Irony alert: The Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, which really ought to know better, is retracting a 2012 article by an Australian researcher that threatened to run afoul of…privacy law.
The article, “A challenging injury interpretation: Could this be a stab wound?” was written by Les Griffiths, of the Clinical Forensic Medical Unit at University of Queensland in Brisbane. According to the notice: Continue reading Legal medicine journal pulls paper over image goof
Earlier today, we reported on what we thought was the first retraction to appear for Dirk Smeesters, who we noted was “the former Erasmus University social psychology professor investigated for serious irregularities in his work.” It turns out, however, as a Retraction Watch tipster told us, that another retraction had already been published.
The notice appeared in the August 2012 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research: Continue reading We missed one: Make that two retractions for Dirk Smeesters
A paper by Dirk Smeesters — the former Erasmus University social psychology professor investigated for serious irregularities in his work — has been retracted.
The study, “Visual perspective influences the use of metacognitive information in temporal comparisons,” appeared in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology earlier this year. Here’s the notice, which doesn’t quite say “fraud”: Continue reading Retraction appears for paper by social psychologist Dirk Smeesters
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews has retracted a 2008 paper by a group from the United States and Botswana, citing plagiarism and unauthorized use of data.
The article, “Solar chimney power generation project—The case for Botswana,” discussed a project by the Botswanan military to develop a power plant based on the chimney design. The paper is no longer available online, but we found this Wikipedia entry that mentions it: Continue reading Solar energy paper retracted for text, data misuse
Here’s a tip: If you’re going to claim you were first to discover something, even though you know you weren’t, don’t publish your claim in the same journal where the first finding appeared. Oh, and don’t ask the researchers who made the first discovery for help along the way.
Those, perhaps, are the cynical lessons from a retraction notice that appeared last week in the Journal of Chemical Physics: Continue reading Physics paper retracted because authors wrongfully claimed they got there first — in the same journal
The International Journal of Nanomedicine is retracting a paper it published in June that appears to contain an impressive amount of misappropriated text and figures.
The article, “Particokinetics: computational analysis of the superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles deposition process,” came from a group at the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, in São Paulo, Brazil, led by Walter Cárdenas. According to the notice: Continue reading Journal retracts nanoparticle paper, citing widespread misuse of sources
We couldn’t help noticing that the past few weeks have seen calls to retract two papers on food, from different sides of the political spectrum. One paper actually looked at the effects of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), while the GMO link in the other paper seems mostly to be in activists’ minds. Consider:
On the right, we have Henry I. Miller writing on Forbes.com about a study of rats fed genetically modified maize: “The honorable course of action for the journal would be to retract the paper immediately“: Continue reading Left and right apparently agree that “GMO” studies should be retracted (but they’re talking about different papers)
A group of researchers from Austria, Canada, Germany, and the U.S. have retracted a 2008 paper in the Journal of Immunology after being unable to verify the contents of some key figures.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Immunology paper retracted because “documents were not archived with due diligence”
Michael Hertl, a leading dermatology researcher at Philipps-University Marburg, has been cleared of any wrongdoing in a case that spawned a retraction last year and two just-published retractions.
Felicitas Riedel, a legal officer for the university, tells Retraction Watch that the
…Committee for Scientific Misconduct of the Philipps-University Marburg closed the matter and submitted its results to the President of the University who in the meantime after examination consented with it.
The findings? Continue reading University clears leading dermatology lab head of misconduct as authors issue two corrections
Why just have three peer-reviewed publications when you can reuse figures to publish a fourth?
That’s the sort of thinking that got one research group slapped with a retraction of their 2009 study, “Carbon Nanotubes Are Able To Penetrate Plant Seed Coat and Dramatically Affect Seed Germination and Plant Growth.”
The journal ACS Nano, published by the American Chemical Society, issued the retraction on Aug. 20: Continue reading Reused figures lead to two chemistry retractions, one correction