Weekend reads: Did a prof invent his own ‘Nobel Prize’?; former dean omits pharma ties; AI generated quotes found in now-retracted article on AI

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 400 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 63,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up to nearly 650, and our mass resignations list has 50 entries. We keep tabs on all this and more. If you value this work, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

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

Continue reading Weekend reads: Did a prof invent his own ‘Nobel Prize’?; former dean omits pharma ties; AI generated quotes found in now-retracted article on AI

Weekend reads: CDC’s ‘unethical’ vaccine trial; The Lancet ‘refuses to retract’ letter; on the methods used to correct science

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 400 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 63,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up over 640, and our mass resignations list has 50 entries. We keep tabs on all this and more. If you value this work, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

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

Continue reading Weekend reads: CDC’s ‘unethical’ vaccine trial; The Lancet ‘refuses to retract’ letter; on the methods used to correct science

Weekend reads: Largest leucovorin-autism trial retracted; a paper mill detector for cancer research articles; infant opioid poisoning report flagged

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 400 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 63,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up over 640, and our mass resignations list has 50 entries. We keep tabs on all this and more. If you value this work, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

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

Continue reading Weekend reads: Largest leucovorin-autism trial retracted; a paper mill detector for cancer research articles; infant opioid poisoning report flagged

Weekend reads: Did a researcher ‘Obscure a Baby’s Poisoning?’; ‘Critical social media posts linked to retractions’; arXiv ‘clamps down on AI slop’

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 400 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 63,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up over 640, and our mass resignations list has 50 entries. We keep tabs on all this and more. If you value this work, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

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

Continue reading Weekend reads: Did a researcher ‘Obscure a Baby’s Poisoning?’; ‘Critical social media posts linked to retractions’; arXiv ‘clamps down on AI slop’

Weekend reads: Why 500 retractions per month matter; another EOC for former Stanford president; and an argument for ‘slow science’

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 400 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 63,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up over 640, and our mass resignations list has 50 entries. We keep tabs on all this and more. If you value this work, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

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

Continue reading Weekend reads: Why 500 retractions per month matter; another EOC for former Stanford president; and an argument for ‘slow science’

Weekend reads: A retraction in Nature; penalties for ‘retraction hotspot’ universities?; an analysis of PISS journals

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 400 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 63,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up over 460, and our mass resignations list has 50 entries. We keep tabs on all this and more. If you value this work, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

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

Continue reading Weekend reads: A retraction in Nature; penalties for ‘retraction hotspot’ universities?; an analysis of PISS journals

Weekend reads: Stages of academic ‘enshittification’; Alzheimer’s trial sites faking data, say drug developers; Bill Ackman says he funded Gino defense

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 400 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 63,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up over 460, and our mass resignations list has 50 entries. We keep tabs on all this and more. If you value this work, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

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

Continue reading Weekend reads: Stages of academic ‘enshittification’; Alzheimer’s trial sites faking data, say drug developers; Bill Ackman says he funded Gino defense

Weekend reads: Evaluating the benefits of open science, a misconduct investigation in Korea, and what we lose in outsourcing reviews to AI

Happy 2026! We’re excited to bring you the first Weekend Reads of the new year.  

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 400 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 63,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up over 460, and our mass resignations list has 47 entries. We keep tabs on all this and more. If you value this work, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

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

Continue reading Weekend reads: Evaluating the benefits of open science, a misconduct investigation in Korea, and what we lose in outsourcing reviews to AI

Cheers to 2025: In which Retraction Watch turned 15, and The Center For Scientific Integrity really became a center

We always enjoy our annual review of the year at Retraction Watch, and 2025 is no exception. But we’re more excited about what lies ahead than what we already accomplished. 

We’re on track for our second-highest year for pageviews — 6.6 million. This year we brought you more than 300 posts. Among our most-read stories this year include ones on metrics: The most-read of the year was on universities whose publication metrics show signs of “questionable authorship practices.” Also among the most-read stories was one on the 20 journals that lost their impact factors this year for citation issues. 

Fakery was also a theme in 2025. A story on a Springer Nature book full of fake references and one on dozens of papers with fake company affiliations were among the most popular of the year. 

Continue reading Cheers to 2025: In which Retraction Watch turned 15, and The Center For Scientific Integrity really became a center

Weekend reads: Court tosses out challenge to ORI funding ban; prof steps down after AI citation ‘scandal’; senator seeks journal’s COVID-19 manuscripts

This is our last Weekend Reads of 2025. Our annual wrap-up at Retraction Watch will come next week, but we’re already looking forward to a new year. If you value the work we do – the in-depth reporting at Retraction Watch, the daily curated links in our newsletter, our comprehensive Retraction Watch Database – please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity. Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, the Elisabeth Bik Science Integrity Fund and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.  

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

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

Continue reading Weekend reads: Court tosses out challenge to ORI funding ban; prof steps down after AI citation ‘scandal’; senator seeks journal’s COVID-19 manuscripts