Last month, we broke the news that Emory chemist Craig Hill and colleagues were retracting two papers in the Journal of the American Chemical Society and one in Science. At the time, the Science move was pending, but now the journal has officially pulled the article, titled “A Late-Transition Metal Oxo Complex: K7Na9[O=PtIV(H2O)L2], L = [PW9O34]9–”.
The notice reads: Continue reading Closing loop, Science retracts Hill group oxo paper
We’ve seen vigorous debates here on Retraction Watch about when studies should be retracted. Does it require fraud? Just not being reproducible? Somewhere in between?
Given the apparent divergence of opinions on the issue, we thought it would be worth highlighting a case that involves language we haven’t seen before. Here’s the notice for “Apoptosis of CT26 colorectal cancer cells induced by Clostridium difficile toxin A stimulates potent anti-tumor immunity,” which originally appeared online in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications in April: Continue reading Two retractions in biophysics journal, one because article is “too preliminary and potentially misleading”
In May, we broke the story of Edward Shang, a weight loss surgeon who made up most, if not all, of the patients he reported on in at least one study. We’ve been following the case since then, including three more retractions in the Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (JPEN).
As we noted in a June 22 post, the notices in JPEN were a bit more lean than the first notice we found, in Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases. The latter read: Continue reading Hmmm: SAGE’s attorney explains why weight loss retraction notices said less than those of other journals
We have an update on the case of Moêz Smiri, a graduate student working in a Tunisian-French laboratory, whose bold method of bulking up his CV proved a bit trop ambitieux.
As we reported back in August 2011, Smiri had plagiarized repeatedly from previously-published work, and forged the names of co-authors, in a 2010 article in Plant Science on the effects of cadmium on peas. That article was one of at least six papers on which Smiri appeared as first author — a pretty impressive output for a young researcher.
Among the list was article in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, “Effect of cadmium on resumption of respiration in cotyledons of germinating pea seeds.” That paper is now retracted. According to the notice: Continue reading Another retraction for grad student who specializes in plagiarism and forging co-authors’ names
Ulrich Lichtenthaler, a management professor in Germany, has had three papers retracted by two different journals, after readers noticed statistical irregularities.
Lichtenthaler was at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management when he published the papers in 2009 and 2010. He is now at the University of Mannheim. The retraction in Strategic Organization was first reported by the Strategy Profs blog. It reads: Continue reading Three papers by German management prof retracted for duplication, statistical issues
The International Journal of Primatology has a commendably open notice this month about a 2012 paper on the dietary habits of monkeys — “Western Purple-faced Langurs (Semnopithecus vetulus nestor) Feed on Ripe and Ripening Fruits in Human-modified Environments in Sri Lanka” — with echoes of a 2007 article by the same Sri Lankan researcher: Continue reading Primate journal cites duplication in erratum, but does not retract
A retraction from a high-profile group uncovered a technical limitation involving a widely used reagent.
Some quick background: the sequence hypothesis central hypothesis dogma of biology states that DNA gets transcribed to RNA that gets translated into proteins. Some RNAs, however, don’t code for proteins, but instead help to regulate gene expression. These microRNAs are tiny in size, but can regulate gene expression across animal and plant kingdoms.
In September 2011, the Molecular Cell published an entire issue with regulatory RNA as its theme. V. Narry Kim, associate professor at Seoul National University and high-profile microRNA researcher contributed a study that her group has now retracted just months later on June 29.
The problem? A reagent used to purify miRNAs favors some miRNAs and fails to isolate those rich low in guanine and cytosine — two of the four building blocks of RNA — or those with few secondary folding structures.
A second psychology researcher has resigned after statistical scrutiny of his papers by another psychologist revealed data that was too good to be true.
Ed Yong, writing in Nature, reports that Lawrence Sanna, most recently of the University of Michigan, left his post at the end of May. That was several months after Uri Simonsohn, a University of Pennsylvania psychology researcher, presented Sanna, his co-authors, and Sanna’s former institution, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, with evidence of “odd statistical patterns.”
Simonsohn is the researcher who also forced an investigation into the work of Dirk Smeesters, who resigned last month. Last week, Yong reported that Simonsohn had uncovered another case that hadn’t been made official yet.
According to today’s story, Sanna has asked the editor of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology — which is also retracting one of Smeesters’ papers — to retract three papers published from 2009 to 2011. These are the three he seems to have published there during that time: Continue reading University of Michigan psychologist resigns following concerns by statistical sleuth Simonsohn: Nature
The journal Digestion has a retraction notice that’s, well, an amusing morsel.
At issue was a 2011 paper on a biomarker for liver cancer by a group of Turkish authors who plagiarized from the work of others.
Here’s the notice for the article, titled “Diagnostic and Prognostic Validity of Golgi Protein 73 in Hepatocellular Carcinoma“: Continue reading Plagiarism leads to retraction of liver cancer paper
Note to authors: If a journal asks you to suggest reviewers for your submitted manuscript, don’t thank them by faking the reviewer’s emails.
You might just get caught.
That’s what happened recently at Experimental Parasitology, according to the retraction notice for “Entamoeba histolytica: Cloning, expression and evaluation of the efficacy of a recombinant amebiasis cysteine proteinase gene (ACP1) antigen in minipig:” Continue reading Elsevier parasitology journal retracts paper after finding author made up peer reviewer email addresses