Some people can look at an old photograph of a person — say, of your grandmother in elementary school — and tell whether the person is today alive or dead, according to a paper published last spring.
If that sounds too weird to be true…well, it might be. The journal editors have retracted the paper for not having enough evidence to back up its claims, despite the authors’ objections.
However, the latest retraction affects a paper published eight years later in the International Journal of Oncology. Its coauthors include Bhagavathi Narayanan, Narayanan K. Narayanan and Rajkishen Narayanan; we haven’t been able to uncover if there is a relation between them.
Researchers have retracted a study about malaria infections in India after follow-up research unveiled problems with the data and set off a dispute among the authors.
According to the notice, when the authors continued their research on the same topic, some of the new data raised concerns about what was reported in the 2010 paper. That set off a “number of disputes between authors,” which led them to retract the paper.
This account was supported by the study’s first and corresponding author, Naitik Trivedi, from the A.R. College of Pharmacy & G.H. Patel Institute of Pharmacy in Anand, Gujarat, India. Trivedi told us he believes the previous study didn’t include some relevant parameters, which affected the results.
Journals have flagged two papers by prominent social psychologist Jens Förster — whose work has been subject to much scrutiny — over concerns regarding the validity of the data.
Förster already has three retractions, following an investigation by his former employer, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) in the Netherlands. In 2014, we reported on the first retraction for Förster for one of three studies with odd patterns that were flagged by the UvA investigation, a 2012 paper in Social Psychological and Personality Science;subsequently, the Netherlands Board on Research Integrity concluded that data had been manipulated. Three statistical experts from the UvA then carried out a more in-depth analysis of 24 publications by Förster, and found eight to have “strong evidence for low scientific veracity.”
Some scientists raise their eyebrows when they see a paper was accepted only a day or two after being submitted — which is exactly what happened during an academic debate over a controversial topic: e-cigarettes.
The editor of the journal that published both of the cited papers in question — Toxicology Reports — told us the papers were peer reviewed at Toxicology, but transferred to his journal as part of a process known as portable peer review.
An ecology journal has issued an expression of concern (EOC) for a recently published study, citing an institutional investigation about the data and conclusions.
According to the notice — issued by the Journal of Applied Ecology — the author’s institution in South Africa has received a report from an independent examiner. The editors are reviewing the paper — about reducing the impact of lethal carnivores such as black-backed jackals — “in light of this information.”
An official from the journal told us the investigation has to do with “relevant background information” that was not included in the study, published online in December.
Cell Press journals will not be retracting two papers that were flagged with expressions of concern (EOCs) in April after one author claimed to have manipulated some experiments.
In a strange turn of events, as we previously reported, the study’s corresponding author refuted the claims of the author who confessed to fraud, citing concerns about his “motives and credibility.” Since then, two independent labs repeated the authors’ experiments, and “largely confirm” the central conclusions of a Cell paper, but were inconclusive regarding a paper in Molecular Cell. Regardless, in both cases, the journals have decided to take no further action.
Both expressions of concern (and their associated editorial notes) will remain online, as part of the “permanent record,” a Cell Press spokesperson told us.
Only a few months after publication, an environmental journal has told an activist group it plans to retract a paper about the safety of roofing products containing asbestos after facing heavy criticism.
This summer, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene (JOEH) received multiple letters asking theto retract the paper. Critics of the paper — which concluded that exposures to asbestos-containing roofing products were within safety limits — argued the article provided misleading information, grouped different materials with different asbestos exposures together, and failed to note the approving editor’s ties to the asbestos industry.
The article was published as a case study, which is considered a type of “column” by the journal, thereby bypassing its peer-review system; according to an email the journal sent to the organization Right on Canada (which a representative forwarded to Retraction Watch), this served as the basis for the journal’s decision to pull the paper.
Damien Hirst’s “Away From The Flock” — exhibited at Tate Britain, via Flickr Commons
The corresponding author of the study that detected toxic leaks from the work of prominent British artist Damien Hirst has now retracted it — but most of his co-authors disagree with the decision.
Tate and Hirst’s company, Science Limited, immediately objected to the results; we’ve obtained what appears to be letter from a lawyer for Science Limited to the corresponding author of the paper — Pier Giorgio Righetti of the Polytechnic University of Milan in Italy — saying it was “deeply concerned and troubled by the claims” in the paper.
Research integrity officials at Georgia State University say a psychology researcher did not commit misconduct in a controversial 2015 paper in JAMA Pediatrics which challenged the notion that most rapists on college campuses are repeat offenders.
GSU launched the inquiry after an outside researcher questioned the validity of data supplied to him by Kevin Swartout.
Some people can look at an old photograph of a person — say, of your grandmother in elementary school — and tell whether the person is today alive or dead, according to a paper published last spring.
Researchers have retracted their third paper due to missing original data, following an investigation at their former institution in New York. 
