Author: Shannon Palus

“Rigging of the peer-review process” kills parasite paper

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A paper on nematode parasites appears to have been infected with a nasty strain of a publishing problem known as fake peer review. By our count, the phenomenon has felled approximately 250 papers in total.

The affected review, “The important role of matrix metalloproteinases in nematode parasites,” explores a type of enzyme secreted by the parasite. Published in Helminthologia, it’s been cited once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Unfortunately, the retraction note doesn’t give us too many details about how the peer review process was manipulated:

Continue reading “Rigging of the peer-review process” kills parasite paper

Danish neuroscientist sentenced by court for lying about faked experiments

court caseIn a rare development, neuroscientist Milena Penkowa has been sentenced by a Danish court for faking data.

The ruling, from the Copenhagen City Court, resulted from Penkowa’s publication of her 2003 thesis describing experiments that she never carried out. The court “placed weight” on the fact that she didn’t just commit fraud, but “systematically supplied false information” to avoid being caught, according to the court’s notice.

The sentence is nine months of “conditional imprisonment,” according to our translation; The University Post, a newspaper affiliated with the University of Copenhagen, calls it a “nine month suspended sentence with a two years probation.”

Here’s the full summary of the new ruling, from the Copenhagen City Court (translated from Danish by One Hour Translation):

Continue reading Danish neuroscientist sentenced by court for lying about faked experiments

Investigation finds “careless data workup” in alcoholism drug paper

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An investigation at Karolinska Institute has led to the retraction of a paper about drug treatments for alcoholics, after concluding the article contains a “very careless data workup.”

The paper, “Memantine enhances the inhibitory effects of naltrexone on ethanol consumption,” found that the drug memantine (normally used to treat Alzheimer’s) enhances the effects of naltrexone in rats, which blocks the high of alcohol.  It was published in the European Journal of Pharmacology and has been cited 10 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

However, its conclusion is now “unreliable,” according to the retraction note:

Continue reading Investigation finds “careless data workup” in alcoholism drug paper

Following criticism, BMJ “clarifies” dietary guidelines investigation

downloadThe BMJ has issued two “clarifications” to an investigation it published last week that questioned whether the new U.S. dietary guidelines were evidence-based.

The article criticized several aspects of the new dietary guidelines, such as “deleting meat from the list of foods recommended as part of its healthy diets” — without, according to author Nina Teicholz, reviewing the scientific literature on meat. However, according to the clarification, that sentence should have specified “lean” meats.

After The BMJ‘s article appeared, an analysis on The Verge questioned whether Teicholz was guided by her own opinions. She’s the author of a book The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet. The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee also posted a lengthy “rapid response” — The BMJ‘s refined version of a comment section — to Teicholz’s article, saying it “strongly disagrees with many of the statements represented as facts.”

This afternoon, Rebecca Coombes, head of investigations and features at The BMJ, posted a response: Continue reading Following criticism, BMJ “clarifies” dietary guidelines investigation

1+1 “identical” math papers = retraction

homeHeaderTitleImage_en_USA paper on an equation useful in finance has been retracted after editors discovered an “identical” version had been published in another journal.

The paper, “On the Parametric Interest of the Black-Scholes Equation,” was published in the Thai Journal of Mathematics. According to the introduction, that equation has a practical use:

In financial mathematics, the famous equation named the Black-Scholes equation plays an important role in solving the option price of stocks

(According to The Guardian, it was “The mathematical equation that caused the banks to crash.”)

Here’s the retraction note in full:

Continue reading 1+1 “identical” math papers = retraction

4th ORI-flagged paper by Oregon student is retracted

home_cover (2)The last of four papers containing data falsified by University of Oregon neuroscience student David Anderson has been retracted.

When the Office of Research Integrity report flagging the papers came out in July, Anderson told us he “made an error in judgment,” and took “full responsibility” for the misconduct.

The newly retracted paper, “A common discrete resource for visual working memory and visual search,” published in Psychological Science, has been cited 28 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. According to the abstract, it demonstrates a possible link between working memory and the ability to “rapidly identify targets hidden among distractors.”

But according to the retraction note, Anderson produced “results that conformed to predictions” by “removing outlier values and replacing outliers with mean values”  in some of the data.

Here’s the retraction note in full:

Continue reading 4th ORI-flagged paper by Oregon student is retracted

Biologist banned by second publisher

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Plant researcher Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva has been banned from submitting papers to any journals published by Taylor & Francis. The reason: “continuing challenges” to their procedures and the use of “inflammatory language.”

This is the second time Teixeira da Silva has been banned by a publisher —  last year Elsevier journal Scientia Horticulturae told him that they refused to review his papers following “personal attacks and threats.”

Apparently, Taylor & Francis has too become frustrated with Teixeira da Silva’s communication strategy. Anthony Trioli, from Taylor & Francis, told Teixeira da Silva in an email (to which Teixeira da Silva copied us on his reply) that they would no longer accept his papers:

Continue reading Biologist banned by second publisher

PLOS Genetics updates flagged paper with expression of concern

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PLOS Genetics has upgraded a notice on a paper to an expression of concern, raising the count for author chemist Ariel Fernandez to one retracted paper, and three expressions of concern.

The journal published “Protein Under-Wrapping Causes Dosage Sensitivity and Decreases Gene Duplicability” in 2008. In 2013, Fernandez corrected it, claiming that the work was not actually funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, as the original paper had said. The paper has been cited 33 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the expression of concern in full, which was published on September 14:

Continue reading PLOS Genetics updates flagged paper with expression of concern

Journal corrects CrossFit injury data in paper at center of lawsuit

XLargeThumb.00124278-201509000-00000.CVA study on the trendy and grueling workout regimen known as CrossFit has a correction concerning the number of participants hurt during 10 weeks of training. The paper has been the center of multiple lawsuits  — one by CrossFit, and one by a CrossFit gym owner — for allegedly over-inflating the risks associated with the regimen.

The original paper claimed that 9 of 54 participants dropped out of the study due to “overuse or injury.” The correction note says that just two left for those reasons.

The paper, published in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research actually concludes that CrossFit has some benefits. According to the abstract: Continue reading Journal corrects CrossFit injury data in paper at center of lawsuit

Science Signaling corrects data fudged by former UCSF student

afbb251f8bc8f71e26b313c77669d48fA paper containing data fudged by former University of California San Francisco grad student Peter Littlefield has been corrected. We knew that this was coming — last month, the Office of Research Integrity issued a report that Littlefield had admitted to misconduct, and agreed to a retraction or correction of the two affected papers.

Published in Science Signaling, “Structural analysis of the /HER3 heterodimer reveals the molecular basis for activating HER3 mutations” examined the structural details of a protein associated with cancer. It has been cited two times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

According to the correction note, the concentration of a protein presented in one figure was “miscalculated;” in another figure, the error bars were “calculated incorrectly.”

A statement from the UCSF affirmed that principle investigator Natalie Jura has “not been implicated in any research misconduct finding,” and explains that Continue reading Science Signaling corrects data fudged by former UCSF student