Category: by publisher

Elsevier on Retraction Watch: “scholarly publishing is better for it”

It’s fair to say that we’ve been watching Elsevier over the past two-plus years, and we’ve also known they’ve been watching us. Last year, Tom Reller, the company’s vice president of global public relations, wrote that we “represent the new breed of science watchdog that is able to promote the results of their own investigations quickly via the internet.”

But as Reller notes in a thoughtful post today at ElsevierConnect: Continue reading Elsevier on Retraction Watch: “scholarly publishing is better for it”

Radioactive fish study retracted for “significant and extensive” corrections

The authors of a study estimating how much radioactive material from two sunken Russian submarines is taken up by fish in the Barents Sea have retracted it, citing the need for “significant and extensive” corrections.

Here’s the notice, from Environmental Pollution: Continue reading Radioactive fish study retracted for “significant and extensive” corrections

Another retraction from chiropractic researchers for lack of ethics approval

Chiropractic & Manual Therapies — formerly known as Chiropractic & Osteopathy — has retracted a 2010 paper by a team of Australian researchers who failed to obtain institutional review board (IRB) approval for their studies.

As the notice for “A descriptive study of a manual therapy intervention within a randomised controlled trial for hamstring and lower limb injury prevention” explains: Continue reading Another retraction from chiropractic researchers for lack of ethics approval

Two Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Advances retractions, for unreliable results, surprised author

Authors of two separate studies in RSC Advances — RSC is the Royal Society of Chemistry — have retracted their papers.

Here’s one notice, for “Laser-induced gold/chitosan nanocomposites with tailored wettability applied to multi-irradiated microfluidic channels:” Continue reading Two Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Advances retractions, for unreliable results, surprised author

Did a McLuhan moment lead to retraction in Chemistry — A European Journal?

The authors of a chemistry paper are retracting it after a Columbia University chemistry researcher pointed out a fatal misinterpretation of his own work in it.

Here’s the notice in Chemistry — A European Journal: Continue reading Did a McLuhan moment lead to retraction in Chemistry — A European Journal?

Correction for MD Anderson’s Bharat Aggarwal arches eyebrows for the right reasons

We’ve written about mega-corrections that allow scientists to retrace virtually all of their steps yet preserve their publications as supposedly legitimate. And we’ve seen plenty of corrections that allow authors to assert that their conclusions are correct when evidently important pieces of data are themselves unreliable.

Now comes a correction that seems to us to strike the right chords, given the fact that editors are to a large extent at the mercy of authors in these situations. Continue reading Correction for MD Anderson’s Bharat Aggarwal arches eyebrows for the right reasons

The domino effect: More retractions of papers that cited retracted PLoS ONE GMO cassava study

Last month, we reported on a PLoS ONE paper about genetically modified cassava — or, more correctly, allegedly GMO cassava — that was being retracted because data “could not be found.” We have an update on that story, namely that a paper relying on materials from that lab will be retracted, and that authors of a review that included a figure from the graduate student who claimed to have done the work will retract part of their paper.

As a Retraction Watch commenter on our earlier post noted, referring to Claude Fauquet, the PI of the Danforth Center lab where graduate student Mohammad Abhary worked: Continue reading The domino effect: More retractions of papers that cited retracted PLoS ONE GMO cassava study

Herbal arthritis remedy study retracted for “copyright issues”

The authors of a clinical study of an herbal medication have retracted after it became clear that one of the study authors had included two figures without the consent of his co-investigators.

The paper was a study of Green Cross Corporation of Korea’s SHINBARO, which was approved last year for the treatment of osteoarthritis by the Korean FDA.

The editors of the Archives of Pharmacal Research, where the research found a home, ran this notice: Continue reading Herbal arthritis remedy study retracted for “copyright issues”

Bad vibrations: Composites paper pulled after subsequent, duplicate article appears

Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering is retracting a 2011 paper by an Italian researcher who submitted a similar article to another journal. What makes this interesting is that the retracted article appears to be the one that was published first.

The article, “Free vibrations of laminated composite doubly-curved shells and panels of revolution via the GDQ method,” was written by Francesco Tornabene, an engineer at the University of Bologna and has been cited five times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. As the notice explains: Continue reading Bad vibrations: Composites paper pulled after subsequent, duplicate article appears

Expressions of regret: group retracts sedation paper for stolen words, data

A group of researchers in China have retracted a 2011 article in Acta Pharmacologica Sinica, the official journal of the Chinese Pharmacological Society, acknowledging that they lifted text and results from a previously published paper from other researchers.

The paper was titled “Lipid metabolism disturbances and AMPK activation in prolonged propofol-sedated rabbits under mechanical ventilation.”

According to the notice: Continue reading Expressions of regret: group retracts sedation paper for stolen words, data