Category: by reason for retraction

Spud dud, as agricultural industry potato paper gets pulled a decade after publication

plantphyscoverPlant Physiology, the official journal of the American Society of Plant Biologists, has retracted a 2004 article by a team of ag industry researchers, including a former husband-wife duo, for what could be misconduct by the husband.

The retraction notice is vague enough, however, that we’re not entirely sure what went wrong, and no one wants to help us confirm — or even attempt to disprove — our inferences. Continue reading Spud dud, as agricultural industry potato paper gets pulled a decade after publication

Heart attack: Two cardiology retractions, plus a notice of duplication, in three different journals

circ researchWe’ve come across three notices in cardiology journals this week, so although they’re unrelated, we’re gathering them here.

Item 1, from Circulation Research: Continue reading Heart attack: Two cardiology retractions, plus a notice of duplication, in three different journals

Markets crash, and so does a paper explaining why

j financial marketsMarkets undergo flash crashes — when stocks or bonds rapidly nosedive in value and then just as rapidly recover — every day. On May 6, 2010, for example, the entire equity market flamed out and then nearly recovered its value all in the matter of hours.

Economic papers can do the same, apparently. Take the recent withdrawal of an paper from the Journal of Financial Markets: Continue reading Markets crash, and so does a paper explaining why

Misuse of data forces retraction of paper on sow’s milk

jchrombA group of veterinary researchers from Taiwan has lost their 2012 paper in the Journal of Chromatography B for misuse of propriety material.

What that means we’re not quite sure, but we have a guess.

The article, “Pilot production of recombinant human clotting factor IX from transgenic sow milk,” was published last July by four scientists at the Animal Technology Institute of Taiwan.

But, as the retraction notice explains, the paper didn’t stick:

Continue reading Misuse of data forces retraction of paper on sow’s milk

Plagiarism leads to retraction of math paper

springerplusSpringerPlus has retracted a 2012 paper by a pair of Saudi mathematicians who lifted text and figures from previously published articles.

The paper, “On soft expert topological spaces,” appeared in October 2012. According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Plagiarism leads to retraction of math paper

MD Anderson’s Bharat Aggarwal threatens to sue Retraction Watch

aggarwal
Bharat Aggarwal

Bharat Aggarwal, an MD Anderson researcher under investigation by his institution, has threatened to sue us.

Today, we received a letter from the Houston firm of Paranjpe & Mahadass LLP telling us to pull every post related to their client off our site within 20 days, or they’d “file a lawsuit against” us on his behalf.

On what grounds? According to the March 26 letter, which we have posted here in its entirety: Continue reading MD Anderson’s Bharat Aggarwal threatens to sue Retraction Watch

Cardiff clears dean of misconduct allegations, but finds former researcher falsified images

cardiffA second investigation into work co-authored by Paul Morgan, a dean at Cardiff University, has cleared him of research misconduct, but has found that Rossen Donev, a former researcher at the university — who has already retracted one study — falsified images in four papers.

As we reported last August, Cardiff “initiated its Procedure for Dealing with Allegations of Academic Misconduct in Research” after Science-Fraud.org and pseudonymous whistleblower Clare Francis brought concerns about several studies to the university’s attention. That followed an earlier investigation into work by some of the same authors. Cardiff has now completed its report, whose findings were first reported by the BBC and Times Higher Education.

According to a university release, the panel, led by a former Cardiff circuit judge, found that (quoting here): Continue reading Cardiff clears dean of misconduct allegations, but finds former researcher falsified images

Trial irregularities earn Lancet study of potential weight loss drug tesofensine Expression of Concern

logo_lancetA potential weight loss drug has been dealt what could be a serious setback after regulators found problems at two trial sites.

While awaiting a final report, The Lancet, which published a study of the drug, tesofensine, has issued an Expression of Concern: Continue reading Trial irregularities earn Lancet study of potential weight loss drug tesofensine Expression of Concern

Update on “greatly enhanced” photonics paper, with two corrections — one by journal, one by us

nature photonicsLast month we wrote about a paper in Nature Photonics that, because of a measurement error, had to be retracted.

It turns out that wasn’t the only problem with the article — but we’re afraid that the glitch requires us to issue a correction.

The article, “Greatly enhanced continuous-wave terahertz emission by nano-electrodes in a photoconductive photomixer,” has listed Aaron Danner as the last — and, we’d assumed — senior author of the paper. But as Danner pointed out to us, that was a mistake by Nature Photonics.

Continue reading Update on “greatly enhanced” photonics paper, with two corrections — one by journal, one by us

Plagiarism of textbooks, encyclopedia leads to physics retraction

eur phys plusA pair of Iranian physicists is facing the retraction of one of their papers after editors found out some of the work was plagiarized from two textbooks and an encyclopedia.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading Plagiarism of textbooks, encyclopedia leads to physics retraction