Duplication forces retraction of liver cancer paper

biomed research intBioMed Research International has retracted a 2013 paper after it became clear that it was lifted from another 2013 paper about the same subject by some of the same authors.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Duplication forces retraction of liver cancer paper

JCI retracts 10-year-old cancer study because figures were “intentionally mislabeled”

jci june 14The Journal of Clinical Investigation is retracting a 2004 paper by a cancer researchers from Italy because of “evident misrepresentation of data and image duplication.”

Here’s the notice for “The IL-12Rβ2 gene functions as a tumor suppressor in human B cell malignancies:” Continue reading JCI retracts 10-year-old cancer study because figures were “intentionally mislabeled”

Plagiarism spells demise of complementary medicine paper

JEBCAMThe Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary Medicine (JEBCAM) has retracted a 2013 review on probiotics by an author from Turkey who patched the paper together from a variety of other sources — and then appears to have reused his own work elsewhere without attribution.

The article was written by Öner Özdemir, a pediatric allergy specialist at İstanbul Medeniyet University. According to the abstract: Continue reading Plagiarism spells demise of complementary medicine paper

Duck, duck, gone: Duplication plucks bird flu paper

zoonoses and public healthIf it looks like a duck flu study, and quacks like a duck flu study, and it’s word-for-word the same as a duck flu study…

Zoonoses and Public Health has retracted a 2013 paper on bird flu in Myanmar because the authors had published the article previously in a different journal.

The article, “Risks of Avian Influenza (H5) in Duck Farms in the Ayeyarwaddy Delta Region, Myanmar,” was written by a group led by Alongkorn Amonsin, of the Department of Veterinary Public Health at Chulalongkorn University, in Bangkok, Thailand.

Per the abstract: Continue reading Duck, duck, gone: Duplication plucks bird flu paper

Birds of a feather: Duplication grounds migration paper

wemcoverA group of bird researchers in China has lost their article in Wetlands Ecology and Management on the migratory habits of shorebirds after the editors of the journal learned that they’d cobbled the paper together from their own previously published work.

The article by Song et. al., “Ecological stability of the shorebird stopover site in the Yalu River Estuary Wetlands, China,” had appeared online in February.

Here’s the abstract: Continue reading Birds of a feather: Duplication grounds migration paper

A retraction involving Sarah Palin

prqFormer U.S. vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin is no stranger to retractions, or perhaps “walk backs,” as politicians usually call them. There was her apology for comments about Pope Francis, a clarification about comments thought to be directed at Rush Limbaugh, and a walk back on her behalf from her running mate, Sen. John McCain.

Now, a paper in the academic literature that refers to her has been retracted. Here’s the notice from Political Research Quarterly: Continue reading A retraction involving Sarah Palin

Stem cell researcher in Korea up to half a dozen retractions

stem cellsAlmost two years ago, we brought you — with the help of Trevor Stokes — the story of a stem cell researcher in Korea whose publication record, and career, unraveled after evidence of image manipulation surfaced in her work.

We’ve reported on four retractions, all in Antioxidants & Redox Signaling, by Soo-Kyung Kang, formerly of Seoul National University resulting from the efforts of a whistleblower. There has been another in Human Gene Therapy: Continue reading Stem cell researcher in Korea up to half a dozen retractions

Duplication in physics journal questions key tenet of quantum mechanics

cmpHere’s a physics question: How is it possible to be in two places at the same time?

Answer: Submit the same manuscript twice and hope the editors forget to feed Schrödinger’s cat.

The journal Condensed Matter Physics is retracting a 2013 paper by a Ukrainian scientist who’d published essentially the same paper seven years earlier.The article was titled “On the origin of power-law distributions in systems with constrained phase space,” and was written by an E.V. Vakarin, of the Institute for Condensed Matter Physics, in Lviv UMR 7575 LECA ENSCP-UPMC-CNRS.

According to the abstract: Continue reading Duplication in physics journal questions key tenet of quantum mechanics

Regenerative medicine, regenerative publishing

devbioDevelopmental Biology has retracted a 2009 paper by an group of regenerative medicine specialists who, it seems, were regenerating more than just cells.

The article, titled “The human placenta is a hematopoietic organ during the embryonic and fetal periods of development,” was led by Susan Fisher, of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. It has been cited 32 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

According to the abstract: Continue reading Regenerative medicine, regenerative publishing

Oh, the irony: Paper on “Ethics and Integrity of the Publishing Process” retracted for duplication

manage org reviewIn a case whose irony is not lost on those involved, an article about publishing ethics has been retracted because one of the authors re-used material he’d written for an earlier piece. But the authors and the journal’s editors have turned the episode into a learning opportunity.

Here’s the notice for “Ethics and Integrity of the Publishing Process: Myths, Facts, and a Roadmap,” published in 2011 by Marshall Schminke and Maureen L. Ambrose: Continue reading Oh, the irony: Paper on “Ethics and Integrity of the Publishing Process” retracted for duplication