Category: by reason for retraction

Psychology researcher explains how retraction-causing errors led to change in her lab

jperssocpsychLast month, we brought you the story of two retractions by Yale’s Laurie Santos because the team discovered errors in the way the first author had coded the data. That first author, Neha Mahajan, took full responsibility for the coding problems, according to the retraction notices, and a university investigation cleared her of any “intentional, knowing, reckless, or grossly negligent action.”

But a few of our readers noted that the papers refer to a second coder on some of the experiments, and have questioned whether that’s compatible with Mahajan being solely responsible for the errors.

We asked Santos earlier this week to explain the apparent discrepancy, which she did along with a description of how her lab has made changes to prevent such errors in the future: Continue reading Psychology researcher explains how retraction-causing errors led to change in her lab

Researcher who called plagiarism “the worst type of fraud” retracts paper for…plagiarism

arq brasAs a reporter on the police beat many years ago, one of us (Adam) used to hang out with a press officer whose desk at the station had the following sign: “Uma boca fechado não recolhe nenhum pé.”

At least, that’s what it would have been had we been in Rio. In Palmer Park, Maryland, the sign read: “A Closed Mouth Gathers No Foot.”

A group of Brazilian researchers has retracted their 2009 article on gut bacteria for plagiarism — but not before one of them decried such behavior as the nadir of scientific misconduct. Continue reading Researcher who called plagiarism “the worst type of fraud” retracts paper for…plagiarism

Out of the running: Dodgy blots prompt retraction of paper on marathoning and cell death

bmc physiologyA group of exercise researchers at the University of Rome Tor Vergata has lost their May 2010 paper in BMC Physiology on the effects of marathon running on blood cells, because of figure irregularities.

The article, “The effect of marathon on mRNA expression of anti-apoptotic and pro-apoptotic proteins and sirtuins family in male recreational long-distance runners,” purported to find that marathoning arrested apoptosis, or programmed cell death. It has been cited 13 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

According to this press release: Continue reading Out of the running: Dodgy blots prompt retraction of paper on marathoning and cell death

Japan officials allege data cooking in Alzheimer’s drug study

j-adniJapanese health officials are reportedly investigating whether researchers fabricated data in a 2.8 billion yen ($21.12 million) Alzheimer’s drug trial.

According to Japan Today:

Health officials said they were questioning researchers after being told false data was used in clinical testing for the 2.8 billion yen government-backed Alzheimer’s study, aimed at improving diagnosis of the disease. Continue reading Japan officials allege data cooking in Alzheimer’s drug study

The Guardian retracts hotly debated post on Lisa Adams’ tweets about her cancer

guardianThe Guardian has removed a post about Lisa Bonchek Adams, a woman who has been tweeting her experiences with stage 4 breast cancer, after it and a related piece in The New York Times ignited a firestorm of online criticism.

The Atlantic’s Megan Garber describes the two pieces — one, by Emma Keller, and the other by her husband Bill Keller, former executive editor of The New York Times — this way: Continue reading The Guardian retracts hotly debated post on Lisa Adams’ tweets about her cancer

“Stupid, it should not be done that way”: Researcher explains how duplications led to a retraction

grondelle
Rienk van Grondelle, via VU

More than two years ago, we wrote about a retraction for duplication in Biophysical Journal prompted by an email from pseudonymous whistleblower Clare Francis. That post generated a robust discussion, including one comment from someone calling himself or herself “Double Dutch.”

This past weekend, the last author of that paper, Rienk van Grondelle, left a lengthy response to that comment in which he explained how the duplication happened. We’ve confirmed that it was van Grondelle who left the comment, which we reproduce here in full (we’ve added paragraph breaks for readability): Continue reading “Stupid, it should not be done that way”: Researcher explains how duplications led to a retraction

Fraud topples second neuroscience word processing paper

neuroimageWe have a second retraction from a group of neuroscience researchers in Belgium who discovered fatal errors in their work on how the brain sets about the task of reading written language. Spoiler alert: Turns out those errors weren’t errors after all.

As we reported back in May, the group, from the University of Leuven, was unable to replicate certain fMRI findings in a November 2012 article in Neuroscience. At the time, Hans P. Op de Beeck, who led the group, told us: Continue reading Fraud topples second neuroscience word processing paper

Doing the right thing: Authors retract protein paper after finding experimental errors

embo reportsA group of researchers in the Netherlands has retracted a paper once they realized that the findings weren’t reproducible and that there had been an error in the experiments.

Here’s the notice for “Ubiquitin‐specific protease 4 is inhibited by its ubiquitin‐like domain,” by MP Luna‐Vargas, AC Faesen, WJ van Dijk, M Rape, A Fish, and TK Sixma: Continue reading Doing the right thing: Authors retract protein paper after finding experimental errors

A retracted retraction: Backsies for an anti-terrorism paper

Nasrullah Memon
Nasrullah Memon

The other day, we wrote about a puzzling situation that appeared to involve the ninth retraction for an anti-terrorism researcher. A book chapter by Nasrullah Memon, of the University of Southern Denmark, was marked “Retracted,” both in the abstract’s title and on the PDF. But Memon forwarded us an email from Springer, the book’s publisher, saying that they had decided to publish an erratum rather than retract.

And indeed, sometime after we published our post, the retraction was changed to an erratum, with the following notice: Continue reading A retracted retraction: Backsies for an anti-terrorism paper

Karel Bezouška, who broke into lab to tamper with investigation, has JACS paper retracted

jacsat_v136i001.inddKarel Bezouška, who, as we noted last year “broke into a lab refrigerator so he could tamper with samples being used to try to replicate the experiments during the investigation,” has had his fourth paper retracted.

Here’s the notice, for “Synthesis of Multivalent Glycoconjugates Containing the Immunoactive LELTE Peptide: Effect of Glycosylation on Cellular Activation and Natural Killing by Human Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells,” in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS): Continue reading Karel Bezouška, who broke into lab to tamper with investigation, has JACS paper retracted