Proof that people will plagiarize anything they think they can get away with: a Brazilian scientist plagiarized a masters’ student’s thesis on the surface temperature of chickens.
We spoke with International Journal of Biometeorology editor-in-chief Scott Sheridan about the case: Continue reading Ripping off someone else’s thesis sinks paper on chicken temperatures
A paper published in Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science has been retracted for statistical and typographical mistakes.
Here’s the notice for “Comparing Measurement Error Between Two Different Methods of Measurement of Various Magnitudes”: Continue reading How meta: Paper on errors retracted for “too many stupid mistakes”
A paper in SpringerPlus on treating asthma with antioxidants was retracted on September 25 for something of a trifecta of ethical problems.
The retraction notice indicates that the patients never consented, there was no ethical review, and the university supposedly overseeing the study had no knowledge of it:
Continue reading Asthma study yanked for serious ethical violations
Ulrich Lichtenthaler, a management professor at the University of Mannheim who has had to retract 16 papers for data irregularities, has resigned his faculty position.
According to a terse release from the university (translated from German): Continue reading After 16 retractions, management professor Lichtenthaler resigns post
We’ve written before about how common cell line mix ups are in cancer research; according to a 2012 Wall Street Journal article (paywalled), between a fifth and a third of cancer cell lines tested by suspicious researchers turned out to be misidentified.
Obviously, mistakenly studying the wrong kind of cancer is a waste of precious resources, both time and money. And it’s clear the problem hasn’t gone away. PLoS ONE just retracted a cancer paper originally published in December 2012 for studying two cell lines that had been contaminated by other cell types.
Here’s the notice for “Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition Is Required for Acquisition of Anoikis Resistance and Metastatic Potential in Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma”:
Continue reading Cell line switch sinks PLoS ONE cancer paper
A third study of GcMAF, a protein being used to treat a variety of conditions from AIDS to autism to cancer, all without the blessing of health agencies, has been retracted.
Here’s the notice in Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy for “Immunotherapy of metastatic colorectal cancer with vitamin D-binding protein-derived macrophage-activating factor, GcMAF:” Continue reading Yet another study of widely touted cancer “cure” retracted
Phyllis Wise, the chancellor of the University of Illinois and an obstetrics researcher, has called for a massive correction of a 2006 paper in Neuroscience for work she appears to have tried to pass off as having been previously unpublished — but which wasn’t.
The article, “Estrogen therapy: Does it help or hurt the adult and aging brain? Insights derived from animal models,” has been cited 47 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
And it had caught also the attention of readers on PubPeer, who noted that: Continue reading U. Illinois chancellor earns mega-correction for duplicate publication
Sometimes publishers and authors decide it’s easier to retract a paper than leave it up for discussion by other scientists.
That seems to be the case here: The authors of a paper in Langmuir retracted it in September for a math mistake, but not before the journal refused to publish a comment criticizing the publication.
Here’s the notice for “Drainage of a thin liquid film between hydrophobic spheres: Boundary curvature effects:” Continue reading Is it better to retract a paper, or publish a letter calling the conclusions “unphysical?”
You know it’s a good one when it makes it onto the Wikipedia page for “scientific misconduct.”
On April 21, the International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics retracted two 2008 papers by scientist Alexander Spivak of Holon Institute of Technology in Israel. In September, the journal updated the notice to explain why: The papers both contained copy/pasted chunks from a 2001 paper by Spivak’s post-doc boss at Tel Aviv University, Zeev Schuss, and two other authors.
The tipster seems to have been Schuss himself, who told us about his role in the unravelling of the fraud: Continue reading Blatant plagiarism sinks paper (and earns a sabbatical!) for mathematician
It seemed like an egregious violation of academic standards.
A researcher forwarded us a data access agreement from the University of Oxford, in which Schedule 4 read as follows:
Continue reading Oxford group reverses authorship requirements for sharing data after questions from Retraction Watch