Scientia Horticulturae, a plant journal published by Elsevier, has retracted a paper after realizing it was a graft of another that appeared in its pages.
Here’s the notice for “Water stress effects on Cumin (Cuminum cyminum L.) yield and oil essential components,” by Farshid Vazin, Islamic Azad University, Gonabad, Iran: Continue reading Plant journal retracts paper for plagiarism — of another study in the same journal
A plant scientist at the Colorado State University has retracted a fifth paper.
Here’s the notice for “Influence of ATP-binding cassette transporters in root exudation of phytoalexins, signals, and in disease resistance, a paper originally published in July 2012:
The Journal, Chief Editor and the Authors wish to retract the Original Research article cited above in its entirety. Based on information reported after publication, this article was found to have images that were inappropriately manipulated (Figure 1B: actin panel; Figure 6A: PR1, PR5; Figure 6B: AtATH6, AtATH10). The authors and the journal regret the errors and regret any inconvenience to the readers of Frontiers in Plant Science.
The last author of the now-retracted paper, Jorge Vivanco, has had four previous retractions, including one in Nature. He tells us: Continue reading Image manipulation leads to fifth retraction for plant research group
The BMJ is well-known for its annual Christmas issue, which New York Times medical correspondent Lawrence Altman calls
a lighter and sometimes brighter side of medicine, publishing unusual articles that vary from simply amusing to bizarre to creative or potentially important.
The 2010 issue was no exception, featuring a paper called “Multidisciplinary medical identification of a French king’s head (Henri IV)” in which: Continue reading Off with his paper! Some authors want to retract claim to have identified Henry IV’s head
A complicated case involving two microbiology researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) appears to have come to some conclusion.
In November of last year, we reported that Continue reading “Not exoneration”: University reverses sanctions on husband-wife team found to have manipulated images
Another installment of Ask Retraction Watch:
In journal club, we have been discussing a review paper on recent previous publications by the review’s authors. Basically this was a short review summarizing the findings of a few other papers by the same authors on a given topic. The images presented and textual narrative essentially repeated published contents with slight modifications, wrapping up with expected future developments on the topic.
My question: Is a review paper “allowed” to reintroduce previously published contents, and if so, to what extent? And should it be slightly modified (e.g. to avoid copyright problems) or be presented in the same exact manner?
Take our poll, and comment below. Continue reading Ask Retraction Watch: Can authors republish their own previous work as as review?
PubMed today launches a pilot version of PubMed Commons,
a system that enables researchers to share their opinions about scientific publications. Researchers can comment on any publication indexed by PubMed, and read the comments of others.
In general, we’re big fans of post-publication peer review, as Retraction Watch readers know. Once it’s out of its pilot phase — and we hope that’s quite soon — PubMed Commons comments will be publicly available. So this is a step forward — but only a tentative one. That’s because of the first bullet point in the terms of service commenters agree to: Continue reading PubMed now allows comments on abstracts — but only by a select few
Last month, we reported on the upcoming publication of a new book by Marc Hauser, the former Harvard psychologist found guilty of misconduct by the Office of Research Integrity. The main thrust of our post was questioning why two leading science writers would blurb the new book, Evilicious, but we also pointed out that Hauser hadn’t even bothered to note in his list of publications that one of his papers had been retracted. That seemed consistent with his neither admitting nor denying misconduct, as is reported by the Office of Research Integrity in their findings.
A few days after our post ran, Hauser tweeted:
Continue reading Marc Hauser corrects a tiny part of the scientific record
Sometimes, authors and journals editors seem to think a bit of mystery is a good thing. Take a recent retraction in Brain.
Here’s the notice for “Selective impairment of hand mental rotation in patients with focal hand dystonia:” Continue reading “Ambiguities in the presentation of some of the data” lead to an ambiguous retraction notice
Nitin Aggarwal, formerly of the Medical College of Wisconsin, faked data in his PhD thesis, grant applications to the NIH and American Heart Association, and in two papers, according to new findings by the Office of Research Integrity.
(The case would have apparently first been published in the Federal Register on October 2, except for the government shutdown.)
Here were their findings: Continue reading Cardiology researcher faked data in his prizewinning PhD thesis — and NIH, AHA grants: ORI
Alirio Melendez, who was found guilty of scientific misconduct by the National University of Singapore and has had 13 papers retracted, says none of what he’s being accused of is true.
In a statement posted yesterday at ajmelendez.co.uk and this morning at Retraction Watch, Melendez acknowledges that fraud occurred in his laboratory, but “categorically” denies having taken part in it. Here’s the full statement: Continue reading Alirio Melendez categorically denies data falsification, alleges cover-up