On Tuesday, we broke the news of the retraction in Circulation of a paper on cardiac stem cells by a group of researchers being investigated by Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Today, The Lancet has issued an Expression of Concern about another paper led by Piero Anversa, the last author of the Circulation paper.
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Lack of citation prompts correction in Nature journal
It’s not unusual to hear authors bemoan the fact that a new paper doesn’t cite their work that set the stage for a scientific advance. “The journal limited me to [a seemingly abitrary number of] references,” authors sometimes shrug, with or without apology. This week, however, we found a case of that which seems to have been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
The authors of a September 2013 article in Nature Communications have issued a correction for the piece, which failed to cite the source of a key step in their experiment.
The article, “Val66Met polymorphism of BDNF alters prodomain structure to induce neuronal growth cone retraction,” came from the lab of William “Clay” Bracken, a biochemist at Weill Cornell Medical College. According to the abstract: Continue reading Lack of citation prompts correction in Nature journal
Retraction four appears for Dirk Smeesters
Dirk Smeesters, the former psychology professor at Erasmus University found to have committed misconduct, has had another paper retracted.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Retraction four appears for Dirk Smeesters
Harvard and the Brigham investigating leading heart group for “compromised” data
Circulation has retracted a 2012 study by a group of Harvard heart specialists over concerns of corrupt data, and the university is investigating. The group was led by Piero Anversa, a leading cardiologist, and Joseph Loscalzo — who will be familiar to readers of Circulation as the editor in chief of that journal. (Anversa’s also on the editorial board).
Continue reading Harvard and the Brigham investigating leading heart group for “compromised” data
Waseda University checking dissertations for plagiarism in wake of STAP stem cell misconduct finding
Waseda University in Japan says it will be vetting every doctoral dissertation it awards its graduate-level students in Advanced Science & Engineering* for signs of plagiarism, according to a report in the Japan News, a site of the Yomiuri Shimbun. The paper reports that:
Double taxation: Journal retracts paper it published twice
International Studies Quarterly, a Wiley title, is retracting a paper because — oops! — it published the same article twice, unbeknownst to the authors.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Double taxation: Journal retracts paper it published twice
Pain study retracted for bogus data is second withdrawal for University of Calgary group
Back in January 2013, we wrote about the retraction of a paper in Diabetes that the authors had “submitted without knowledge of inherent errors or abnormalities that they recognized in retrospect after submission.”
Now, Molecular Pain has retracted a paper by the same authors, this time for data manipulation. The article, “Comparison of central versus peripheral delivery of pregabalin in neuropathic pain states,” was written by Cory Toth, a clinical neuroscientist at the University of Calgary, in Canada, and colleagues. It has been cited eight times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Toth said of the Diabetes article at the time:
Continue reading Pain study retracted for bogus data is second withdrawal for University of Calgary group
Co-author of retracted conspiracy ideation-climate skepticism paper addresses apparent contradictions
We — and others — have been scratching our heads about the real reasons for the formal retraction on March 21 of a Frontiers in Psychology paper since the journal issued a statement on the subject on Friday that seemed to contradict the retraction notice and that certainly differed from accounts on some blogs. Today, we learned a few more details about what happened in the year between when the paper was provisionally removed and then formally retracted from a post by Stephan Lewandowsky, one of the co-authors of the paper.
The March 21 statement, writes Lewandowsky, Continue reading Co-author of retracted conspiracy ideation-climate skepticism paper addresses apparent contradictions
Journal that retracted conspiracy ideation-climate skepticism paper says it did not “cave into threats”
Frontiers in Psychology, which last month formally retracted a controversial paper linking climate skepticism to conspiracy ideation, says it did not cave in to threats from skeptics, contrary to what a lot of news reports and commentary implied or claimed.
For example, summarizing a number of those reports this morning, before Frontiers had issued its statement, co-author Stephan Lewandowsky wrote on his blog:
By and large, the mainstream media coverage seems to have picked up on what’s really at issue here, namely academic freedom and editorial intimidation by a small band of vociferous individuals.
Here’s the statement, in which Frontiers stresses the rights of the people Lewandowsky and his colleagues wrote about:
Do you see what I see? Heart imaging journal yanks cardiac study for plagiarism
The International Journal of Cardiovascular Imaging has retracted a 2013 paper by a group of researchers from Italy. The reason: plagiarism.
The paper was titled “Diagnostic accuracy of 320-row computed tomography as compared with invasive coronary angiography in unselected, consecutive patients with suspected coronary artery disease,” and it came from scientists in Rome led by Francesco Pelliccia of the Department of Heart and Great Vessels at Sapienza University.
Continue reading Do you see what I see? Heart imaging journal yanks cardiac study for plagiarism