Category: duplication retractions

Astrophysics retraction trail includes paper that plagiarized another already retracted for…plagiarism

Sometimes, the full story of scientific misdeeds isn’t clear until several retraction notices appear. Take the case of a group of Vietnamese astrophysicists led by Thong Duc Le.

If you were to read a Physics Letters B retraction notice about one of the group’s papers, “Search for cosmological time variation of the fine-structure constant using low-redshifts of quasar,” you wouldn’t have any idea why the paper was retracted, nor that the move was related to any other retractions: Continue reading Astrophysics retraction trail includes paper that plagiarized another already retracted for…plagiarism

Skin in the game: Derm journal retracts identical cancer case study submitted by two groups at the same facility

It seems the faculty at Myongji Hospital, in Goyang, Korea, have some ‘splainin to do.

Two groups of physicians from the hospital, part of Kwandong University College of Medicine, published case reports on a rare form of basal cell carcinoma. Turns out they were writing about the same patient.

According to a retraction notice in the Annals of Dermatology, a publication of the Korean Dermatological Association and the Korean Society for Investigative Dermatology: Continue reading Skin in the game: Derm journal retracts identical cancer case study submitted by two groups at the same facility

Correcting The Anatomical Record: Article pulled after former student lifted lab findings

The Anatomical Record, the official organ of the American Association of Anatomists, weighs its acceptances on “the quality of the research, its originality and significance to our readership.”

So it’s not surprising that when it gets duped, it gets angry.

Consider the following retraction notice that appeared recently in the publication for an article it ran early 2010: Continue reading Correcting The Anatomical Record: Article pulled after former student lifted lab findings

Pair of graphene papers retracted

Graphene has been hot for several years. Here’s what the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences had to say about it in 2010 when awarding two researchers the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work:

Graphene is a form of carbon. As a material it is completely new – not only the thinnest ever but also the strongest. As a conductor of electricity it performs as well as copper. As a conductor of heat it outperforms all other known materials. It is almost completely transparent, yet so dense that not even helium, the smallest gas atom, can pass through it. Carbon, the basis of all known life on earth, has surprised us once again.

But one researcher may have allowed his enthusiasm for graphene to get ahead of him. He and his unwitting co-authors have now lost two papers thanks to that enthusiasm. Continue reading Pair of graphene papers retracted

JACS temporarily pulls “space dinosaurs” paper for alleged duplication

Duplication has, as we noted on Twitter the other day, been tripping up more and more scientists. And now self-plagiarism has snared a prominent Columbia University chemist in a paper that left many people scratching their heads to begin with.

As reported by the Chembark blog and Nature, the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) has pulled a paper by Ronald Breslow for alleged duplication. The page for “On Evidence for the Likely Origin of Homochirality in Amino Acids, Sugars, and Nucleosides on Prebiotic Earth,” originally published on March 25, now includes this: Continue reading JACS temporarily pulls “space dinosaurs” paper for alleged duplication

Surgery journal retracts cancer paper for duplication after “naive” response from authors

The Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England has an informative retraction notice about a recent paper it published that was marred by self-plagiarism. The article, “Current concepts of surveillance and its significance in head and neck cancer,” from a group of researchers at Grant Medical College, in Mumbai (which is known to this blog) and Royal Marsden Hospital in London, appeared last November. It soon was found to be awfully similar to a 2009 article by the same group of authors (sort of) in a different journal.

Here’s what the Annals had to say: Continue reading Surgery journal retracts cancer paper for duplication after “naive” response from authors

Group investigated by University of Louisville corrects lung cancer paper after retracting six others

A group of researchers whose work has been under investigation at the University of Louisville has issued a correction for a paper in the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology (AJRCMB).

The correction follows three retractions each in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and the AJRCMB, the latter of which made it clear that lab member ShouWei Han was responsible for the manipulations and duplications that brought down the papers. Here’s the new notice, which appeared in the March 1, 2012 issue of the journal: Continue reading Group investigated by University of Louisville corrects lung cancer paper after retracting six others

Crise de foie: Liver journals retract duplicate biomarker pubs

Two liver journals have retracted articles from a group of Irani researchers who published similar — but not quite identical — versions of the same paper some months apart.

A retraction notice in the Journal of Gastrointestinal and Liver Diseases — which bills itself as the “Official Journal of the Romanian Societies of Gastroenterology” — explains what happened: Continue reading Crise de foie: Liver journals retract duplicate biomarker pubs

Third retraction arrives for Alirio Melendez, this one in the Journal of Cellular Physiology

Alirio Melendez, the former National University of Singapore researcher who has already retracted two papers in the midst of an investigation into about 70 of his publications, has had a third retracted a third.

Here’s the notice from the Journal of Cellular Physiology: Continue reading Third retraction arrives for Alirio Melendez, this one in the Journal of Cellular Physiology

Salami slicing and heart attacks don’t mix: Duplication, lack of transparency lead to retraction

A group of French cardiology researchers have retracted a study of a potential way to rule out heart attacks, after it became clear they had used data from another study without alerting the journal.

In an unusually forthright letter accompanying the retraction of “Concomitant measurement of copeptin and high-sensitivity troponin for fast and reliable rule out of acute myocardial infarction,” originally published in Intensive Care Medicine, Bruno Riou and colleagues note: Continue reading Salami slicing and heart attacks don’t mix: Duplication, lack of transparency lead to retraction