by publisher – Retraction Watch

Procrastination study by Duke’s Dan Ariely retracted after sleuths find signs of data tampering

A psychology journal has retracted a seminal 2002 paper on deadlines and procrastination coauthored by behavioral scientist Dan Ariely of Duke University just days after a team of sleuths published analyses of the original study data, finding it had been tampered with.

The posts, which appeared Aug. 31 and Sept. 2 on the Data Colada blog, dug into the datasets behind the two main experiments in Ariely’s paper, published 24 years ago in Psychological Science. The reanalysis was prompted by a study published July 15 in the same journal attempting to replicate one of the paper’s original experiments.

The Sept. 2 retraction notice cited all three works, noting the replication study “raised questions about the underlying data in the original study,” and the Data Colada posts “called into question the veracity of the overall findings.” Ariely’s coauthor on the paper, Klaus Wertenbroch, of INSEAD in France, requested the retraction on July 23, Psychological Science editor-in-chief Simine Vazire told Retraction Watch.

Oxford researchers retract Nature paper on ‘atmospheric thirst’ for calculation errors

The authors of a June 2025 paper in Nature estimated the contribution of atmospheric evaporative demand on the severity of droughts worldwide, as shown in this figure from the article. The journal retracted the article on Sept. 2.
*S.H. Gebrechorkos et al./Nature 2025*

Nature has retracted a paper on the atmosphere’s role in the severity of droughts around the world after the authors discovered they made a coding error that skewed their measurements. The authors say they’ve already written a revised version of the paper.

The article, published in June 2025, found an increase in “atmospheric thirst,” or atmospheric evaporative demand — a measure of how much water the atmosphere draws from rivers, lakes, soil and so on — has exacerbated the severity of droughts by about 40%. The New York Times covered the work, claiming the study found atmospheric thirst “played an even bigger role than previously thought” in drought severity. The paper has been cited 337 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

But the authors discovered “a calculation error” that was “not related to our data or methodology, but a coding error,” lead author Solomon Gebrechorkos told Retraction Watch in a statement sent by the University of Oxford in England. Of the 11 authors on the paper, three, including Gebrechorkos and senior author Simon Dadson, are affiliated with the university.

Journal retracts paper claiming network of corridors inside the Great Pyramid of Giza

The Great Pyramid of Giza, also known as the Pyramid of Khufu.
*Douwe C. van der Zee/Wikimedia Commons*

A journal has retracted a paper by two Italian scientists who claimed to have found hidden structures inside of the oldest and largest of the Pyramids of Giza.

The study, published in Remote Sensing in October 2022, purportedly used synthetic aperture radar to penetrate the Pyramid of Khufu with energy pulses and process the echoes received, revealing a network of rooms, corridors and tunnels. The paper has been cited seven times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, as well as in a 2021 report by Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency.

The journal retracted the study on Aug. 10 after a reader “brought concerns to the attention of the Editorial Office regarding methodological issues with this article.” The editors investigated the claims and “confirmed serious methodological flaws and statistical errors that were deemed to undermine the scientific conclusions of the article.”

Elsevier to ‘soon investigate’ two Macchiarini papers more than a year after retraction request

Elsevier says it will begin investigating two papers coauthored by disgraced surgeon Paolo Macchiarini “soon,” more than a year after two critics of his work formally requested the publisher retract the articles — and nearly a decade after two institutions found him guilty of misconduct for related work.

The papers, published in Biomaterials in 2009 and 2010, include descriptions of a 2008 trachea transplant in Barcelona conducted by Macchiarini — described in The Lancet that year, as well as in a five-year follow-up published in 2013. Both Lancet papers reported a successful surgery and that the patient had a “normal social and working life.” In reality, she needed stents, her lung function did not improve and she eventually had a lung removed.

The Barcelona patient survived, but at least three others who underwent Macchiarini’s synthetic trachea transplants eventually died. In 2023, a Swedish court sentenced Macchiarini to 2.5 years in prison for gross assault related to his failed transplants. So far he has accumulated 13 retractions.

Editors of economics journal resign after Elsevier doesn’t renew EIC’s contract

Six editors and nearly 60 advisory editors of Games and Economic Behavior resigned after the journal’s publisher decided not to renew the editor-in-chief’s contract.

In late July, Elsevier told Hervé Moulin, a business professor of the University of Glasgow, his six-year tenure as editor-in-chief of the journal would end in December. Moulin told Retraction Watch he was disappointed by the news, as he had expressed a desire to continue in his role.

The journal’s six editors resigned in the weeks following, according to an August 16 email, the text of which is also posted on the website for the Game Theory Society. Games and Economic Behavior is one of the group’s two official journals. As of August 19, 58 of the 62 advisory editors had resigned as well.

Defamation suit demanding Elsevier retract paper heads closer to trial

A trial date has been set in a $1 billion defamation case against Elsevier that alleges the company published what plaintiffs say was a manipulated study about an air purifying technology over objections from peer reviewers. The case has already cost Elsevier a $10,000 sanction from a judge.

Global Plasma Solutions (GPS), which makes air quality products, sued Elsevier in 2022 after the publisher declined to retract a 2021 paper in Building and Environment about GPS’ needlepoint bipolar ionization technology, which it heavily marketed during the COVID-19 pandemic as an air purifier. The complaint claims Elsevier is responsible for the authors’ alleged omission of data and misleading conclusions in the paper that fueled “massive” financial losses for the company, its lawyers claim. Elsevier knew the paper “failed peer review” under its “own standards,” but moved forward with the article despite this knowledge, according to GPS, which now goes by GPS Air.

The complaint has survived a bid by Elsevier to dismiss the case, and a trial has been set for Dec. 7. In allowing the case to proceed, U.S. Magistrate Judge David Keesler said in a May 2024 opinion that GPS has “plausibly alleged actual malice” by Elsevier defined as “knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth.” Chief Judge Martin Reidinger of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina upheld Keesler’s recommendation in July 2025.

Ceramics journal pulls dozens of papers flagged for integrity concerns

A materials science journal has pulled 56 papers so far this year for transgressions including image overlap, concerns about data integrity and “suspicious” changes in authorship.

Ceramics International began retracting the papers in July. More than 50 of the retractions were requested by an “impartial field expert acting in the role of an independent Publishing Ethics advisor,” according to the notices.

Most of the retraction notices – 43 – reference PubPeer comments calling out issues with the work. In emails we have seen, scientific sleuth Mu Yang flagged 80 papers from Ceramics International to the journal’s publisher, Elsevier, on April 23, 2025.

Sage issues dozens of retractions from two journals it acquired

In recent weeks Sage has retracted batches of articles published in two journals it acquired from IOS Press in 2023. In each case, the retractions were for manipulation of, and concerns about, peer review.

The first tranche of papers was retracted July 15 from Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems (JIFS) and constituted 43 papers, some of which had been presented at a conference in Türkiye. According to the retraction notice, after an internal investigation, Sage “became aware that the submissions contain indicators of third-party involvement and attempts to manipulate the peer-review process” in the special issue.

The second batch of retractions applied to 34 papers in the International Journal of Knowledge-Based and Intelligent Engineering Systems from 2017 to 2025. The August 5 notice cites suspicion of third party involvement, peer review issues, citation manipulation and non-standard language, including tortured phrases, as reasons for retracting the articles. Tortured phrases can indicate plagiarism.

Princeton student says she did not conduct the experiments described in her now-retracted paper

A figure from the now-retracted paper in *Macromolecular Materials and Engineering* shows the “hypothesized effects” of the experiments described in the study.

Earlier this week, Retraction Watch reported on a Princeton student’s decision to retract her own paper from an engineering journal due to “significant methodological errors.” The student, Rishika Porandla, now tells us she never conducted the experiments described in the study.

“The beam experiment described in the paper was a proposed experimental workflow with associated calculated results,” she wrote in an email. “Public confusion led me to recognize and regret that this is not clear in the retracted publication, and I have included detailed clarification in an updated retraction statement to Wiley.”

Porandla’s original article, published in 2024 in Macromolecular Materials and Engineering based on work she did while in high school, claimed to show it was possible to enhance the biodegradation of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, by mixing it with gold nanoparticles and blasting it with an electron beam.

A college student had to retract her paper. The move was ‘the starting point for a better study’

Rishika Porandla published a paper based on research she did in high school. As a sophomore at Princeton, she revisited the work — and found errors in the methodology, leading her to retract the study.

Note, August 14, 2026: See an update to this story: “Princeton student says she did not conduct the experiments described in her now-retracted paper.”

As a sophomore at Princeton University, Rishika Porandla took a course called “The Curious Scientist,” where students practice disciplinary research skills and act as a “PI” on a project of their choosing.

Porandla didn’t have to think twice about what subject to dive into. In high school, she had studied the biodegradability of polyvinyl chloride and discovered a new process to break down the plastic. The finding led to one of her proudest high school achievements — a published journal article. She was eager to use the Princeton class to advance her discovery.

From the outset, Porandla’s project for the class seemed like “a slam dunk,” Andrea DiGiorgio, the course’s instructor, told Retraction Watch.

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