Lyme disease diagnostics review retracted for plagiarism

Medical reviewA review paper published in the Serbian journal Medicinski pregled (Medical review) has been retracted for plagiarising a 2002 paper published in the Croatian Journal of Infection (or Infektološki glasnik).

The retraction note (in Serbian only) in the current issue (vol. 65, issue 11-12) of Medicinski pregled, published by the Society of Physicians of Vojvodina of the Medical Society of Serbia reads: Continue reading Lyme disease diagnostics review retracted for plagiarism

Authors “regretfully” retract genomics paper for plagiarism

jasbcoverAuthors of a 2012 article in the Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology have retracted it for plagiarism. 

The article, “Progress of genome wide association study in domestic animals,” came from a group of chicken geneticists in China affiliated with the Ministry of Agriculture in Harbin and Northeast Agricultural University, in the same city.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Authors “regretfully” retract genomics paper for plagiarism

Stapel watch reaches 45 retractions

stapel_npcKeeping up with the retraction count of Diederik Stapel is proving to be a, well, staple of this job. Four more retractions brings the figure to 45.

The articles in question are: Continue reading Stapel watch reaches 45 retractions

McGill committee says Nature figures were “intentionally contrived and falsified”

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Maya Saleh, via McGill

An associate professor at Montreal’s McGill University is correcting two papers, one of them in Nature, after a university committee found evidence of falsification, Retraction Watch has learned.

Concerns had been raised about four papers by Maya Saleh and colleagues: Continue reading McGill committee says Nature figures were “intentionally contrived and falsified”

This is 40 (and 41): More retractions for Diederik Stapel

stapel_npcIt turns out we missed two more recent retractions from Diederik Stapel. They were nestled in the table of contents of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that contained four retractions we covered last week.

The notices, for “Method matters: Effects of explicit versus implicit social comparisons on activation, behavior, and self views” (cited 48 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge) and “From seeing to being: Subliminal social comparisons affect implicit and explicit self-evaluations” (cited 95 times), both say the same thing: Continue reading This is 40 (and 41): More retractions for Diederik Stapel

Curi-us: Author whose lawyers threatened Science Fraud corrects a paper the site criticized

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Rui Curi

A few weeks ago, we reported on the shutdown of Science-Fraud.org, a site dedicated to highlighting problems with scientific papers, thanks to legal threats. At the same time, we noted that Rui Curi, one of the authors whose work had been questioned — and whose lawyers had sent the site a cease-and-desist letter — ended up retracting a paper the site had questioned.

Now, Curi has corrected another paper that featured on Science-Fraud.org. Here’s the notice: for “Comparative toxicity of oleic and linoleic acid on human lymphocytes,” which was originally published in Life Science in 2006: Continue reading Curi-us: Author whose lawyers threatened Science Fraud corrects a paper the site criticized

Hey authors, “Renewable Energy” doesn’t mean you can recycle words

renewableenergycoverRenewable Energy may cover conservation, but that doesn’t mean it expects its authors to recycle their own words. The Elsevier journal is retracting a biodiesel paper it published in February 2012 by a group of Chinese researchers who published much the same work in another title a month later. That periodical, the Journal of the American Oil Chemists Society, from Springer, has retracted its version as well.

Here’s the notice in Renewable Energy: Continue reading Hey authors, “Renewable Energy” doesn’t mean you can recycle words

The 39 retractions: Stapel’s count rises again

stapel_npcIt’s getting hard to keep up. A day ago, we noted that Diederik Stapel’s retraction count had risen to 38. But later in the day, we heard about number 39, from the European Journal of Social Psychology.

Here’s the notice for “Making sense of war: Using the interpretation comparison model to understand the Iraq conflict”: Continue reading The 39 retractions: Stapel’s count rises again

Clare Francis scores a bullseye: Journal of Cell Biology paper retracted for image manipulation

jcbIf you’re a journal editor or publisher, there’s a good chance your email inbox has seen its share of emails from “Clare Francis,” who has been crusading against text and image duplication in papers for some years now. Some editors have grown quite weary of those emails, sometimes because they don’t want to deal with anonymous whistleblowers, and sometimes because they have found Clare’s claims to be without merit.

But the Journal of Cellular Biology is one journal that has apparently continued to take them seriously. Today, they retract “Follistatin induction by nitric oxide through cyclic GMP: a tightly regulated signaling pathway that controls myoblast fusion,” a 2006 paper about which Francis first raised concerns in early November. Here’s the notice, one of those wonderfully detailed ones that make us squeal like schoolgirls meeting the Beatles: Continue reading Clare Francis scores a bullseye: Journal of Cell Biology paper retracted for image manipulation

Plague paper partially retracted

iandi213coverPartial retractions — as opposed corrections or the full monty —  are unusual events in scientific publishing. But they appear to come in twos.

The journal Infection and Immunity, the work of whose editor, Ferric Fang, is much admired by this blog, has a fascinating example of the breed in its February issue.

The article in question, by a group from the University of Kentucky in Lexington led by Susan Straley, appeared online in 2007. It was titled “yadBC of Yersinia pestis, a New Virulence Determinant for Bubonic Plague,” and, as the words suggest, involved a gene marker for the virulence of plague. Or so it initially seemed.

But according to the partial retraction, the researchers are walking back one of their main claims. Consider: Continue reading Plague paper partially retracted