Category: by journal

U.S. gov’t researchers withdraw climate paper after using pseudonyms

adv-space-resClimate scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture have withdrawn a study they wrote under eyebrow-raising pseudonyms.

The withdrawn paper, about predicting surface temperatures of planets, appeared in Advances in Space Research in August, 2015, and is authored by Den Volokin and Lark ReLlez.

Normally, a withdrawal wouldn’t raise our eyebrows, but climate scientist Gavin Schmidt pointed out on Twitter that the authors’ names are eerily similar to another pair who have published climate papers together: Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller. Yes, that’s correct — Den Volokin and Lark ReLlez are Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller spelled backwards. Nikolov and Zeller are currently listed as a physical scientist and a meteorologist, respectively, at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The notice doesn’t state the reason for withdrawal, and Pascal Willis, editor-in-chief of Advances in Space Research from the Earth Physics Institute in Paris, France, referred us to the study’s authors for more information. Elsevier, which publishes Advances in Space Research, confirmed that the paper was retracted due to an “authorship issue” — namely, that the authors had used pseudonyms.

We used the contact information listed on the paper for “Den Volokin,” and got this response: Continue reading U.S. gov’t researchers withdraw climate paper after using pseudonyms

How can we improve preclinical research? Advice from a diabetes researcher

Daniel Drucker
Daniel Drucker

By all accounts, science is facing a crisis: Too many preclinical studies aren’t reproducible, leading to wasted time and effort by researchers around the world. Today in Cell Metabolism, Daniel Drucker at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto details numerous ways to make this early research more robust. His most important advice: more transparent reporting of all results (not just the positive findings), along with quantifying, reporting, tracking, and rewarding reproducibility, for both scientists and journals and universities/research institutes.

Retraction Watch: Which of your recommendations will researchers most object to, and why? Continue reading How can we improve preclinical research? Advice from a diabetes researcher

Spanish lab admits to image manipulation, retracts one paper, corrects another

JBCA group has retracted one paper and corrected another in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) for image manipulations.

Last author José G. Castaño told us the manipulation occurred at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, where he and one other co-author are based. He declined to name who was responsible.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Cytomegalovirus promoter up-regulation is the major cause of increased protein levels of unstable reporter proteins after treatment of living cells with proteasome inhibitors:”

Continue reading Spanish lab admits to image manipulation, retracts one paper, corrects another

Authors didn’t generate key brain images, probe finds

Frontiers in Human NeuroscienceA neuroscience journal has issued a retraction after discovering some of the paper’s integral images didn’t originate from the authors’ labs.

The retraction notice  — for a study about a condition once known as “water on the brain” — cites an investigation by the journal’s publisher, Frontiers, which determined that the figures were not “duly attributed.” The authors say they agree with the retraction.  

Here’s the retraction notice for “Revisiting hydrocephalus as a model to study brain resilience,” published by Frontiers in Human Neuroscience: Continue reading Authors didn’t generate key brain images, probe finds

Biologist loses second paper — again, for unvalidated figures

Cellular SignallingA researcher at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio has retracted a second paper after a review found the figures didn’t match the original data.  

Last year, we reported on a previous retraction of a paper co-authored by biologist Alan Levine in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, which was pulled for the exact same reason; even the retraction notices use similar language. The first author on both papers is Debasmita Mandal, also listed at Case Western Reserve University.

Here’s the retraction notice for “REDOX regulation of IL-13 signaling in intestinal epithelial cells: usage of alternate pathways mediates distinct gene expression patterns,” published by Cellular Signalling: Continue reading Biologist loses second paper — again, for unvalidated figures

Author objects to retraction of heart study, implies industry played role

JACC

The Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) has retracted a recently published paper that questioned the effectiveness of a treatment for irregular heartbeat, against the last author’s wishes. 

Andrea Natale, the study’s last and corresponding author and Executive Medical Director of Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia at Austin, took to social media today to express his frustration in the retraction of the July paper, which showed electrical rotors were less effective at fixing irregular heartbeat than other treatments. On Twitter, Natale implied industry played a role in its demise.

However, according to the retraction notice, the paper was felled by problems with randomization; Natale has admitted that some patients were removed from the analysis after one center included them incorrectly.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Impact of Rotor Ablation in Nonparoxysmal Atrial Fibrillation Patients Results From the Randomized OASIS Trial:” Continue reading Author objects to retraction of heart study, implies industry played role

Despite apology, bagpipes study not slated for retraction

Thorax

It’s not often that a paper elicits an apology — but that’s just what happened when family members first learned a bagpipe musician died from inhaling mold and fungi from a case study reported in a journal. The hospital has since apologized; the journal, however, told us it is not planning to issue a retraction.

The University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust in Wythenshawe, UK, has apologized and launched an internal investigation into the case report after the family’s distress was extensively covered by the UK’s mainstream media, such as The BBC, The Independent, The Daily Mail, and The Telegraph.

There seem to be conflicting accounts over whether any consent was obtained to publish the report. The Thorax paper says the patient gave consent, and according to Gisli Jenkins, co-editor-in-chief of the journal and a professor of experimental medicine at Nottingham University in the UK, consent was sought from the family. But the patient’s daughter told us that neither the next of kin nor the patient were approached for consent. 

The release of the report on August 22 was “completely unethical,” said Erin Tabinor, daughter of musician Bruce Campbell and a makeup artist in Liverpool, UK. Tabinor told us that the family wasn’t aware that playing bagpipes was the cause of Campbell’s death: Continue reading Despite apology, bagpipes study not slated for retraction

Peer review manipulation fells another study

Spectrochimica ActaA spectroscopy journal has retracted a 2016 study after concluding that its editors had been misled by a fake review.

According to the retraction notice, the journal — Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy — accepted the paper due to positive feedback from someone assuming the identity of an expert reviewer, using an email address provided by the author of the study.

An official from the author’s institution in Turkey informed us that it will conduct an investigation. 

Here’s the retraction notice for “Diagnosis of cervical cancer cell taken from scanning electron and atomic force microscope images of the same patients using discrete wavelet entropy energy and Jensen Shannon, Hellinger, Triangle Measure classifier:” Continue reading Peer review manipulation fells another study

Cancer researcher logs 5th retraction

Journal of Mammary Gland Biology and NeoplasiaA cancer researcher has added a fifth retraction to his name — but the notice doesn’t mention any problems with the paper itself. 

Rather, the Journal of Mammary Gland Biology and Neoplasia decided to retract the paper because it referenced other papers that had been retracted as a result of data manipulation.

The notice doesn’t specify which references were problematic, but the list includes three papers that are now retracted; all three include Scott Valastyan (the sole author of the newly retracted paper) as first author, and two list Robert Weinberg, his former supervisor and prominent cancer researcher, as last author.

Continue reading Cancer researcher logs 5th retraction

Retraction appears for group whose former member was sanctioned by ORI

Journal of Biological ChemistryResearchers whose former colleague was recently reprimanded by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) have retracted a biology paper for duplication.

The retraction includes some familiar names: The last author Steven Grant, senior author of the newly retracted study, is also the last author of 11 papers flagged in a report by the ORI in December, 2015. That report focused on Girija Dasmahapatra, a co-author of the 11 studies who was also based at at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Dasmahapatra left VCU in 2015, and is not listed on the latest retraction.

The retracted paper, published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC), was also co-authored by Paul Dent, a biochemist at the VCU, who we mentioned last year when he offered to retract another paper in Molecular Pharmacology after concerns arose on PubPeer. The journal has instead issued a lengthy correction (what we call a “mega-correction”).

A VCU spokesperson told us:
Continue reading Retraction appears for group whose former member was sanctioned by ORI