Another busy week at Retraction Watch, with developments in two closely watched cases at Nature and PNAS. Here’s what was happening around the web: Continue reading Weekend reads: Fallout from STAP stem cell retractions, confessed HIV vaccine fraudster pleads not guilty
Category: by author
Retractions arrive in plagiarism scandal involving economist Nijkamp
Retractions have arrived in the case of Peter Nijkamp, a leading Dutch economist accused of duplication and plagiarism. The Review of Economic Analysis has removed two of Nijkamp’s articles for self-plagiarism.
According to the NRC Handelsblad website (courtesy of Google translate):
The affair university economics professor Peter Nijkamp and his PhD student Karima Kourtit has escalated. The editors of the journal Review of Economic Analysis (RoEA) appears to have withdrawn because of self-plagiarism two scientific articles (reuse your own work earlier without acknowledgment), NRC Handelsblad discovered last week at the RoEA website.
The website reports that “significant parts” of the reclusive articles have appeared in other publications Nijkamp and Nijkamp / Kourtit, “without reference orderly” earlier. It involves work Nijkamp alone and work of VU economist Frank Bruinsma with Nijkamp and Kourtit.
Continue reading Retractions arrive in plagiarism scandal involving economist Nijkamp
STAP stem cell papers officially retracted as Nature argues peer review couldn’t have detected fatal problems
A significant chapter of the nearly six-month saga of the STAP stem cell controversy has come to an end, with Nature running retraction notices for the two papers involved. The journal has also published an editorial about the case that’s worth a read.
The retractions for “Bidirectional developmental potential in reprogrammed cells with acquired pluripotency” and “Stimulus-triggered fate conversion of somatic cells into pluripotency” both read: Continue reading STAP stem cell papers officially retracted as Nature argues peer review couldn’t have detected fatal problems
Weekend reads: Academics go to court, hijacked journals
Another busy week at Retraction Watch, with Ivan in Seoul speaking on research integrity at the Korean Medical Association conference. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Academics go to court, hijacked journals
Chemistry paper in Science earns expression of concern for unreliable data
A 2011 paper in Science has been subjected to an expression of concern and has led to an investigation by the Texas university where the work was done.
Here’s the expression of concern, signed by Science editor in chief Marcia McNutt (and paywalled): Continue reading Chemistry paper in Science earns expression of concern for unreliable data
Republished Seralini GMO-rat study was not peer-reviewed, says editor
In our coverage Tuesday of the republication of the controversial retracted study of GMOs and rats by Gilles Seralini and colleagues, we wrote this about a strange passage in an editor’s note on the paper:
The republished study was peer-reviewed, according to the press materials, and Seralini confirmed that it was in an email to Retraction Watch. But we were curious what “any kind of appraisal of the paper’s content should not be connoted” meant. We asked Seralini and the editor of Environmental Sciences Europe, Henner Hollert, but neither responded.
Hollert has responded to the same question from Nature, which reports: Continue reading Republished Seralini GMO-rat study was not peer-reviewed, says editor
Cancer researcher facing criminal inquiry up to six retractions
Alfredo Fusco, who is under criminal investigation in Italy for scientific fraud, has had two more papers retracted.
Both are in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC). Here are the two studies: Continue reading Cancer researcher facing criminal inquiry up to six retractions
Physicists with retraction for a “pattern that was unphysical” lose another for manipulation
In September, we wrote about the retraction of a physics paper for “a pattern that was unphysical.”
The team, whose first author, R.K. Singhal refused to sign the notice, has had another paper retracted, this one in the Journal of Applied Physics. Here’s the notice for “Study of electronic structure and magnetization correlations in hydrogenated and vacuum annealed Ni doped ZnO:” Continue reading Physicists with retraction for a “pattern that was unphysical” lose another for manipulation
Retracted Seralini GMO-rat study republished
A highly controversial — and retracted — 2012 study by Gilles Seralini and colleagues of the effects of genetically modified maize and the Roundup herbicide on rats has been republished.
Retraction Watch readers may recall that the editor of Food and Chemical Toxicology decided to retract the heavily criticized paper because it was “inconclusive.” The editor, A. Wallace Hayes, claimed that this was consistent with Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines, although we and many others disagreed.
Here’s the original abstract of the Food and Chemical Toxicology paper, which has been cited 55 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading Retracted Seralini GMO-rat study republished
Researcher who tampered with investigation up to 8 retractions
Karel Bezouška, the scientist who tried to derail an investigation into his work by breaking into a lab refrigerator has had an eighth paper retracted.
Here’s the notice for “Synthetic N-Acetyl-d-glucosamine Based Fully Branched Tetrasaccharide, a Mimetic of the Endogenous Ligand for CD69, Activates CD69+ Killer Lymphocytes upon Dimerization via a Hydrophilic Flexible Linker:” Continue reading Researcher who tampered with investigation up to 8 retractions