PLOS ONE has retracted a paper published one month ago after readers began criticizing it for mentioning “the Creator.”
The article “Biomechanical Characteristics of Hand Coordination in Grasping Activities of Daily Living” now includes a reader comment from PLOS Staff, noting: Continue reading PLOS ONE retracting paper that cites “the Creator”
A paper about the biomechanics of human hands published last month in PLOS ONE is raising some questions on Twitter, after readers stumbled upon some curious language in the abstract:
The explicit functional link indicates that the biomechanical characteristic of tendinous connective architecture between muscles and articulations is the proper design by the Creator to perform a multitude of daily tasks in a comfortable way.
Yeah, that’s right — “the Creator.” You don’t see such language all that often in academic papers.
Not surprisingly, it’s prompted some harsh reactions from readers: Continue reading Hands are the “proper design by the Creator,” PLOS ONE paper suggests
After finding several errors in their paper about the molecular activity underlying gastric cancer, the authors unanimously decided to retract it.
According to the retraction note, three figures in the paper had β‑actin bands that were omitted, interchanged, or both.
The retraction note provides the details:
Continue reading Upon discovering several errors, authors retract gastric cancer paper
A journal is retracting three papers — including one that is highly cited — after learning the reviewers that recommended publication had conflicts of interest.
This is a case of family values gone awry: The author common to all papers is Cheng-Wu Chen at the National Kaohsiung Marine University in Taiwan, the twin brother of one Peter Chen, who was a the center of a peer review ring that SAGE busted in 2014 (and holder of the number #3 spot on our leaderboard). Cheng-Wu Chen apparently wasn’t an innocent bystander in that episode: Of the 60 retracted papers by SAGE, Cheng-Wu Chen was a co-author on 21.
The retraction notes for all three papers — published in Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries — are identical:
Continue reading Author in 2014 peer review ring loses 3 more papers for peer review problems
A peer reviewer apparently thought portions of a manuscript he was reviewing were so good he wanted them for himself.
Substantial sections of a paper that Junwei Di reviewed appear in his own paper on a method for making tiny particles of silver to precise specifications. Di is a chemist at Soochow University in China. The journal has banned Di from submitting papers or serving as a peer reviewer “for a certain time.”
The retraction note for the 2015 paper, “Controllable Electrochemical Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles on Indium-Tin-Oxide-Coated Glass” explains how the editors at ChemElectroChem became aware of the plagiarism:
Continue reading Peer reviewer steals text for his own chemistry paper, gets sanctioned by journal
A journal has pulled a paper about the molecular details of different types of adipose tissues after learning the researchers had plagiarized much of a Ph.D. thesis.
The researchers copied from former Ph.D. student Bettina Meissburger’s doctoral thesis in a 2013 paper in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry. The retraction note for “Adipose stromal-vascular fraction-derived paracrine factors regulate adipogenesis” provides the name of Meissburger’s thesis: Continue reading Researchers plagiarized chapter of doctoral thesis in mol bio paper
Remember when we recently found PLOS ONE had published two papers with “substantial overlap” from two different groups, that were edited around the same time? Well, we have discovered another similarly perplexing case of plagiarism in two studies published only months apart. But in this instance, we have a possible explanation for how two groups of authors from different institutions could report a similar experiment and data, and even use some of the same text.
It also concerns a paper focusing on cancer biology — in this case, it’s a 2014 paper retracted by Clinical and Investigative Medicine after editors learned that it contained many similarities to a study published only a handful of months before in Tumour Biology.
According to an email from an author on the retracted paper to the editor, Continue reading Another case of plagiarism in papers published only months apart
Last Friday we resurrected a previous feature of Retraction Watch, compiling five retractions that appeared to be simple acts of duplication.
This week, we spotlight another five unrelated retractions which, as we said last week, cover duplications in which the same – or some of the same – authors published the same – or some of the same – information in two different papers.
Most duplications are straightforward — all authors simply send the same or similar study to two or more journals, a violation of most journals’ terms of use. For instance: Continue reading You’ve been dupe’d: Data so nice, you see them twice
Errors in the interpretation of some of the data — the result of “procedural flaws” — are to blame for the retraction of a paper on a way to help skin grow back after injury.
The paper explores a method involving nanofibers. According to the abstract:
In this study, tilapia skin collagen sponge and electrospun nanofibers were developed for wound dressing…the collagen nanofibers stimulated the skin regeneration rapidly and effectively in vivo.
The paper was published January 19, 2015 by ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, then retracted eight months later, in August. It has not been cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Here’s the retraction note:
When our co-founders launched the site in 2010, they wondered whether there would be enough retractions to write about on a regular basis. Five+ years and three full-time staffers later, and we simply don’t have the time to cover everything that comes across our desk.
In 2012, we covered a group of duplication retractions in a single post, simply because duplications happen so frequently (sadly) and often don’t tell an interesting story. So in the interest of bookkeeping, we’re picking up the practice again.
Here are five unrelated retractions for your perusal: all addressing duplications, in which the same – or mostly the same – authors published the same – or mostly the same – information in two different – or sometimes the same – journals.
So, on the buffet table we offer the following entrees: Continue reading You’ve been dupe’d: Meet authors who like their work so much, they publish it twice