From the Not Saying What You Mean Files: Environmental Monitoring and Assessment has retracted a recent article by authors in Kuwait who appear to have plagiarized, although you couldn’t really tell from the notice.
The paper, “Detection of bacterial endotoxin in drinking tap and bottled water in Kuwait,” appeared in the December 2012 issue of the journal, which is a Springer title. Continue reading Referencing failure (we mean, plagiarism) leads to retraction of water testing paper
A group of researchers at Bristol-Myers Squibb has had a paper retracted for reasons we can’t quite figure out.
All the notice for “Simultaneous expression of antibody light and heavy chains in Pichia pastoris: improving retransformation outcome by linearizing vector at a different site,” published in Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, says is: Continue reading Paper by Bristol-Myers Squibb researchers retracted for “unsolved legal reasons”
Back in March, we wrote about the case of Chinese researchers who pulled their 2011 paper in the Journal of Molecular Medicine on ginseng’s potential as a heart remedy because a couple of their images were suspect (duplicated was the word they’d used).
Turns out the journal suffered some collateral damage. JMM also has corrected a “Clinical Implications” article by a group of Canadian researchers about the defunct ginseng paper.
The article, “Use of ginseng to reduce post-myocardial adverse myocardial remodeling: applying scientific principles to the use of herbal therapies,” appeared in the same issue as the original, but for some reason the correction notice appeared online only last week.
It states: Continue reading Retraction for image issues forces correction of herbal remedies editorial
BMC Genomics has issued an expression of concern for a 2011 paper by a prominent Argentine chemist, Ariel Fernandez, whose work covers several disciplines — “His research spans representation theory in algebra, physical chemistry, molecular biophysics, and more recently, molecular evolution and drug discovery” — and institutions. And therein lies the tale.
Fernandez appeared as the first author of the article, titled “Subfunctionalization reduces the fitness cost of gene duplication in humans by buffering dosage imbalances,” along with a pair of researchers from Taiwan. Fernandez’s affiliations were listed as being with the Instituto Argentino de Matemática “Alberto P. Calderón”, CONICET (National Research Council of Argentina), in Buenos Aires, the Department of Computer Science at the University of Chicago, and the Morgridge Institute for Research, in Madison, Wisc.
According to the abstract:
Continue reading “Conflicting investigations” prompt expression of concern in BMC Genomics
We’ve already reported on the retraction of a paper in a business ethics journal for plagiarism. Yes, plagiarism in an ethics journal. But it turns out there’s at least one more case of exactly the same thing, albeit in a different business ethics journal.
Here’s the notice from the Journal of Business Ethics: Continue reading University of Virginia doctoral candidate plagiarizes in business ethics journal, but remains in program
SpringerPlus has retracted a 2012 paper by a pair of Saudi mathematicians who lifted text and figures from previously published articles.
The paper, “On soft expert topological spaces,” appeared in October 2012. According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Plagiarism leads to retraction of math paper
A pair of Iranian physicists is facing the retraction of one of their papers after editors found out some of the work was plagiarized from two textbooks and an encyclopedia.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Plagiarism of textbooks, encyclopedia leads to physics retraction
Every now and then, we see retraction notices that refer vaguely to legal issues. Sometimes, we can dig up the actual reason. But the European Biophysics Journal has two retractions that leave us completely in the dark.
The two notices basically say the same thing. Here’s one: Continue reading “Unsolved legal reasons” cause retraction of two biophysics papers
A group of researchers from Shangdong, China, has retracted their 2011 paper in the Journal of Molecular Medicine on the heart-protective properties of a substance in ginseng because the article contained dodgy figures.
The article, “Ginsenoside-Rg1 enhances angiogenesis and ameliorates ventricular remodeling in a rat model of myocardial infarction,” purported to show that ginsenoside: Continue reading Image problems lead to demise of paper on ginseng for heart attack
Here’s something we haven’t seen before: A group of researchers plagiarize, are called on it, and are then allowed to resubmit a new version that’s published, while their offending paper is retracted.
A reader flagged the plagiarism in the original paper, “Protein domains, catalytic activity, and subcellular distribution of mouse NTE-related esterase,” by Ping’an Chang and colleagues, which led the research team to revise and resubmit the manuscript. After the journal Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry — a Springer title — published the plagiarism-scrubbed paper, the original paper required retraction.
The retraction refers to a dispute between labs, but not plagiarism: Continue reading You plagiarized? No problem, says journal, we’ll retract so you can rewrite, and we’ll republish