The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a paper from Yale on ketamine and depression, a retraction for Carlo Croce, and a discussion of when a citation may not be enough. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Publishing too much?; CRISPR doubts; Pharma in predatory journals
Author: Ivan Oransky
Carlo Croce, OSU cancer researcher under investigation, retracts paper
A researcher whose work has come under repeated scrutiny has retracted a 2008 paper for “errors that occurred in the construction” of various figures.
Carlo Croce, the corresponding author of the newly retracted paper, has been dogged by misconduct accusations for years — as recently described in the New York Times. His employer, The Ohio State University, has recently re-opened an investigation into his work. Seven of his papers have now been retracted, and fourteen have been corrected for image and text issues such as manipulation, duplication, and errors, as well as two others earning expressions of concern.
Here’s the retraction notice for “Fhit Interaction with Ferredoxin Reductase Triggers Generation of Reactive Oxygen Species and Apoptosis of Cancer Cells,” in the Journal of Biological Chemistry: Continue reading Carlo Croce, OSU cancer researcher under investigation, retracts paper
Weekend reads: An NIH grant scam; are calls for retraction useful?; how to end honorary authorship
The week at Retraction Watch featured the revocation of a PhD, a questionable way to boost university rankings, and a look at what editors should do when a researcher known to have committed misconduct submits a new manuscript. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: An NIH grant scam; are calls for retraction useful?; how to end honorary authorship
Updated: Ohio State revokes PhD of co-author of now-retracted paper on shooter video games
[This post, which at 1200 UTC 8/25/17 originally reported on the then-upcoming vote, has been updated at 1800 UTC 8/25/17 to include the results of the vote.]
A researcher who co-authored a paper about video games that was retracted earlier this year has had her PhD from The Ohio State University revoked.
As WOSU reported this afternoon, the vote today of the university’s Board of Trustees was unanimous. The scheduled vote on whether to revoke Jodi Whitaker’s degree was first reported yesterday by The Columbus Dispatch.
While a graduate student at Ohio State, Whitaker was co-author of a paper that claimed to find that first-person shooter video games improved marksmanship. As we’ve reported, the paper, published online in 2012, was retracted earlier this year, two years after a university committee was alerted to irregularities in the data by two outside researchers.
The controversy over the paper became heated at times. Continue reading Updated: Ohio State revokes PhD of co-author of now-retracted paper on shooter video games
Weekend reads: A troubling precedent out of China; journals as corporate tools; postdocs and suicide
The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a paper linked to vaccines, and what happens when a journal retracts 107 papers at once. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: A troubling precedent out of China; journals as corporate tools; postdocs and suicide
Weekend reads: Predatory fraud; risky spreadsheets; how to report issues in a paper
The week at Retraction Watch featured a look at publishing bounties around the world, and the story of how the “right to be forgotten” law had led to a retraction. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Predatory fraud; risky spreadsheets; how to report issues in a paper
Weekend reads: A science BS detector; scholarly publishing’s 1%; a tenured professor is fired
The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a 35-year-old paper written by a cat, and the retraction of a study about a controversial gene editing technique. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: A science BS detector; scholarly publishing’s 1%; a tenured professor is fired
A press release had “fake” and “NASA” in its headline. Then it was retracted.
Last Thursday, struck — as it were — by a headline about an asteroid preparedness test, I took to Twitter:
Putting "fake" and "NASA" into a press release headline in today's climate: Risky, or Troll Level: Master? https://t.co/Wn0wypQm4z
— Ivan Oransky (@ivanoransky) July 28, 2017
I couldn’t quite tell if this was a clever dig at a certain President’s penchant for calling everything “fake news,” or a risky gambit, given various “faked Moon landing” conspiracy theories — or both.
And then, less than 90 minutes after I tweeted, the press release was retracted, with a note that an edited version would be reissued.
The original headline was: Continue reading A press release had “fake” and “NASA” in its headline. Then it was retracted.
After investigation that started at least 5 years ago, retired ob-gyn prof agrees to 5 years of supervision
A now-retired professor tweaked the findings in seven figures of a 2007 paper, according to a new finding of misconduct released yesterday by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity.
The subject of the findings isn’t a stranger to our readers: We’ve already reported on nine retractions for Nasser Chegini, a former professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Florida (UF) who had won more than $4 million in Federal grants. And Chegini, who retired in early 2012, had been under investigation since at least 2012, with the ORI asking UF to broaden that investigation at one point.
Indeed, the ORI’s notice states that eight of Chegini’s retractions resulted from the UF’s investigation. The ORI’s findings, however, stem from another paper, published in the Journal of Reproductive Immunology, which has not been retracted.
According to the ORI, in that paper, Chegini:
Weekend reads: Subscription journals doomed?; Are scientists most often wrong?; “Buxom grapefruits”
The week at Retraction Watch featured an update on a Harvard lab whose PI is subject to a restraining order by one of his grad students, and the retraction of a paper that used male-only pronouns. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Subscription journals doomed?; Are scientists most often wrong?; “Buxom grapefruits”