C-section study retracted for being a twin

doveA group of surgeons in Cairo, Egypt have retracted their 2012 paper in the International Journal of Women’s Health for plagiarism, although that’s not quite what they’re calling it.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading C-section study retracted for being a twin

Study finds many authors aren’t sharing data when they publish — and leads to a PLOS ONE retraction

clinical chemistryA new study in Clinical Chemistry paints an alarming picture of how often scientists deposit data that they’re supposed to — but perhaps not surprisingly, papers whose authors did submit such data scored higher on a quality scale than those whose authors didn’t deposit their data.

Ken Witwer, a pathobiologist at Hopkins, was concerned that a lot of studies involving microarray-based microRNA (miRNA) weren’t complying with Minimum Information About a Microarray Experiment (MIAME) standards supposedly required by journals. So he looked at 127 such papers published between July 2011 and April 2012 in journals including PLOS ONE, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Blood, and Clinical Chemistry, assigning each one a quality score and checking whether the authors had followed guidelines.

What he uncovered wasn’t pretty — and has already led to a retraction. From the abstract: Continue reading Study finds many authors aren’t sharing data when they publish — and leads to a PLOS ONE retraction

Shigeaki Kato notches fifth retraction

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Shigeaki Kato

An endocrinologist who resigned from the University of Tokyo last March as the university was investigating his work has retracted another paper.

Here’s the notice for the paper by corresponding author Shigeaki Kato and colleagues in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research: Continue reading Shigeaki Kato notches fifth retraction

Salami slicing in pork research leads to retractions

foodprotectionWe get accused of grabbing at cheap puns around here, but the headline above is meant to be taken straight up.

Three journals in the food sciences are retracting a trio of papers published last year on bacterial contamination in pork products because the articles used the same data sets — a classic (Platonic?) case of “salami slicing.”

The Journal of Food Protection, which published one of the articles, “Performance of three culture media commonly used for detecting Listeria monocytogenes,” has the following retraction notice:

Continue reading Salami slicing in pork research leads to retractions

University of Wisconsin neuroscientist faked data in two papers: ORI

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Rao Adibhatla, via University of Wisconsin

A University of Wisconsin neuroscience researcher falsified “Western blot images as well as quantitative and statistical data” in two NIH-supported papers and three unfunded grant applications, the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has found.

As first reported by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and then The Scientist, Rao M. Adibhatla has agreed to retract the two papers, in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and Brain Research: Continue reading University of Wisconsin neuroscientist faked data in two papers: ORI

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”