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Researchers’ productivity hasn’t increased in a century, study suggests

Screen Shot 2016-01-19 at 10.50.25 AMAre individual scientists now more productive early in their careers than 100 years ago? No, according to a large analysis of publication records released by PLOS ONE today.

Despite concerns of rising “salami slicing” in research papers in line with the “publish or perish” philosophy of academic publishing, the study found that individual early career researchers’ productivity has not increased in the last century. The authors analyzed more than 760,000 papers of all disciplines published by 41,427 authors between 1900 and 2013, cataloged by Thomson Reuters Web of Science.

The authors summarize their conclusions in “Researchers’ individual publication rate has not increased in a century:”

Continue reading Researchers’ productivity hasn’t increased in a century, study suggests

Journal bans 8 authors for plagiarism

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A medical journal has banned eight authors after discovering that they had published plagiarized work.

We don’t see official author bans as often as we see plagiarism (occasionally, and all the time, respectively). That’s why we’re flagging this case, which is a little old — the International Journal of Medical Science and Public Health announced the ban in March 2015, after it retracted three of the authors’ papers for plagiarism.

All three papers — about recovering from orthopedic problems — have a first author in common: Rajesh Valjibhai Chawda, who was affiliated with the CU Shah Medical College and Hospital in India at the time of the research. (We couldn’t find a webpage for him.)

After an author on one of the original articles alerted the journal of one instance of plagiarism, the journal launched an in-house inquiry, the retraction note explains:

Continue reading Journal bans 8 authors for plagiarism

Authors retract striking circadian clock finding after failing to replicate

Screen Shot 2016-03-02 at 9.29.28 AMThe authors of a paper showing a “striking and unanticipated” relationship between light and temperature in regulating circadian rhythms are retracting it when the results couldn’t be replicated.

After being contacted by another group who couldn’t reproduce the data, the authors failed to, as well. They “have absolutely no explanation for the discrepancies with the original results,” according to the note in PLOS Biology.

It’s an unfortunate turn of events, but Continue reading Authors retract striking circadian clock finding after failing to replicate

Popular paper by famous longevity researcher gets mega-correction

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Leonard Guarente

A highly cited paper by a well-known scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies longevity could have aged better: The ten-year-old paper has earned its second correction.

It’s one of multiple papers by lead author Leonard Guarente that have been questioned on PubPeer. Guarente has already retracted one, and plans to address another. Continue reading Popular paper by famous longevity researcher gets mega-correction

Whistleblower removed from Macchiarini’s Lancet author list

Paolo Macchiarini
Paolo Macchiarini

Last week, The Lancet honored a co-author’s request to remove his name from Paolo Macchiarini’s seminal 2011 paper, which described the first transplant of an artificial trachea seeded with autologous stem cells but has since come under fire.

On March 3, the journal posted this notice:

The Lancet has been contacted by Dr KH Grinnemo who was an author on the paper. Dr Grinnemo no longer wishes to be an author and asks for his name to be removed. This correction has been made to the online version as of March 3, 2016.

The paper has been cited 187 times, designating it “highly cited” by Thomson Reuters Web of Science.

As The Scientist reports, Karl-Henrik Grinnemo is one of the four surgeons at Karolinska Hospital who filed a complaint against Macchiarini in 2014 — alleging, for instance, Continue reading Whistleblower removed from Macchiarini’s Lancet author list

Stem cell researcher in Spain dismissed following investigation

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Susana González

A promising early career researcher has been dismissed from her post at the National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) in Spain, following “an alleged ongoing fraud,” according to El Pais.

We don’t know what exactly the internal investigation into Susana González’s work found; El Pais relied on anonymous sources, and the CNIC confirmed only that they dismissed her on February 29th. There are allegations against her work on PubPeer, but we don’t know what role those played in the investigation.

(We had the story translated; here’s a PDF of the article in English.)

González denies that she committed misconduct, the paper reports:

Continue reading Stem cell researcher in Spain dismissed following investigation

We’re using a common statistical test all wrong. Statisticians want to fix that.

ASA-newlogoAfter reading too many papers that either are not reproducible or contain statistical errors (or both), the American Statistical Association (ASA) has been roused to action. Today the group released six principles for the use and interpretation of p values. P-values are used to search for differences between groups or treatments, to evaluate relationships between variables of interest, and for many other purposes.  But the ASA says they are widely misused. Here are the six principles from the ASA statement:  Continue reading We’re using a common statistical test all wrong. Statisticians want to fix that.

PLOS ONE retracting paper that cites “the Creator”

Screen Shot 2016-01-19 at 10.50.25 AMPLOS ONE has retracted a paper published one month ago after readers began criticizing it for mentioning “the Creator.”

The article “Biomechanical Characteristics of Hand Coordination in Grasping Activities of Daily Living” now includes a reader comment from PLOS Staff, noting: Continue reading PLOS ONE retracting paper that cites “the Creator”

More than half of top-tier economics papers are replicable, study finds

scienceApproximately six out of 10 economics studies published in the field’s most reputable journals — American Economic Review and the Quarterly Journal of Economics — are replicable, according to a study published today in Science.

The authors repeated the results of 18 papers published between 2011 and 2014 and found 11 — approximately 61% — lived up to their claims. But the study found the replicated effect to be on average only 66% of that reported in the earlier studies, which suggests that authors of the original papers may have exaggerated the trends they reported.

Colin Camerer, a behavioral economist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who co-authored the study, “Evaluating replicability of laboratory experiments in economics,” told us: Continue reading More than half of top-tier economics papers are replicable, study finds

Author with seven retractions makes Thomson Reuters list of top scientists — plus another twist

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Bharat Aggarwal

A cancer researcher who recently retired from MD Anderson Cancer Center —  and also recently lost seven papers from one journal following a multi-year investigation — is one of the world’s top scientists, according to a new ranking.

In Thomson Reuters Web of Science’s 2015 list of The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds, Bharat Aggarwal’s name tops the section for Pharmacology and Toxicology (see p. 89). In all fairness, the list is presented in alphabetical order, and seven of Aggarwal’s papers have each been cited at least 1,000 times. But in addition to his recent seven retractions, he has has six corrections, two unexplained withdrawals, and two Expressions of Concern.

We contacted Thomson Reuters Web of Science to inquire, and a spokesperson told us: Continue reading Author with seven retractions makes Thomson Reuters list of top scientists — plus another twist