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First retraction appears for Dutch anthropologist Mart Bax

Last September we wrote about the case of Mart Bax, an anthropologist once of the Free University in Amsterdam who allegedly fabricated elements in some of his papers, and claimed to have written more than 60 that do not exist:

Bax, who studied an Irish town he called Patricksville, a Dutch pilgrimage site he called Neerdonk, and Medjugorje, a Bosnian pilgrimage site, retired from the Free University in 2002. The university began investigating Bax’s work last year after science journalist Frank van Kolfschooten published Ontspoorde Wetenschap (“Derailed science”). In that book, van Kolfschooten raised questions about Bax’s work into an alleged massacre at Medjugorje during the Bosnian War. Bax responded to those questions in April of this year.

Here’s the university’s 67-page report, in Dutch. The university will not take legal action against Bax. It is unclear from the translations we’ve seen whether any of the papers will be retracted, but we’ll update with anything we learn.

Well, at least part of that ambiguity has cleared, with the retraction of a 2000 paper by Bax in Ethnic and Racial Studies. The article was titled “Warlords, priests and the politics of ethnic cleansing: a case-study from rural Bosnia Hercegovina” and has been cited 20 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s its abstract: Continue reading First retraction appears for Dutch anthropologist Mart Bax

Duplication in physics journal questions key tenet of quantum mechanics

Here’s a physics question: How is it possible to be in two places at the same time?

Answer: Submit the same manuscript twice and hope the editors forget to feed Schrödinger’s cat.

The journal Condensed Matter Physics is retracting a 2013 paper by a Ukrainian scientist who’d published essentially the same paper seven years earlier.The article was titled “On the origin of power-law distributions in systems with constrained phase space,” and was written by an E.V. Vakarin, of ~~the Institute for Condensed Matter Physics, in Lviv~~ UMR 7575 LECA ENSCP-UPMC-CNRS.

According to the abstract: Continue reading Duplication in physics journal questions key tenet of quantum mechanics

Regenerative medicine, regenerative publishing

Developmental Biology has retracted a 2009 paper by an group of regenerative medicine specialists who, it seems, were regenerating more than just cells.

The article, titled “The human placenta is a hematopoietic organ during the embryonic and fetal periods of development,” was led by Susan Fisher, of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. It has been cited 32 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

According to the abstract: Continue reading Regenerative medicine, regenerative publishing

Bogus Western blots lead to retraction of cancer paper

A group of Italian researchers has retracted their 2013 paper on colorectal cancer because one of the authors, they, say, was tinkering with the data.

The article, “PBOX-15 induces apoptosis and improves the efficacy of oxaliplatin in human colorectal cancer cell lines,” appeared in the European Journal of Pharmacology in August. The first author was Giuseppina Gangemi, of the University of Salerno.

The paper purported to find that:

Continue reading Bogus Western blots lead to retraction of cancer paper

Neurosurgery journal retracts spine paper for lack of attribution

A neurosurgeon in the UK has lost his 2013 paper on spinal surgery in the British Journal of Neurosurgery for doing what appears to have been an end-run around the folks that did the work.

The article, “The management of spinal dural fistulas: a 13-year retrospective analysis,” was written by Denosshan Sri, of Addenbrooke’s Hospital, in Cambridge.

Here’s the abstract:

Continue reading Neurosurgery journal retracts spine paper for lack of attribution

“Unable to dispel the doubts,” authors lose protein structure paper

A suggestion: If you’re going to use the words “overestimated accuracy” in the title of your paper, you’d better make sure you aren’t guilty of the same yourself.

A group of authors in China has lost their June 2013 paper in the European Biophysics Journal because they appear to have misinterpreted their data. The paper, “Overestimated accuracy of circular dichroism in determining protein secondary structure,” came from chemists at Fudan University in Shanghai, and purported to find that:

Continue reading “Unable to dispel the doubts,” authors lose protein structure paper

Late resveratrol researcher Dipak Das up to 20 retractions

Dipak Das, the former University of Connecticut researcher found to have committed more than 100 counts of misconduct, and who passed away last year, has had another retraction appear.

Here’s the notice, for “Dynamic Action of Carotenoids in Cardioprotection and Maintenance of Cardiac Health,” from Molecules:

Continue reading Late resveratrol researcher Dipak Das up to 20 retractions

Scholar in Sweden appears to face inquiry for plagiarism retraction

The Nordic Journal of Migration Research has retracted a 2012 paper by a Swedish researcher who lifted text from another author.

The article, “Swedish Employers and Trade Unions, Varieties of Capitalism and Labour Migration Policies,” was written by Jesper Johansson, of Linnaeus University in Växjö. It’s available as a PDF here, but not on the website of the publisher, De Gruyter — nor is it listed on Johnansson’s own site.

We chose a sentence a random from the abstract:

Continue reading Scholar in Sweden appears to face inquiry for plagiarism retraction

A matter of degree: M. Theol loses a paper

Evidently the editors of the Journal of Religion and Health were a tad distracted when they published a paper earlier this year by Australian theologian Joseph Lee and his “colleague,” M. Theol.