Category: not reproducible

Study finds many authors aren’t sharing data when they publish — and leads to a PLOS ONE retraction

clinical chemistryA new study in Clinical Chemistry paints an alarming picture of how often scientists deposit data that they’re supposed to — but perhaps not surprisingly, papers whose authors did submit such data scored higher on a quality scale than those whose authors didn’t deposit their data.

Ken Witwer, a pathobiologist at Hopkins, was concerned that a lot of studies involving microarray-based microRNA (miRNA) weren’t complying with Minimum Information About a Microarray Experiment (MIAME) standards supposedly required by journals. So he looked at 127 such papers published between July 2011 and April 2012 in journals including PLOS ONE, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Blood, and Clinical Chemistry, assigning each one a quality score and checking whether the authors had followed guidelines.

What he uncovered wasn’t pretty — and has already led to a retraction. From the abstract: Continue reading Study finds many authors aren’t sharing data when they publish — and leads to a PLOS ONE retraction

Retraction six appears for Jesús Angel Lemus

royal lettersJesús A. Lemus, he of the likely ghost author and questionable data, has earned his sixth retraction, this one in Biology Letters.

Here’s the notice for “Stress associated with group living in a long-lived bird:” Continue reading Retraction six appears for Jesús Angel Lemus

Retraction three for Milena Penkowa, for diabetes-exercise study

diabetesMilena Penkowa, the former University of Copenhagen scientist found by her university to have embezzled grant funds and to have possibly committed misconduct in 15 papers, has another retraction.

An international panel released its findings in July, as Nature reported then: Continue reading Retraction three for Milena Penkowa, for diabetes-exercise study

Retractions three and four for Hopkins cancer biomarker group

ccrA group of cancer researchers formerly centered at Johns Hopkins have retracted two more studies. The previous two retracted papers — one of which was the focus of a lawsuit — were about prostate cancer, while the new retractions are of papers about colon cancer.

Here’s the notice for one paper: Continue reading Retractions three and four for Hopkins cancer biomarker group

Stem cell retraction leaves grad student in limbo, reveals tangled web of industry-academic ties

stem cells developmentA contested retraction in Stem Cells and Development has left the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) graduate student who fought for it in limbo, uncertain if he will earn his PhD. And many of those who didn’t want the paper retracted have a significant financial interest in a company whose work was promoted by the research — despite any lack of disclosure in the now-retracted paper.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Stem cell retraction leaves grad student in limbo, reveals tangled web of industry-academic ties

University of La Laguna ethics committee finds evidence of misconduct in chemists’ papers

jacsat_v134i049.inddA committee at the University of La Laguna (ULL), in Spain’s Canary Islands, has found evidence of misconduct by two chemists in at least two papers. One of those authors had already been forced to retract a paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS).

The story is complicated. Here’s a try at telling it: Continue reading University of La Laguna ethics committee finds evidence of misconduct in chemists’ papers

Accounting professor resigns following retraction

James Hunton, via Bentley University
James Hunton, via Bentley University

An accounting professor at a Boston-area college has resigned a month after publishing a retraction that has sparked extensive discussion on Retraction Watch.

The Boston Globe reported late last week that James E. Hunton will leave Bentley University on December 31, with a spokesperson telling the paper he was leaving for “family and health reasons.”

Hunton and a co-author retracted “A Field Experiment Comparing the Outcomes of Three Fraud Brainstorming Procedures: Nominal Group, Round Robin, and Open Discussion” from the Accounting Review on November 9. The notice was scant, but the authors left a comment on our post with details: Continue reading Accounting professor resigns following retraction

Math paper retracted because some of it makes “no sense mathematically”

appmathlett

What do you do when a math paper that contains some “constructions and arguments [that] make no sense mathematically” gets published?

If you’re Applied Mathematics Letters, you retract the paper, “For the origin of new geometry.” Here’s the notice: Continue reading Math paper retracted because some of it makes “no sense mathematically”

Poignancy in physics: Retraction for “fatal error” that couldn’t be patched

prl-bannerIn August of last year, Mladen Pavičić, chair of physics at the University of Zagreb’s Faculty of Civil Engineering, published a paper in Physical Review Letters on quantum teleportation, “Near-Deterministic Discrimination of All Bell States with Linear Optics.”

Just six days later, after hearing from a physicist in China, Pavičić — who is also affiliated with Harvard’s physics department — submitted a correction, which ran on the journal’s site in November. The correction begins: Continue reading Poignancy in physics: Retraction for “fatal error” that couldn’t be patched

Not immune: Jesús A. Lemus earns another Expression of Concern

Jesús A. Lemus, the Spanish researcher whose work has left a lot of people questioning his data, has another Expression of Concern for his resume.

Here’s the notice, from Functional Ecology: Continue reading Not immune: Jesús A. Lemus earns another Expression of Concern