2013 article in Antonie van Leeuwenhoek Journal of Microbiology has been retracted for a few reasons.
Here’s the notice for “The effects of each beta-glucosidase gene deletion on cellulase gene regulation in Neurospora crassa:” Continue reading “Inconsistent errors” and unknowing authors force retraction of microbiology paper