The authors of a 2012 paper in the journal Interface have had the journal issue an expression of concern about it after issues with “some of the data and methods” came to light.
Here’s the expression of concern for “What makes an accurate and reliable subject-specific finite element model? A case study of an elephant femur:” Continue reading Authors issue their own expression of concern about elephant femur paper
PLOS ONE has retracted a 2012 article by a group of breast cancer researchers after another scientist — a leading U.S. oncologist — objected that the data came from his lab.
The paper, “GREB1 Functions as a Growth Promoter and Is Modulated by IL6/STAT3 in Breast Cancer,” came from a team composed of researchers at the Morehouse School of Medicine, Xavier University of Louisiana and the University of Miami School of Medicine. It purported to find that: Continue reading PLOS ONE retracts breast cancer genetics paper after claim of misappropriated data
A second Nature paper co-authored by Pankaj Dhonukshe, formerly of Utrecht University and VIB Ghent, has been retracted.
Here’s the notice for “Generation of cell polarity in plants links endocytosis, auxin distribution and cell fate decisions:” Continue reading Second Nature paper by researcher found to have violated academic integrity retracted
Here’s a new category for us: Poetry.
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, a comparative studies journal, has retracted a paper on gender roles in Middle Eastern poetry due to plagiarism.
Nizar Kabbani was a famed Syrian poet who wrote frankly about feminism, love, and sex. He’s well worth a read, if you have the time – here’s an excerpt from one of his more famous poems, I Have No Power: Continue reading Poetry, politics, plagiarism, and erotics add up to a retraction
The editors of PLoS ONE have issued an expression of concern for a 2014 article on a form of nitrogen-fixing bacteria called Bacillus pumilus.
The reason: The company that provided the strain of microbe used in the research won’t let other researchers look at the organism.
The article is titled “Bacillus pumilus Reveals a Remarkably High Resistance to Hydrogen Peroxide Provoked Oxidative Stress,” and it came from a group led by Stefan Handtke, of the University of Greifswald, in Germany.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading PLoS ONE issues expression of concern when company won’t share bacterial strain
Sometimes plagiarism, like an onion, has layers.
That appears to be the case in a paper brought to our attention by sharp-eyed reader Vladimir Baulin, whose work was copied in a 2006 paper that Journal of Biological Physics retracted for plagiarism.
But you can’t keep a good thief down: the plagiarizing authors just popped up in a new journal with a Chinese-language version of their retracted paper, that looks an awful lot like a knock-off. Here’s a note from Baulin: Continue reading Recursive plagiarism? Researchers may have published a duplicate of a study retracted for plagiarism
A group of urologists in China has lost their 2012 paper in the Journal of Surgical Research because one of the authors was evidently rather naughty.
The article, “Is the impact of the extent of lymphadenectomy in radical prostatectomy related to the disease risk? A single center prospective study,” purported to show that: Continue reading Misconduct prompts retraction of prostatectomy paper
This one comes to us from Twitter, where Willem van Schaik went to express his frustration that a PLOS ONE paper he’d edited had been retracted for fake data.
Two other papers from the same group at the Institute of Microbial Technology, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Chandigarh, India, were retracted simultaneously.
We sent van Schaik an email to get a clearer picture of the situation. He responded: Continue reading Three PLOS ONE papers retracted for totally made-up data
Lawsuits are usually dry and boring, so it’s always fun to read one with a little life.
Here’s one of those: CrossFit, the fitness program famous for its brief, strenuous exercises and passionate devotees, is suing the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NCSA), which it considers its staid competitor for the nation’s sweat and cash.
According to CrossFit, the NSCA published a study with a “falsified rate of injury,” “in an effort to portray CrossFit as ‘dangerous’ and therefore a fitness program that should be avoided.”
No matter that the study, published in NSCA’s official research journal, the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, concluded overall that CrossFit is a useful form of exercise. The suit says that the authors fudged a few statistics about participants’ injuries. Here’s the relevant section from the paper, titled “Crossfit-based high-intensity power training improves maximal aerobic fitness and body composition:”
You’ve got to love when an author is willing to detail the specifics of an unhelpful retraction notice.
This May, a paper came out in Journal of Thoracic Diseases about drug-resistant tuberculosis. It was retracted in June, for “some misconduct in the manuscript.”
Here’s the notice:
The article “Application status of MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry in the identification and drug resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis” (doi: 10.3978/j.issn.2072-1439.2014.02.19) that appeared on page 512-516 of the May 2014 issue of the Journal of Thoracic Disease needs to be withdrawn due to some misconduct in the manuscript. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused.
Since that’s pretty vague and unhelpful, we reached out to corresponding author Jiayun Liu, who gave us a thorough rundown:
Continue reading Author steps in to clarify vague tuberculosis retraction