A paper published this October in the journal Frontiers In Neuroscience was retracted the following month because the authors’ collaborators did not give them permission to publish some of the data.
The paper detailed how and why the authors use the software program Nengo to test large simulations of nervous system networks. As part of the research, the authors tested five systems, one of which they were working on with another group. Due to a “miscommunication,” the authors thought they had received permission to publish the data; they plan to resubmit a paper describing the other four systems.
A journal is pulling a paper that reported a grain sample in Texas tested positive for mad cow disease after the authors asked to change the results to say the sample contained “animal protein prohibited for use in ruminant feed.”
Shortly after the paper was published in October, the authors contacted the Journal of Food Protection to retract the finding that the grain sample tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). After review, the journal decided to retract the entire paper, with the authors’ agreement, citing changes that “significantly affect” the findings.
A JAMA study on an inexpensive treatment for osteoporosis has been retracted because the first author falsified or fabricated data. We’ve been expecting this one: An investigation at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, the bone researcher’s former workplace, had already revealed issues with the paper.
An internal memo sent to staff (available in full here) in October explained that the investigation had found “unequivocal evidence of systematic data manipulation” by Sophie Jamal, who had already resigned from her positions at WCH and the University of Toronto.
The study appeared to show that nitroglycerin ointment could have a small positive effect on bone mineral density in postmenopausal patients. It’s been cited 30 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s web of Knowledge. (That’s two more times than when we last reported on the paper: It was cited once by the investigation, and once by a paper that was published earlier in October, but had not yet been indexed.)
Authors have retracted a paper from the Journal of Neurosurgery that contained many errors, including mislabeled figures, anatomical errors, and mismatched citations. They said that the paper’s preparation was rushed and not all authors had a chance to verify that it was accurate.
Two of the authors of the paper had previously contacted the journal to request the paper be withdrawn. Jo Ann Eliason, communications manager for the Journal of Neurosurgery, said that the withdrawal request came too late, since the paper had already been published online: Continue reading Neuroanatomy paper riddled with errors pulled by authors
The authors of a paper about the benefits of an antioxidant found in blueberries known as pterostilbene have retracted it after their subsequent research suggested the antioxidant might actually be harmful.
The paper presented evidence that the antioxidant might help rats after heart attack, in part by inhibiting cell death (apoptosis). But according to the retraction note, more work
found that pterostilbene might induce apoptosis in the heart and can be harmful, and we are now focusing on the phenomenon.
A study characterizing subtypes of the bacteria that cause bacterial meningitis is being retracted after the authors didn’t have permission to publish the data, even though the data itself remain available in a public database.
The paper, in PLOS ONE, relied on a laboratory collection of patient samples. In October, the authors retracted it because they “did not have permission” from the laboratory “to publish the data in their current form.” The data — anonymized — are now available at PubMLST.
Researchers in Germany have retracted their 2011 article in the Journal of Bacteriology after another lab pointed out a fatal error in the paper.
The article, “Escherichia coli Exports Cyclic AMP via TolC,” came from a group at Tübingen University led by Klaus Hantke. The paper focuses on the crucial role of the membrane channel TolC in exporting cyclic AMP (cAMP)-cAMP receptor protein (CRP) complex, which regulates nearly 200 E. coli genes. According to the abstract:
The data demonstrate that export of cAMP via TolC is a most efficient way of E. coli to lower high concentrations of cAMP in the cell and maintain its sensitivity in changing metabolic environments.
Authors have retracted papers from Cell Metabolism and the Journal of Biological Chemistry after an investigation in Singapore found issues, including falsified data. The investigation is ongoing, and two additional retractions, along with two corrections, are on the horizon.
The investigation looked into papers by first authors Sudarsanareddy Lokireddy, now a postdoc at Harvard, and Sandhya Sriram, a postdoc at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research in Singapore. Led by the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, where some of the work was done, the investigation concluded that there were issues with six papers on which either Sriram or Lokireddy was first author.
All authors but Lokireddy have agreed to retractions or corrections. Ravi Kambadur of NTU, and Mridula Sharma at the National University of Singapore, are the last two authors on all the papers.
If you could help reduce the waste of tens of billions of dollars per year in research spending, you’d do it, right?
This is the second in a series of two guest posts about the havoc misidentified cell lines can wreak on research, from Leonard P. Freedman, president of the Global Biological Standards Institute. Freedman who published a paper last summer detailing the financial costs of non-reproducible research — namely, tens of billions of dollars per year. Some of that non-reproducible research is due to the use of contaminated or misidentified cell lines. He writes about one key step to tackling the problem: Ask every scientist to use a relatively inexpensive technique to validate the identity of their cell lines.
Meanwhile, we have to deal with the issue of all the previously published papers that relied on problematic cell lines, now contaminating the scientific literature. Scroll down to the bottom of the post to take a poll on what you think should be done about those papers.
Leonard Freedman
As new frontiers of science emerge, from Pluto to proteins, the very cornerstone of the scientific process—reproducibility—has also reared its head as a huge problem. Estimates of irreproducibility rates of published peer-reviewed papers range from 51% to 89%. An analysis that two colleagues and I recently published in PLOS Biology suggests the U.S. spends $28 billion per year on non-reproducible preclinical research; global spending could be up to $60 billion per year. This lack of reproducibility typically results from cumulative errors or flaws in one or more of the following areas: biological reagents and reference materials, study design, laboratory protocols, and data analysis and reporting. Given the size, scale, and especially the complexity of reproducing preclinical research, there is no single magic bullet fix. This is a difficult issue for scientists to own up to, and for the public to grasp.
Authors have retracted a large meta-analysis claiming that rising levels of carbon dioxide don’t always reduce nutrients in plants.
After commenters on PubPeer raised concerns, the authors say they found several unintentional errors in their data that could “significantly change conclusions” of the paper in Plant Ecology, according to the retraction note.
The paper found that the impact of rising CO2 depends on many factors — in some cases, extra amounts of this greenhouse gas could actually increase plant nutrients. Trouble is, some of the papers that cited the now-retracted article came to the opposite conclusion: Increased carbon dioxide levels do decrease plant nutrients.
The retraction note for “CO2 effects on plant nutrient concentration depend on plant functional group and available nitrogen: a meta-analysis” explains some of the specifics of the errors, and says that there was “no evidence of bias:”
A paper published this October in the journal Frontiers In Neuroscience was retracted the following month because the authors’ collaborators did not give them permission to publish some of the data.
