An oceanography journal has retracted a 2017 paper by a group of researchers in China after learning from a reader that one of the authors had a bogus affiliation in the United States.
The paper, “Southward migrations of the Atlantic Equatorial Currents during the Younger Dryas,” appeared in early spring in Limnology and Oceanography, a publication of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (limnology is the study of fresh-water bodies). It had three authors: one from Shanghai, one from Wuhan and one, a Chaoyang Zhang, identified as being on the faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology (otherwise known as Georgia Tech). But that last part was false — no Chaoyang Zhang works at Georgia Tech.
Alarm bells sounded, the journal investigated and turned up other reasons to be concerned about the paper. According to the notice, which it sent to the entire association (more on that in a moment): Continue reading Bogus affiliation scuttles paper on Atlantic currents