Category: by journal

Hefty correction in JBC for GMO researchers in image tampering case

jbcmarch13coverLast November we wrote about the case of Alejandra Bravo and Mario Soberón, a wife-husband team of microbiologists studying genetically modified crops, who had been disciplined by the National Autonomous University of Mexico for having manipulated images in 11 papers.

The tinkering did not rise to the level of fraud, according to the university — which perhaps helps explain why it didn’t lead to requests for retractions, according to Soberón.  Instead, he said at the time, at least seven journals would be issuing corrections. We now have what appears to be the first of these, in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Continue reading Hefty correction in JBC for GMO researchers in image tampering case

Geneticists take HeLa sequence off-line after Lacks family notes they hadn’t given consent

g3HeLa — the cell line that has apparently taken over any number of others commonly used in science, suggesting that many researchers may not have been studying what they thought they were studying — is back in the news. This weekend, it was the DNA sequence of the cells that’s made headlines, with a quiet unpublishing of data.

As Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks — Lacks’s name is where “HeLa” comes from, as they’re her cells — wrote in the New York Times Sunday, a group of researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory published an analysis of the HeLa cells’ genome on March 11 in G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics, a new journal from the Genetics Society of America.

That genome, of course, could be very useful in research, given how widely used HeLa cells are. But the problem was Continue reading Geneticists take HeLa sequence off-line after Lacks family notes they hadn’t given consent

Seals of disapproval, as pinniped paper gets yanked for plagiarism

ImageJoseph Hoffman, an animal behavior researcher at the University of Bielefeld in Germany says he got a “kind of odd” feeling as he read a recent paper on the transcriptome of the spotted seal. Let’s just call it deja vu.

The article, “Characterization of the spotted seal Phoca largha transcriptome using Illumina paired-end sequencing and development of SSR markers,” which appeared in Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part D: Genomics and Proteomics:

Continue reading Seals of disapproval, as pinniped paper gets yanked for plagiarism

Post 982 — in which we find plagiarized bone graft paper that grafted from other papers

thesurgeonThe Surgeon has retracted a 2012 article by a group from the U.K. who took text from a previously published article. So, you say? Nu?

Well, we found — through relatively little effort — that the plagiarizees were themselves, shall we say, liberal in their use of material from other sources.

The retracted article was titled “Bone graft substitutes: What are the options?,” and it appeared in August 2012. One of the options, we guess, was to steal text.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Post 982 — in which we find plagiarized bone graft paper that grafted from other papers

Error scuppers paper on treatment for liver fibrosis

pharmbioPharmaceutical Biology has retracted a 2012 paper by a group of liver researchers from China after the discovery of an error that evidently invalidated the results in the paper.

The article, “Antifibrotic effects of protocatechuic aldehyde on experimental liver fibrosis,” purported to show that

protocatechuic aldehyde, the major degradation of phenolic acids … has potentially conferring antifibrogenic effects.

In other words, the compound appears to prevent the formation of liver fibroids.
But it doesn’t — at least, not according to the study — as the retraction notice explains: Continue reading Error scuppers paper on treatment for liver fibrosis

Flu paper duplication earns Expression of Concern

influenzaA six year-old review on bird flu that failed to credit some content from another six year-old review of bird flu is now stamped with an Expression of Concern.

Here’s the notice, from Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses: Continue reading Flu paper duplication earns Expression of Concern

Charge of “scientific yellow journalism” has supervisor seeing red, leads to retraction

small gtpasesLast October, Anica Klockars, a neuroscience researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden, and a colleague published a controversial comment in the journal Small GTPases, a Landes Bioscience title.

The title of the letter was meant to provoke: “Scientific yellow journalism.”

As the authors wrote: Continue reading Charge of “scientific yellow journalism” has supervisor seeing red, leads to retraction

The “unintentionality” of being leads to nothingness for paper on protein’s role in cancer

empcoverA group of cancer researchers in Argentina has retracted a paper on the p300 protein in breast cancer that appeared in Experimental and Molecular Pathology.

The article, titled “Intracellular distribution of p300 and its differential recruitment to aggresomes in breast cancer,” was published in 2010 by Maria E. Fermento and colleagues. It has been cited 11 times since, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading The “unintentionality” of being leads to nothingness for paper on protein’s role in cancer

Toothless wonder? Paper on “oldest human fossil in Europe” temporarily removed from journal’s site

j human evolutionA paper about a high-profile human fossil has been mysteriously removed from the journal that published it just two weeks ago.

Here’s the notice for “The oldest human fossil in Europe dated to ca. 1.4 Ma at Orce (Spain),” originally published on March 5: Continue reading Toothless wonder? Paper on “oldest human fossil in Europe” temporarily removed from journal’s site