by publisher – Page 2 – Retraction Watch

Springer Nature book on machine learning is full of made-up citations

Would you pay $169 for an introductory ebook on machine learning with citations that appear to be made up?

If not, you might want to pass on purchasing Mastering Machine Learning: From Basics to Advanced, published by Springer Nature in April.

Based on a tip from a reader, we checked 18 of the 46 citations in the book. Two-thirds of them either did not exist or had substantial errors. And three researchers cited in the book confirmed the works they supposedly authored were fake or the citation contained substantial errors.

COPE integrity officer loses 22-year-old paper for image concerns

The concerning figure from the paper, Fig. 2A, with increased contrast, courtesy of “Mycosphaerella arachidis” on PubPeer.

A journal has retracted a 22-year-old-paper whose first author is the integrity officer for the Committee on Publication Ethics over concerns about image editing that “would not be acceptable by modern standards of figure presentation.”

The 2003 paper, “A recombinant H1 histone based system for efficient delivery of nucleic acids,” was published in Elsevier’s Journal of Biotechnology and has been cited 41 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

Sleuth Sholto David, who goes by the name “Mycosphaerella arachidis” on PubPeer, raised concerns about the image in December 2023, pointing out a “[d]ark rectangle” that appeared to be “superimposed onto the image.”

Editors won’t retract talc and cancer article J&J says is false in court

A journal will not retract a paper linking use of talc-based baby powder to cancer, despite legal pressure from the pharmaceutical giant that made the product.

A lawyer representing a unit of Johnson & Johnson in May asked editors of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine to retract a paper on cases of mesothelioma associated with cosmetic talc, following the court-ordered release of the identities of the people described in the article.

The lawyer alleged many of the patients had other exposures to asbestos than cosmetic talc, rendering the article’s fundamental claims “false.”

Journal corrects nearly 100 papers after authors fail to disclose they are on the editorial board

Wiley has issued a mass correction at one of its journals after finding nearly 100 papers with undisclosed conflicts of interest related to submissions by board members and relationships between authors and journal editors.

An investigation found conflict of interest issues in 98 papers published from 2020 to 2025 in Geological Journal, although the issues may have gone on before then, sleuths suggest. Nearly a third of the papers shared a single co-author — an associate editor at the journal.

That editor’s contract was not renewed, we have learned.

According to the correction notice, issued in early May, the journal had not taken “measures to manage potential conflicts of interest between authors and editors” for 98 articles.

Springer Nature psycholinguistics journal retracts over a dozen articles for authorship, peer review issues

A journal has retracted 16 papers after a whistleblower flagged it for “irregularities” in peer review, among other concerns.

The Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, a Springer Nature title, published the papers between 2021 and 2024. The articles covered research ranging from studies of the work of Haruki Murakami and Kazakh literature to English reading fluency and the teaching competence of parents of children with cochlear implants.

Thirteen of the 16 articles have been cited one to five times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science; one article has been cited 19 times, the highest of the bunch.

When PubMed got it right, Elsevier got it wrong, and Retraction Watch helped clear it up

More than 20 years after publishing a letter saying a set of papers should be retracted — and PubMed marking them as such — the journal has finally retracted the articles, following a Retraction Watch inquiry.

Let’s back up.

In 1998, the journal Contraception published a supplement with six articles on Implanon, a subdermal contraceptive implant. The papers examined the implant’s pharmacodynamics and side effects. The next year, the journal published two clinical studies of the implant, one on its effectiveness as a contraceptive and the other on its effect on lipid metabolism.

Those two studies took place at centers in Jakarta, Indonesia. Some of the study data published in the supplement also included patients at those centers.

Journal tells author it’s retracting three papers for concept that ‘violates’ law of thermodynamics

A physics journal has informed an embattled rocket scientist that it will retract three of his papers, citing concerns raised by the retraction of another of his papers last year.

All three articles appear in Physics of Fluids, published by AIP Publishing, and describe a phenomenon called “Sanal flow choking.” As we reported last year, some scientists have denounced the concept as “absolute nonsense.” The researcher who coined the phrase is the lead author on all papers, V.R. Sanal Kumar, a professor of aerospace engineering at Amity University in New Delhi.

The papers are:

Paper on “wokeness” and mental health retracted for political reasons, authors say

The authors of an article linking scores on a “wokeness” scale and mental health issues are blaming political bias for the retraction of their paper in March following post-publication peer review.

The article, “Do Conservatives Really Have an Advantage in Mental Health? An Examination of Measurement Invariance,” appeared in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology last August. It has been cited twice, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, one being the retraction notice.

“Following publication of this article, concerns were raised by third parties about the conclusions drawn by the authors based on the data provided,” according to the March 26 notice. After investigating, the publisher and the journal “concluded that the article contains major errors involving methods, theory, and normatively biased language,” which “bring into doubt the conclusions drawn by the authors,” the notice stated. The authors disagreed with the decision.

In a blog post, one author, Emil Kirkegaard, called the journal’s action “my first politically motivated retraction.” Kirkegaard’s studies and writings are provocative, on topics including race and IQ.

Researchers to pull duplicate submission after reviewer concerns and Retraction Watch inquiry

While doing a literature review earlier this spring, a human factors researcher came across a paper he had peer-reviewed. One problem: He had reviewed it – and recommended against publishing – for a different journal not long before the publication date of the paper he was now looking at.

Based on the published paper and documents shared with us, it appears the authors submitted the same manuscript to the journals Applied Sciences and Virtual Reality within 11 days of each other, and withdrew one version when the other was published.

And after we reached out to the authors, the lead author told us they plan to withdraw the published version next week – which the editor of the journal had called for in April but its publisher, MDPI, had not yet decided to do.

Correction finally issued seven years after authors promise fix ‘as soon as possible’

A journal has finally issued a correction following a seven-year-old exchange on PubPeer in which the authors promised to fix issues “as soon as possible.” But after following up with the authors and the journal, it’s still not clear where the delay occurred.

Neuron published the paper, “Common DISC1 Polymorphisms Disrupt Wnt/GSK3β Signaling and Brain Development,” in 2011. It has been cited 101 times, 28 of which came after concerns were first raised, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

It first appeared on PubPeer in April 2018, when commenter Epipactis voethii first pointed out figures 2 and 3 of the paper had potential image duplication.

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