Category: by subject

“Clumsy but genuine errors” prompt PNAS correction

Some accidental mistakes have led researchers to issue a long correction to a 2016 PNAS paper.

According to the notice, when the cell biology paper’s corresponding authors became aware of duplications in two images, they immediately notified the journal and the University of Nottingham. After examining the original data archives, the university found that the authors generated the correct images, but the person who prepared the figures selected the wrong images from the data archive.

According to John Atherton, faculty pro-vice-chancellor for the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Nottingham in the UK, who oversaw the investigation: Continue reading “Clumsy but genuine errors” prompt PNAS correction

Yikes: Peer reviewer stole (and published) author’s data

A gastroenterology and hepatology journal has retracted a 2017 review after discovering it included data “accessible only during peer review for another journal.”

Although we don’t know the details of this particular case—for instance, how the editors and publisher of Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics learned about the transgression and which author was responsible—the journal acted quickly to retract the paper, which was published online in March.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Systematic review: benefits and harms of transarterial embolisation for treating hepatocellular adenoma:”

Continue reading Yikes: Peer reviewer stole (and published) author’s data

Drug researcher up to ten retractions

A pharmaceutical researcher has received his tenth retraction. The reason, once again: duplicating his previous work.

Giuseppe Derosa, based at the University of Pavia in Italy, lost a 2011 paper this month after journal editors identified “substantial duplication of an earlier published paper.” According to the notice, the authors failed to cite the previous work and to disclose that the manuscript had been published or was under consideration elsewhere.

Derosa has a habit of reusing clinical trial data in multiple papers. He received his first four retractions in 2015 for publishing the same clinical trial results six times—two of those papers were retracted over the summer and two more several months later. By 2016, a fifth from the bunch was retracted (one of the six still stands). Derosa received another retraction, citing duplication (which we covered here and which was not related to the six clinical trials).

Continue reading Drug researcher up to ten retractions

BMJ journal yanks paper on cancer screening in India for fear of legal action

BMJ Global Health has pulled a paper that criticized U.S. research of the effects of cervical cancer screening in India over defamation concerns.

That’s not what the notice on the paper says, however — at the moment, it just reads:

This article has been withdrawn.

However, forwarded email correspondence between the first author and an associate publisher reveals the journal published the paper and planned a press release, then realized it should be reviewed by a legal adviser. When first author Eric J. Suba at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center inquired about the status of the paper and any potential press release, he was told the journal could no longer publish it, out of concern they would be taken to court.

Suba told us that, when he learned the paper would be pulled:

Continue reading BMJ journal yanks paper on cancer screening in India for fear of legal action

“There is an injustice in this article”

The editors of a plant biology journal have retracted a 2007 paper because of “an injustice.”

According to the notice, the editors of Cytologia found evidence of “apparent figure manipulation,” and decided to retract the paper.

This marks the 10th retraction for plant biologist Dibyendu Talukdar.

Talukdar, who is first and corresponding author on the 2007 paper and listed at the University of Calcutta in West Bengal, India, received his first retraction last July, which also cited suspected figure manipulation. Earlier this year, Talukdar received eight more retractions in seven different journals, all describing concerns over potential image duplication and manipulation.

Here’s the most recent retraction notice in Cytologia: Continue reading “There is an injustice in this article”

Paper with duplicated image “sequentially builds” on neuroscience work, authors argue

A neurochemistry journal has retracted a paper from a group in China over a duplicated image.

According to the notice, the authors used the same image in the two papers to represent different experimental conditions. The only distinguishing feature between the images: “apparent brightness changes.”

The authors defended their actions, explaining that the research published in Journal of Neurochemistry “sequentially builds” on their previous study in Journal of Neuroinflammation, which they mention in the 2015 paper’s discussion. In the notice, the authors were quoted saying:  Continue reading Paper with duplicated image “sequentially builds” on neuroscience work, authors argue

Would-be Johns Hopkins whistleblower loses appeal in case involving Nature retraction

A former researcher at Johns Hopkins who voiced concerns about a now-retracted paper in Nature has lost another bid for whistleblower protection.

Daniel Yuan, a longtime statistician for former Hopkins yeast geneticist Jef Boeke, was dismissed in 2011, after he’d spent years raising concerns about research coming out of the lab. Yuan’s criticisms, which continued after he stopped working for Boeke, peaked in 2012 after Boeke and former labmate Yu-li Lin published a paper in Nature. Later that year, Lin was found dead in his lab, a suspected suicide. In 2013, the paper was retracted, citing an inability to reproduce the main conclusions. 

Since 2013, Yuan has pursued a wrongful termination lawsuit, claiming that federal regulations surrounding scientific misconduct afforded him protection from retaliation.

In late March, Maryland’s highest court ruled against Yuan, saying that those misconduct regulations are “too vague” to offer cover to employees claiming whistleblower protection. According to lawyers we consulted, the decision could make it harder for would-be whistleblowers to fight retaliation, while also giving institutions more leeway to handle these issues on their own.

Continue reading Would-be Johns Hopkins whistleblower loses appeal in case involving Nature retraction

Publisher blames bad choice of reviewer for publication of hoax paper on penis as “social construct” 

Less than a week after publishing a much-discussed hoax paper, a scholarly publisher has acknowledged that it had chosen reviewers for the paper whose “expertise did not fully align with this subject matter.”

The subject matter: that the penis should not be considered an anatomical organ, but more as a concept – “a gender-performative, highly fluid social construct.” Upon publication, the authors immediately admitted the paper was a prank, arguing that its publication illustrates a lack of intellectual and scientific rigor in some social sciences, especially gender studies. But others have questioned whether it really demonstrates that at all.

In response to the revelation of the hoax, Taylor & Francis associate editorial director Emma Greenword published a statement about the process that led to this entanglement: Continue reading Publisher blames bad choice of reviewer for publication of hoax paper on penis as “social construct” 

Authors retract much-debated blockchain paper from F1000

The authors of a popular — and heavily debated — F1000Research paper proposing a method to prevent scientific misconduct have decided to retract it.

The paper was initially criticized for allegedly plagiarizing from a graduate student’s blog — and revised to try to “rectify the overlap.” But according to F1000, it is now being retracted after an additional expert identified problems with the methodology.

Today, F1000 added this editorial note to the paper:

Continue reading Authors retract much-debated blockchain paper from F1000

Author retracts nanotechnology paper over doubts about key results

The corresponding author of a 2015 nanotechnology paper has penned a lengthy — and revealing — retraction notice, explaining why he is not certain about the findings.

In the notice, Chang Ming Li from the Institute for Clean Energy & Advanced Materials (ICEAM) at Southwest University in China, states that there is “insufficient evidence to conclusively” identify the composition of the nanowire array described in the article, which “severely undermines the validity of the reported conclusions.”

The 2015 paper has been considered “highly cited” by Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, formerly part of Thomson Reuters, meaning it has received a disproportionate amount of cites given its field and publication year.

Li also said that the paper — which appeared in Physical Chemistry, Chemical Physics — was “submitted and published without my knowledge or permission.” He has not responded to our request to explain how that could have happened, given that he was the corresponding author. Continue reading Author retracts nanotechnology paper over doubts about key results