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Retraction Watch is hiring an intern: Here’s how to apply

anniversaryRetraction Watch readers: We need help.

As many of our loyal tipsters know, the list of retractions and related stories that we can’t get to just keeps getting longer. And as we grow, we want to groom a stable of paid freelance — and perhaps one day full-time — Retraction Watch contributors.

So with that in mind — and knowing that it can be difficult for early-career journalists to gain experience in accountability journalism — we’ve decided the an internship is the first investment we’ll make with funds our generous supporters have sent us.

Continue reading Retraction Watch is hiring an intern: Here’s how to apply

Brutal honesty: Author takes to PubPeer to announce retraction — and tells us she’ll lose PhD, professorship

Eriko Suzuki
Eriko Suzuki

Over the past week, there have been a number of comments on PubPeer — a site of which we’re big fans — about a 2007 paper in Oncogene.

The comments suggested that the figures in the paper had problems. Some bands seemed to be duplicated, and one of the images looked very much like that of another paper.

Then, today, first author Eriko Suzuki left this comment: Continue reading Brutal honesty: Author takes to PubPeer to announce retraction — and tells us she’ll lose PhD, professorship

Weekend reads: How to rescue science, what “censorship” really means, worst paper of the year?

booksAnother very busy week at Retraction Watch. There were a lot of gems elsewhere. Here’s a sampling: Continue reading Weekend reads: How to rescue science, what “censorship” really means, worst paper of the year?

Authors retract study suggesting magnesium prevents Alzheimer’s in mice

j neuroscienceThe authors of a 2013 Journal of Neuroscience study suggesting that “elevation of brain magnesium…may have therapeutic potential for treating [Alzheimer’s disease] in humans” have retracted it after finding errors in the work.

Here’s the original abstract:

Continue reading Authors retract study suggesting magnesium prevents Alzheimer’s in mice

Doing the right thing: Physicists retract paper after becoming aware of “a fundamental error”

prl-bannerThe authors of a paper in Physical Review Letters have retracted it, after another researcher pointed out a mistake.

F. Sattin and D.F. Escande write in the notice for “Alfvénic Propagation: A Key to Nonlocal Effects in Magnetized Plasmas” (which is behind a paywall) that after the paper was published, they “we became aware of a fundamental error in the normalization of our equations.” Excerpt: Continue reading Doing the right thing: Physicists retract paper after becoming aware of “a fundamental error”

Stem cell researcher in Korea up to half a dozen retractions

stem cellsAlmost two years ago, we brought you — with the help of Trevor Stokes — the story of a stem cell researcher in Korea whose publication record, and career, unraveled after evidence of image manipulation surfaced in her work.

We’ve reported on four retractions, all in Antioxidants & Redox Signaling, by Soo-Kyung Kang, formerly of Seoul National University resulting from the efforts of a whistleblower. There has been another in Human Gene Therapy: Continue reading Stem cell researcher in Korea up to half a dozen retractions

Publisher to pulp existing copies of science communication book because of plagiarism

speight bookThe publisher Taylor & Francis has decided to pulp all existing copies of a 2012 book on science communication, and suspend electronic copies indefinitely, after it became clear that the text was plagiarized from the work of another author.

The book, Clear and Concise Communications for Scientists and Engineers, was written by energy and environmental consultant James G. Speight. According to Colin Purrington — the creator of a very popular poster tips site whose past attempts to protect his intellectual property may be familiar to Retraction Watch readers — pages 166-169 are “largely copied” from Purrington’s page on scientific poster design.

In a letter to Taylor & Francis, Purrington wrote:

Continue reading Publisher to pulp existing copies of science communication book because of plagiarism

Heart study retracted because it was submitted without permission of most of the authors

clincardcoverA group of authors in South Korea has lost their 2012 paper in Clinical Cardiology because, well, they weren’t a group after all.

The paper, “Correlation of Electrocardiographic Changes and Myocardial Fibrosis in Patients With Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Detected by Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging,” came from corresponding author of Konkuk University School of Medicine in Seoul, and a half-dozen colleagues. At least, that’s what the manuscript said.

But according to the retraction notice, Yang had nothing to do with the paper — nor did five other co-authors. Continue reading Heart study retracted because it was submitted without permission of most of the authors

Data highjinx forces retraction of tumor paper in JBC

jbccover414The Journal of Biological Chemistry has an illuminating retraction notice — we’re happy to be able to say — about a 2001 article from a group of researchers at the National University of Singapore.

The paper, “Intracellular acidification triggered by mitochondrial-derived hydrogen peroxide is an effector mechanism for drug-induced apoptosis in tumor cells,” was written by Jayshree L. Hirpara, Marie-Véronique Clément and Shazib Pervaiz.

It has has been cited 110 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Data highjinx forces retraction of tumor paper in JBC

Expression of Concern tarnishes copper oxide paper

jmcacoverArticles, like lawn furniture, aren’t supposed to rust after just two months. But the Journal of Materials Chemistry A has issued an Expression of Concern for a February 2014 paper by a group of chemists from India over possible problems with several figures in the article.

The paper, “Hierarchically macro/mesostructured porous copper oxide: Facile synthesis, Characterization, Catalytic performance and Electrochemical study of mesoporous copper oxide monoliths,” was written by Gowhar Ahmad Naikoo, of the department of chemistry at Dr. Hari Singh Gour Central University, in Sagar, and two colleagues. It purported to find that:

Continue reading Expression of Concern tarnishes copper oxide paper