A journal about dairy science has retracted a paper after learning that it was published without the consent of all its authors.
An independent inquiry found no evidence of research misconduct, but nevertheless recommended that the institution — Curtin University in Perth, Australia — request to retract the paper.
Here’s the retraction notice, published in Dairy Science and Technology: Continue reading Dairy journal retracts paper lacking co-authors’ consent
A publisher has retracted a chapter from a book on flow cytometry after determining the authors plagiarized some material — but noted that because the authors cited the article they lifted from, they likely acted “in good faith.”
We were tipped off to this retraction from the authors of the review article the chapter plagiarized from, who told us they were upset by the incident and doubted whether the authors had performed the experiments they described in the chapter.
More broadly, the retraction raises an important question: How can publishers retract one chapter of a book, leaving the rest intact?
First, let’s take a look at the retraction notice: Continue reading Book publisher: Authors plagiarized “in good faith” because they cited previous work
Our retraction notice count for Shigeaki Kato, number seven on our leaderboard, has grown to 38.
The former University of Tokyo endocrinologist recently earned another retraction, for a paper in Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics that contained image manipulation. As we’ve noted before, Kato resigned from the university in 2012 as it investigated his work for misconduct; in 2013 a Japanese newspaper reported that the investigation had found 43 papers from his lab contained “likely altered or forged materials.”
In addition to the new retraction, we’ve dug up four others for Kato from the past few years, plus one correction. Two of the retraction notices mention an investigation at the University of Tokyo.
First, the retraction note for “Multiple co-activator complexes support ligand-induced transactivation function of VDR,” published in December:
A paper on nanoparticles that target cancer cells has been retracted for duplicating figures from three other papers.
The articles all share a first author: Manasmita Das, based at the time of the research at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER). According to her LinkedIn profile, she is currently a postdoc at the University of North Carolina.
The abstract of the 2011 Bioconjugate Chemistry paper explains just what the new nanoparticles would be useful for:
Multifunctional nanoparticles, developed in the course of the study, could selectively target and induce apoptosis to folate-receptor (FR) overexpressing cancer cells with enhanced efficacy as compared to the free drug. In addition, the dual optical and magnetic properties of the synthesized nanoparticles aided in the real-time tracking of their intracellular pathways also as apoptotic events through dual fluorescence and MR-based imaging.
But according to the retraction note, figure duplications “seriously undermine the conclusions presented in the research article.” Here’s more about the source of those duplications from the full note: Continue reading Journal retracts nanoparticles paper for duplicating figures
Science is reconsidering its plan to retract a paper about using RNA to make palladium nanoparticles after one of the authors submitted a last-minute correction.
Editor in chief Marcia McNutt told us that the journal will make a decision about whether to retract or correct the paper by February 5th.
We are not certain that what he submitted changes anything, but we wanted to consider this new information before acting.
In the meantime, today the journal issued an Expression of Concern for the paper.
The journal’s initial decision to retract the paper stemmed from an investigation at the National Science Foundation, which concluded that co-authors Bruce Eaton and Dan Feldheim — currently at the University of Colorado at Boulder — engaged in “a significant departure from standard research practices,” and cut them off from NSF funding unless they took specific actions. When the report on the investigation came to light earlier this month, Science editor in chief Marcia McNutt told us that she planned to issue a retraction:
We are checking to see how soon we can get it published.
McNutt explained what changed: Continue reading Can a journal retract its plan to retract? Science may
Wiley Periodicals is withdrawing a biochemistry paper after mistakenly publishing it in the wrong journal.
The mistake took a few months to sort out. Wiley initially published “Protein Kinase C Is Involved in the Induction of ATP-Binding Cassette Transporter A1 Expression by Liver X Receptor/Retinoid X Receptor Agonist in Human Macrophages” online in Journal of Cellular Physiology in May of last year. The article was posted in the correct journal — Journal of Cellular Biochemistry — in July.
At the very end of 2015, the publisher officially withdrew the version it posted in the Journal of Cellular Physiology.
Here’s the withdrawal note (which is paywalled — tsk, tsk):
Continue reading Wiley published a biology paper in the wrong journal
Authors are retracting a 2012 paper on cholesterol metabolism in zebrafish after realizing it included a case of mistaken identity in a DNA sequence crucial to some aspects of the experiment.
A postdoc misidentified the plasmid in question after failing to fully sequence it before including it in the experiment. A technician in the lab found the mistake, last author Steven Farber, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Maryland, explained:
When the omitted region was correctly sequenced we discovered it had an error.
He told us in a phone interview what that felt like:
We were like, holy crap.
Next came months of back and forth with the journal, discussing whether to correct or retract the paper. Farber tells us the mistake, which affects two figures,
was unfortunate. Most of the paper is in fact correct.
The paper, “Visualization of Lipid Metabolism in the Zebrafish Intestine Reveals a Relationship between NPC1L1-Mediated Cholesterol Uptake and Dietary Fatty Acid,” published in Chemistry & Biology, has been cited 21 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Here’s the detailed retraction note: Continue reading Misidentified DNA leads authors to retract zebrafish cholesterol paper
A researcher who studies how to turn dairy cattle manure into natural gas falsified and fabricated data in a journal article and failed to declare a commercial conflict of interest, a Washington State University investigation has found.
The study “Evaluation of Co-Digestion at a Commercial Dairy Anaerobic Digester” was published in 2011 in the journal CLEAN: Soil, Air, Water. First author Craig Frear was a Ph.D. student at WSU Pullman when the study was carried out and an assistant professor at the time of the investigation. The editor-in-chief of CLEAN, Prisca Henheik, told us that the retraction is a done deal even though it has not been posted online: Continue reading A bullshit excuse? My lab notebook “was blown into a manure pit”
An author has been added to a biochemistry paper following an investigation by the University of Helsinki.
Karen Sabatini, currently a biochemist at the University of San Diego, was erroneously left off the author list of a paper published in 2010 in Soft Matter. She apparently left Helsinki in 2010.
The circumstances may be unclear, but one thing we do know: authorship issues often take down papers entirely. Since this just warranted a correction, the mistake could have just been an oversight, rather than pointing to a larger issue.
Here’s the note for “Formation of lipid/peptide tubules by IAPP and temporin B on supported lipid membranes:”
Continue reading Author added to paper after investigation at University of Helsinki
Two sets of authors have withdrawn their papers from the Journal of Biological Chemistry. We’re telling you about the both together because, true to JBC form, there’s not too much to say.
The retraction notices for both papers — about the molecular underpinnings of cardiac fibroblasts and melanoma cells — are identical:
Continue reading Authors withdraw two papers from JBC — and that’s all we know