Doing the right thing: Yale psychology lab retracts monkey papers for inaccurate coding

developmental scienceIn the midst of the holiday season, it’s a pleasure to be able to share the story of a scientist doing the right thing at significant professional cost — especially a researcher in psychology, a field that has been battered lately by scandal.

Sometime after publishing two papers — one in Developmental Science and another in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology — Yale’s Laurie Santos and her students realized there were problems with their data. We’ll let Santos — who made sure to respond to our request for comment immediately, in the midst of holiday travel, so that we had all the details and could help get the word out — tell the story: Continue reading Doing the right thing: Yale psychology lab retracts monkey papers for inaccurate coding

“Not suitable in this context” means retraction in pharmacology journal

pbbPharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior had a curious retraction notice in September that we’re just now getting around to, but we think you’ll find it to have been worth the wait.

The article, “Interaction of Somatostatin Receptor-2 and Neuropeptide Y Receptor-1 in mice dorsal root ganglion neurons on the Pinch-Nerve injury model,” came from a group in Harbin, China, and Frieburg, Germany, and was published in April 2013.

According to the notice: Continue reading “Not suitable in this context” means retraction in pharmacology journal

None for all, as selfish co-author loses adhesion paper by cutting out colleagues

TASTcover 1..2Authors should stick together, right?

A materials scientist in France has learned that lesson the hard way, having been forced to retract his 2012 paper in the Journal of Adhesion Science and Technology because he neglected to list any of his co-authors.

The paper, “A generalized cure model for one-part room temperature vulcanizing sealants and adhesives,” was written — ostensibly, at least — by François de Buyl, whose LinkedIn page says is a lighting engineer at Dow Corning Europe. (He worked as a materials scientist at Dow prior to that.) de Buyl is the sole author on the paper, which is why we’re reading the following notice from the journal: Continue reading None for all, as selfish co-author loses adhesion paper by cutting out colleagues

Chip off the old block: Pregnancy paper yanked for plagiarism

journal of pregnancyThe Journal of Pregnancy has retracted a 2012 article by a pair of researchers in Iran who lifted the contents from an article published 10 years previous.

The paper, “The Effects of Fetal Gender on Serum Human Chorionic Gonadotropin and Testosterone in Normotensive and Preeclamptic Pregnancies,” was written by Nahid Lorzadeh and Sirous Kazemirad, OBs at Lorestan University of Medical Sciences. It has yet to be cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Chip off the old block: Pregnancy paper yanked for plagiarism

“This unfortunate incident”: Resubmission leads to retraction of readmission paper

j surg oncThe Journal of Surgical Oncology has retracted a 2007 paper on hospitalizations of breast cancer patients for being a duplicate of another, presumably earlier, article. Although the usable information in the retraction notice ends just about there.

The article, “Factors Affecting Hospital Readmission Rates for Breast Cancer Patients in Western Australia,” appeared online in January 2007 in the journal and came from a group at the School of Finance and Applied Statistics at Australian National University in Canberra.

According to the notice: Continue reading “This unfortunate incident”: Resubmission leads to retraction of readmission paper

Ulrich Lichtenthaler notches retraction 13

acad manageUlrich Lichtenthaler, the management professor who has had a dozen papers retracted, has lost another.

Here’s the notice from the Academy of Management Journal for “Absorptive Capacity, Environmental Turbulence, and the Complementarity of Organizational Learning Processes:” Continue reading Ulrich Lichtenthaler notches retraction 13

“He certainly has some chutzpah!” More plagiarism retractions for sex researcher Ramello

jagingstudWe’ve been alerted to a third retracted paper, and a retracted book chapter, for Stefano Ramello, a self-styled “independent researcher” into sexual identity.

Turns out there wasn’t so much independence after all.

The article, “Same sex acts involving older men. An ethnographic study,” had appeared in the  April 2013 issue of the Journal of Aging Studies. According to the retraction notice: Continue reading “He certainly has some chutzpah!” More plagiarism retractions for sex researcher Ramello

More retractions for authors who duplicated — and did their own peer review

spectroscopylettersAdd to the retraction pile for a pair of chemists in Iran who duplicated their work — and reviewed their own articles to boot.

The authors, Kobra Pourabdollah and Bahram Mokhtari, are affiliated with the Razi Chemistry Research Center in the Shahreza Branch of Islamic Azad University. In September, we reported on the retractions of three articles by the researchers in Synthesis and Reactivity in Inorganic, Metal-Organic, and Nano-Metal Chemistry.

Readers then alerted us to five other retractions in the Journal of Coordination Chemistry — although these papers did not appear (at least by the retraction notice) to have involved self-reviewing.

The duo now also has lost a 2012 article in Spectroscopy Letters: An International Journal for Rapid Communication. , which has been cited twice, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. According to the notice: Continue reading More retractions for authors who duplicated — and did their own peer review

Cancer biology group notches sixth retraction, and earns an Expression of Concern

bjcA group at the University of Texas Southwestern that retracted five papers last year has retracted one more, and has had a paper subjected to an Expression of Concern at the request of the school’s dean.

Here’s the retraction notice for “DNA methylation-associated inactivation of TGFβ-related genes, DRM/Gremlin, RUNX3, and HPP1 in human cancers,” originally published in the British Journal of Cancer and cited 51 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge:
Continue reading Cancer biology group notches sixth retraction, and earns an Expression of Concern

Third retraction for Karel Bezouška, of lab break-in fame

bichaw_v052i049.inddWe’ve found a third retraction for Karel Bezouška, the Czech scientist, who, as we reported this summer, broke into a lab in an attempt to tamper with experiments trying to replicate his own falsified data.

The article, “Molecular Characterization of Binding of Calcium and Carbohydrates by an Early Activation Antigen of Lymphocytes CD69,” had appeared in 2003 in Biochemistry. and has been cited 29 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading Third retraction for Karel Bezouška, of lab break-in fame