Ivan Oransky

Weekend reads: Faked data in psychology; publishing in predatory journals = misconduct?; how scientists take criticism

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Seven barred from research after plagiarism, duplications in eleven papers
An author asked for multiple corrections to a paper. PLOS ONE decided to retract it.
Researcher charged with abusing his wife has third paper retracted
Apparent HeLa cell line mixup earns a paper an expression of concern
Anesthesiologist loses 50 more papers in 12 months

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 117.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Weekend reads: Peer review ‘brutality’; COVID-19 vaccine trial scandal; homeopathy researcher admits ‘unethical behavior’

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

25,000: That’s how many retractions are now in the Retraction Watch Database
A longtime whistleblower explains why he’s spent more than a decade trying to get a paper retracted
Beam us up! Elsevier pulls 26 Covid-19 papers by researcher with a penchant for Star Trek
Author, Author! Or perhaps we should say Fake Author, Fake Author!
Paper about calculating ocean currents runs aground
Paper claiming Muslim patients are “particularly sensitive” retracted

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 117.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

25,000: That’s how many retractions are now in the Retraction Watch Database

We reached two milestones this week at Retraction Watch.

Our database — the most comprehensive source for retractions by a wide margin — surpassed 25,000 retractions. And our list of retracted COVID-19 papers, which we’ve maintained for a year, grew past 100 for the first time.

When we launched Retraction Watch in 2010, we, along with many others, thought retractions happened only dozens of times per year. We were wrong, and soon learned that figures had doubled in the first decade of this century, and that no one was keeping close track. The idea for the database was born several years later.

Readers may recall that when we launched the database in October 2018, it contained 18,500 retractions. That means we’ve found, checked, categorized, and entered some 6,500 retractions in two and a half years. New last year: The ability to include retractions in any language.

Weekend reads: JAMA editor placed on leave pending investigation; Harvard prof sanctioned for Epstein ties; when bad science goes uncorrected

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

“Riddled with errors”: Study of cell phones and breast cancer retracted
Dismissive reviews: A cancer on the body of knowledge
A journal retracts a paper called “transparently ridiculous” — and an author says thank you
Paper claiming presence of SARS-CoV-2 in Italy in 2019 earns expression of concern
Editor who opined on author excuses has paper subjected to an expression of concern
Journal of the paranormal has its first retraction

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 90.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Weekend reads: The fake author with more than 200 papers; accusations of ‘heinous plagiarism’; PETA requests a retraction

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Meet the medical resident who had his wife peer review five of his papers
University clears scientist of logging industry’s misconduct allegations
Irony alert: stolen voices, relative rip-off
After grad student suicide, misconduct findings, university suspends professor
“Falsifying elements” prompt retraction of three more papers by former “Peorian of the Year”
Bad blood at a lab leads to retraction after postdoc publishes study without supervisor’s permission

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 89.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Weekend reads: A JAMA editor resigns; why correcting the record takes so long; focus on predatory journals

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Journal flags a dozen papers as likely paper mill products a year after sleuths identified them
Authors retract Nature Majorana paper, apologize for “insufficient scientific rigour”
Elsevier journals ask Retraction Watch to review COVID-19 papers
Drug researchers retract two papers, one because “human stem cells were actually mouse stem cells”
Supplement-selling doctor who ran afoul of FDA and state medical board up to 20 retractions

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 87.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Elsevier journals ask Retraction Watch to review COVID-19 papers

Ivan Oransky: Not a COVID-19 expert
*credit: Elizabeth Solaka*

At the risk of breaking the Fourth Wall, here’s a story about peer reviews that weren’t — and shouldn’t have been.

Since mid-February, four different Elsevier journals have invited me to review papers about COVID-19. Now, it is true that we will occasionally review — often with our researcher, Alison Abritis — papers on retractions and closely related issues. And at the risk of creating more work for ourselves, we often wonder who exactly reviewed some of the papers we see published, given how badly they mangle retraction data.

These manuscripts, however, had nothing whatsoever to do with retractions. In case you need evidence, here it is:

Authors retract Nature Majorana paper, apologize for “insufficient scientific rigour”

Leo Kouwenhoven, credit De Sebastiaan ter Burg

The authors of a Nature paper that could have meant a great leap forward for Microsoft’s computing power are retracting it today after other researchers flagged serious problems in the work.

The researchers, led by Leo Kouwenhoven, a physicist at Delft Technical University in the Netherlands who is also employed by Microsoft, published “Quantized Majorana conductance” on March 28, 2018. Along with work at other labs, the paper, which claimed to have found evidence for a long-elusive particle known as a Majorana fermion, prompted this quotation in a BBC story: