Science has published the retraction of a 2006 paper about an asteroid, following a report in its news pages that the study’s authors had requested the move.
Here’s the paywalled — tsk, tsk — notice: Continue reading Hayabusa Science retraction made official, but behind a paywall
Retraction Watch readers are of course familiar with the STAP stem cell saga, which was punctuated by tragedy last month when one of the authors of the two now-retracted papers in Nature committed suicide.
In June, Science‘s news section reported:
Sources in the scientific community confirm that early versions of the STAP work were rejected by Science, Cell, and Nature.
Parts of those reviews reviews have surfaced, notably in a RIKEN report. Science‘s news section reported:
For the Cell submission, there were concerns about methodology and the lack of supporting evidence for the extraordinary claims, says [stem cell scientist Hans] Schöler, who reviewed the paper and, as is standard practice at Cell, saw the comments of other reviewers for the journal. At Science, according to the 8 May RIKEN investigative committee’s report, one reviewer spotted the problem with lanes being improperly spliced into gel images. “This figure has been reconstructed,” the RIKEN report quotes from the feedback provided by a Science reviewer. The committee writes that the “lane 3” mentioned by the Science reviewer is probably the lane 3 shown in Figure 1i in the Nature article. The investigative committee report says [co-author Haruko] Obokata told the committee that she did not carefully consider the comments of the Science reviewer.
The entire reports, however, have not been made available. Retraction Watch has obtained the full text of the editor’s cover letter and reviews of the rejected Science paper. The reviews are full of significant questions and doubts about the work, as would be expected in a rejection. We present them here, to fill in some of the gaps and help readers consider how the research eventually made it through peer review: Continue reading “Truly extraordinary,” “simply not credible,” “suspiciously sharp:” A STAP stem cell peer review report revealed
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has requested that Science retract a 2006 paper about the makeup of asteroid Itokawa as observed from the spacecraft Hayabusa, the news section of Science reports.
Instead of calibrating their equipment on Earth, the scientists assumed they’d see both magnesium and silicon in the x-ray spectra, and used that assumption to assess the rest of the chemical composition of the asteroid.
The paper may be based on faulty assumptions, but the conclusions have been backed up by other published papers, according to the Science magazine report: Continue reading Authors ask Science to retract Hayabusa asteroid paper
Always do a careful reading of your galleys, editors.
We imagine readers of Biomedical Chromatography’s special issue, “Reminiscences of Chang Kee Lim,” did some flipping back and forth when they found the same paper published twice.
Here’s the resulting notice for “Determination of 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal in serum by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection after pre-column derivatization using 4-(N,N-dimethylaminosulfonyl)-7-hydrazino-2,1,3-benzoxadiazole”: Continue reading Déjà vu: Double pub in the same issue earns a retraction
The Japanese endocrinology researcher Shigeaki Kato, with at least 25 retractions to his name, is alleged to have been the ringleader of a scheme to cover up other research misconduct at the University of Tokyo, his former employer, which investigated the activity.
According to the Japan Times, Kato and three other colleagues took steps to hide evidence of image manipulation in five of 51 theses between 1996 and 2011: Continue reading Researcher with 25 retractions covered up other fraud, says university
In a stunning and tragic development, a co-author of the now-retracted Nature papers claiming to have found an easy way to create stem cells has committed suicide, according to news reports in Japan.
According to the Japan Times, RIKEN deputy director Yoshiki Sasai has died: Continue reading STAP stem cell co-author commits suicide: Reports
A research team at the University of Texas-Southwestern that has retracted eight papers for image manipulation has retracted another, this one in Lung Cancer.
Here’s the notice for “Aberrant methylation of Reprimo in lung cancer,” published by Adi Gazdar’s group: Continue reading UT-Southwestern cancer research group notches ninth retraction
A paper about a protein being used — unapproved by health agencies — to treat diseases including cancer and autism has been retracted.
Here’s the notice from the International Journal of Cancer about a 2007 paper purporting to show that the substance, GcMAF, is useful against breast cancer: Continue reading Paper about widely touted but unapproved “cure” for cancer, autism retracted
A scientific publishing gadfly who was banned earlier this year from an Elsevier journal for “personal attacks and threats” has had a paper rejected by a Springer journal after he called for the editor’s resignation because of alleged incompetence.
As detailed in a comment left at Retraction Watch, Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva submitted a manuscript titled “One Conjunction, a World of Ethical Difference: How Elsevier, the ICMJE and Neurology Define Authorship” to Science and Engineering Ethics on November 11, 2012. As of last week, despite a number of messages sent to editors of the journal, he had not had a decision on the manuscript.
As a result, on July 14 of this year, Teixeira da Silva sent this letter to journal editor Raymond Spier and to Stephanie Bird, an editorial board member assigned to the manuscript: Continue reading Publishing gadfly demands journal editor’s resignation, then has “fairly incomprehensible” paper rejected
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