Last week, we reported that some of the authors of a 2010 paper in the BMJ claiming to have identified Henry IV’s head thought the study should be retracted based on new evidence. Some of the other authors have now responded to that call for retraction, which appeared on the BMJ’s site alongside the paper.
Philippe Charlier, the corresponding author of the original paper, and five of the original paper’s 15 co-authors conclude after reviewing the evidence that
With apologies to Dana Carvey, Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters has chopped a 2012 paper on the molecular constituents of broccoli florets after readers evidently were forced to do the job of reviewers and point out fatal flaws in the study.
The article, “Two novel bioactive glucosinolates from Broccoli (Brassica oleracea L. var. italica) florets,” came from a group in South Korea and has yet to be cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. But according to the retraction notice, after publication critics pointed out serious problems with the work. To wit: Continue reading Chopping broccoli: Researchers lose paper on florets after readers raise questions
The Journal of Biological Chemistry has a fairly gory correction — we’d call it a mega-correction — for a 2010 paper by Levon Khachigian, an Australian researcher whose studies of a new drug for skin cancer recently were halted over concerns about possible misconduct, including image manipulation. As we reported earlier this year, Khachigian has already lost four papers, including one in the JBC — which the journal simply noted had “been withdrawn by the authors.”
The new correction involves the article “c-Jun regulates shear- and injury-inducible Egr-1 expression, vein graft stenosis after autologous end-to-side transplantation in rabbits, and intimal hyperplasia in human saphenous veins,” which Khachigian wrote with Jun Ni and Alla Waldman. The paper has been cited nine times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s the notice: Continue reading JBC issues correction for paper by Khachigian, who has had four others retracted
Time to roll out the irony meter again.
A group of scientists from Uttar Pradesh, India, who study forensic bioinformatics have had a paper retracted for something that can generally be detected with a specialized form of forensic software: Plagiarism.
Here’s the notice for Kumar Ajay, Singh Neetu, Gaurav S.S. “Forensic Bioinformatics: An innovative technological advancement in the field of Forensic Medicine and Diagnosis,” signed by O.A. Sofola, editor-in-chief: Continue reading Irony alert: Forensic experts have paper retracted for plagiarism
Sometimes, it’s easiest and most straightforward if we just let retraction notices sink in before we comment on them.
Take this one from Semigroup Forum, signed by Chong-yih Wu of National Pingtung Institute of Commerce, Pingtung, Taiwan: Continue reading No, math prof, Google isn’t a proper literature search (and don’t plagiarize your dead mentor)
For the second time in a week, we’ve seen a journal retract a paper because it duplicated something in its own archive. Yesterday, it was a case of plagiarism in a plant journal. Today, we find that the Journal of Anatomy has retracted an article it published earlier this year by a group of Slovenian authors who took a page (or several) out of their 1995 article in the same periodical.
The article, “Muscles within muscles: a tensiomyographic and histochemical analysis of the normal human vastus medialis longus and vastus medialis obliquus muscles,” came from researchers in the department of orthopedic surgery at the University Medical Centre in Ljubjana. According to the abstract: Continue reading Retraction for authors of muscle paper who lifted data from their own 18-year-old article
The Journal of Neuroscience‘s retraction notices often give us plenty to chew on, and a new Expression of Concern does the same.
In the notice — for a 16-year-old paper — the journal notes three cases of what certainly sounds like image manipulation, but carefully avoids calling it that: Continue reading He said, she said: Journal of Neuroscience expresses concern, but doesn’t pursue investigation
The authors of a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine are retracting it, after being unable to find data supporting a table that required corrections.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading NEJM paper on sleep apnea retracted when original data can’t be found
A team of researchers led by Daniel St. Johnston, director of the Gurdon Institute at Cambridge and a prominent developmental biologist in the UK, has lost a pair of articles after finding that their data were unreliable. But rather than “correct” the record with subsequent papers, they’ve withdrawn the problematic work.
To our mind, this is a poster case of doing the right thing by science. We think the notices — as provided by the authors and reported by the journals — pretty much say it all, so we’ll let them speak for themselves, followed by some details St. Johnston shared with us.
The first article, “LKB1 and AMPK maintain epithelial cell polarity under energetic stress,” appeared in 2007 in the Journal of Cell Biology and has been cited 108 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
According to the retraction notice:
The BMJ is well-known for its annual Christmas issue, which New York Times medical correspondent Lawrence Altman calls
a lighter and sometimes brighter side of medicine, publishing unusual articles that vary from simply amusing to bizarre to creative or potentially important.
The 2010 issue was no exception, featuring a paper called “Multidisciplinary medical identification of a French king’s head (Henri IV)” in which: Continue reading Off with his paper! Some authors want to retract claim to have identified Henry IV’s head