A group of urologists in China has lost their 2012 paper in the Journal of Surgical Research because one of the authors was evidently rather naughty.
The article, “Is the impact of the extent of lymphadenectomy in radical prostatectomy related to the disease risk? A single center prospective study,” purported to show that: Continue reading Misconduct prompts retraction of prostatectomy paper
This one comes to us from Twitter, where Willem van Schaik went to express his frustration that a PLOS ONE paper he’d edited had been retracted for fake data.
Two other papers from the same group at the Institute of Microbial Technology, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Chandigarh, India, were retracted simultaneously.
We sent van Schaik an email to get a clearer picture of the situation. He responded: Continue reading Three PLOS ONE papers retracted for totally made-up data
You’ve got to love when an author is willing to detail the specifics of an unhelpful retraction notice.
This May, a paper came out in Journal of Thoracic Diseases about drug-resistant tuberculosis. It was retracted in June, for “some misconduct in the manuscript.”
Here’s the notice:
The article “Application status of MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry in the identification and drug resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis” (doi: 10.3978/j.issn.2072-1439.2014.02.19) that appeared on page 512-516 of the May 2014 issue of the Journal of Thoracic Disease needs to be withdrawn due to some misconduct in the manuscript. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused.
Since that’s pretty vague and unhelpful, we reached out to corresponding author Jiayun Liu, who gave us a thorough rundown:
Continue reading Author steps in to clarify vague tuberculosis retraction
This one deserves a “w
ow.”
SAGE Publishers is retracting 60 articles from the Journal of Vibration and Control after an investigation revealed a “peer review and citation ring” involving a professor in Taiwan.
[Please see an update on this post.]
Here’s the beginning of a statement from SAGE: Continue reading SAGE Publications busts “peer review and citation ring,” 60 papers retracted
Biochemical Journal has pulled a 2006 paper for an undisclosed “background subtraction box” in an image – which, if you take a not-particularly-close look at the figure to the right, means somebody added a black rectangle over the control lane.
Here’s the notice: for “Phosphorylation of Ser158 regulates inflammatory redox-dependent hepatocyte nuclear factor-4a transcriptional activity”: Continue reading Mystery box sinks immunology paper
Here’s an odd one from the University of Western Australia’s education journal, Education Research and Perspectives: A paper was retracted at the request of the authors, both UWA professors, because the participants “may have differed significantly from others in terms of their positionality,” whatever that means.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Education researchers retract paper for differences in “positionality”
The South African Journal of Botany has retracted a 2012 paper that claimed a variety of herbal extracts have antioxidant and anti-fungal properties, due to errors in “at least” one figure.
Here’s the notice for “Contribution of herbal principles towards cytoprotective, antioxidant and anti-Rhizopus activities:”
Continue reading Botany journal retracts paper for “at least” one error
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is subjecting a much-criticized study involving Facebook that it published just two weeks ago to an Expression of Concern.
From the abstract of the original study: Continue reading Rapid mood swing: PNAS issues Expression of Concern for controversial Facebook study
Two papers on “novel techniques” have been retracted with what is unfortunately a very non-novel technique: an odd notice and silence when we asked for comment.
Here’s the explanation for retraction of “A novel approach to treat residual peridevice leakage after left-atrial appendage closure,” by Wunderlich N, Wilson N, and Sievert H: Continue reading Author squabble sinks cardiology papers
Surface chemistry journal Langmuir has retracted an article on a new MRI contrast agent — but only one of the authors agreed.
According to the notice:
Continue reading Faked figure sinks paper on potential new MRI contrast agent