The authors of a paper on quorum sensing — in simple terms, how bacteria “talk” to one another — have retracted it after another group’s findings led them to discover that the mixture they used weren’t what they thought.
The refreshingly detailed retraction notice in PLOS ONE explains: Continue reading Quorum sensing paper retracted when new study suggests compounds weren’t what they seemed
A paper by a crystallographer fired from his university for misconduct has been partially retracted.
Last year, we covered the case of Robert Schwarzenbacher, formerly of Salzburg University. Schwarzenbacher had provided the crystallographic data for a paper in the Journal of Immunology, but those results raised questions with another crystallographer and prompted an investigation by the university. Schwarzenbacher admitted he’d committed misconduct, although he recanted at one point, and was eventually fired.
Now, the authors have retracted the crystallographic data from the Journal of Immunology paper. Here’s the partial retraction, which is listed as a correction:
Continue reading A partial retraction appears for former Salzburg crystallographer who admitted misconduct
The journal Cell Cycle is expressing a “note” of concern about a 2012 paper by a former researcher at the University of Minnesota, who has claimed that her mentor at the institution was violating her copyright. It turns out the journal had briefly retracted the paper, but reversed itself with the expression of concern — a curious about-face that, in our experience, often indicates the work of lawyers.
That seems to be the case here, too.
The article, “Chalcone-based small-molecule inhibitors attenuate malignant phenotype via targeting deubiquitinating enzymes,” was already the subject of an erratum, available here:
Continue reading Amid a legal dispute, journal downgrades a retraction to an expression of concern
Cell is looking into whether the authors of a widely hailed study published last week claiming to have turned human skin cells into embryonic stem cells manipulated images inappropriately, Retraction Watch has learned.
The potential image problems came to light on PubPeer, a site designed to allow for post-publication peer review. A commenter, identified as Peer1, identified “several examples of image reuse which might be of interest to PubPeer members and readers:” Continue reading Cell reviewing allegations of image reuse in human embryonic stem cell cloning paper
Amid an ongoing investigation, a group of psychology researchers at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium have taken a painful decision to retract a paper now that they’ve realized there were serious problems with one aspect of the work.
Here’s the notice for “The Emergence of Orthographic Word Representations in the Brain: Evaluating a Neural Shape-Based Framework Using fMRI and the HMAX Model,” by Wouter Braet, Jonas Kubilius, Johan Wagemans, and Hans P. Op de Beeck: Continue reading Doing the right thing: Psychology researchers retract after realizing data “were not analyzed properly”
We have an update on a case we reported last week involving four papers in two different journals. The Journal of Bacteriology retracted two papers by Carlos Barreiro and colleagues, in notices that referred to the fact that
…identical bands for the 16S rRNA probe controls in the Northern blots were reported to correspond to experiments using different strains and experimental conditions in articles published in this journal and in Microbiology over a period of 5 years…
We checked with the editor of Microbiology, Agnes Fouet, who tells us: Continue reading Update: Microbiologists face two more retractions for Northern blot problems
Nanotech researcher SK Sahoo, whom as we reported in February lost four papers from Acta Biomaterialia for what the journal called “highly unethical practices,” has actually retracted five papers from that journal.
According to a notice for “Enhanced cellular uptake and in vivo pharmacokinetics of rapamycin loaded cubic phase nanoparticles for cancer therapy” that appears in the June issue along with the other four: Continue reading Nanotech researcher SK Sahoo notches fifth retraction
We have a follow-up from last week’s story about a University College London (UCL) investigation into the work of Giulio Cossu that found errors but no “deliberate intention to mislead.”UCL said it will not make the full report available: Continue reading Cossu-UCL follow-up: PLOS ONE paper to be corrected
A group of bacteria researchers in Spain and Germany has lost two papers in the Journal of Bacteriology after the journal found evidence that they had reused figures.
The two notices, for “Heat Shock Proteome Analysis of Wild-Type Corynebacterium glutamicum ATCC 13032 and a Spontaneous Mutant Lacking GroEL1, a Dispensable Chaperone” and “Transcriptional Analysis of the groES-groEL1, groEL2, and dnaK genes in Corynebacterium glutamicum: Characterization of Heat Shock-Induced Promoters,” say the same thing: Continue reading Two Journal of Bacteriology papers retracted for data duplication spanning five years
A cell biologist at University College London (UCL) who has had one paper retracted and another corrected has been cleared of misconduct by the university.
The news, first reported by Times Higher Education, comes after a retraction of a paper by Giulio Cossu prompted by pseudonymous whistleblower Clare Francis that we wrote about in January.
Here’s the full text of UCL’s statement on the investigation: Continue reading UCL finds errors in work by biologist Cossu, but no “deliberate intention to mislead”