Category: weekend reads

Happy 2026! We’re excited to bring you the first Weekend Reads of the new year.  

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• The BMJ retracts clinical trial for ‘severe’ discrepancies in randomization
• Cheers to 2025: In which Retraction Watch turned 15, and The Center For Scientific Integrity really became a center
• Data lost in a flood? The excuse checks out.

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 400 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 63,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up over 460, and our mass resignations list has 47 entries. We keep tabs on all this and more. If you value this work, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Evaluating the benefits of open science, a misconduct investigation in Korea, and what we lose in outsourcing reviews to AI

This is our last Weekend Reads of 2025. Our annual wrap-up at Retraction Watch will come next week, but we’re already looking forward to a new year. If you value the work we do – the in-depth reporting at Retraction Watch, the daily curated links in our newsletter, our comprehensive Retraction Watch Database – please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity. Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, the Elisabeth Bik Science Integrity Fund and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.  

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Professor in India adds coauthors who ‘kindly covered’ publication fee, removes others
• Court tosses out researcher’s bid to overturn funding ban
• The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now has 400 entries

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Court tosses out challenge to ORI funding ban; prof steps down after AI citation ‘scandal’; senator seeks journal’s COVID-19 manuscripts

Dear RW readers, we look forward to wrapping up the week with Weekend Reads. If you enjoy it too, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity. Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.  

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Exclusive: In reversal, former vice chancellor in Pakistan who was let off hook for plagiarism faces sanctions
• Dana-Farber settles suit alleging image manipulation for $15 million
• ‘Elite cohort’ of biz school scholars and editors scratch each others’ backs, study finds
• ORI has released just two misconduct findings this year
• World Bank report ‘removed for review’ of nonexistent references after Retraction Watch inquiry

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘How long does it take to kill zombie papers?’; ‘The H-Index of Suspicion’; former Springer editors launch new journal

Dear RW readers, we look forward to wrapping up the week with Weekend Reads. If you enjoy it too, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. 

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• How to juice your Google Scholar h-index, preprint by preprint
• One of Kazakhstan’s top nuclear physicists also leads his nation in retractions
• COPE’s involvement leads to retraction of paper on homeopathy for lung cancer
• Journal removes funding statement from hormone therapy paper without issuing correction

Did you know that Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are  projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity?  Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.   

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Springer Nature retracts papers using ‘bonkers’ dataset; preprint server welcomes AI authors; ethics editors’ COI disclosures ‘insufficient’

Giving Tuesday was this week, and, like many organizations, we asked for your support. The work we do is funded in part by your donations. If you value our work in rooting out scientific fraud and misconduct, exposing serial offenders, spotlighting how to fix broken systems — and bringing you this newsletter — please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. 

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Iraqi journal suspected of coercion, two others dropped from major citation databases
• Authors retract Nature paper projecting high costs of climate change
• The case of the fake references in an ethics journal
• Number of ‘unsafe’ publications by psychologist Hans Eysenck could be ‘high and far reaching‘
• Glyphosate safety article retracted eight years after Monsanto ghostwriting revealed in court
• Nature paper retracted after one investigation finds data errors, another finds no misconduct

Did you know that Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are  projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity?  Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.   

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘The fall of a prolific science journal’; Clinical trials by ‘super-retractors’; ‘How to Study Things That May Not Exist’

Dear RW readers, can you spare $25?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Exclusive: ‘Highly problematic’ policy has Saudi university pressuring faculty to cite its research
• Meet the researcher aiming to halt use of ‘fundamentally flawed’ database linking IQ and nationality
• After realizing a fungus contaminated their experiments, researchers retract and redo study

Did you know that Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are  projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity?  Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.   

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: How an MIT student’s AI study ‘Fell Apart’; Egyptian scientists, Russian affiliations; the ‘dangers’ of bibliometrics with ‘polluted data’ 

Dear RW readers, can you spare $25?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Computing society pulls works for ‘citation falsification’ months after sleuth is convicted of defamation
• Research integrity conference hit with AI-generated abstracts
• AI unreliable in identifying retracted research papers, says study
• Lancet journal retracts COVID-19 metformin paper nearly 2 years after authors request correction
• Springer Nature flags paper with fabricated reference to article (not) written by our cofounder
• COVID-19 paper by scientists at Harvard, Duke gets expression of concern for ‘unreliable’ data
• Exclusive: Reviewer recommended against publishing paper on DNA in COVID vaccines

Did you know that Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are  projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity?  Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.   

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Our cofounder credited in fake citation; ‘Substantial’ undisclosed COIs in psychiatry research; an AI threat to online surveys

Dear RW readers, can you spare $25?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Author changes name, publishes 10 papers in journals that banned him
• Bug in Springer Nature metadata may be causing ‘significant, systemic’ citation inflation
• Math is back as Clarivate boosts integrity markers in Highly Cited Researchers list
• BMJ places expression of concern on heavily criticized stem cell paper
• AMA ethics journal shutters after 26 years
• Botanists plant a stake in oral cancer research with case report, now under investigation

Did you know that Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are  projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity?  Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.   

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Debunking ‘When Prophecy Fails’; ‘Godfather of AI’ first to reach 1 million citations; ‘Cake causes herpes?’

Dear RW readers, can you spare $25?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Former Australian science agency ecology researcher loses two papers
• Dozens of board members resign from big-data journal after mass staff firings
• Review mill in Italy targeting ob-gyn journals, researchers allege
• Exclusive: A misconduct ruling, a flawed investigation, and an attempted payoff
• Sleuths flag ‘complete mismatch’ in data of BMJ stem cell study
• Journal retracts ‘bizarre’ placebo effect paper

Did you know that Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are  projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity?  Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.   

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Journal retracts ADHD intervention papers; ‘Science and the crisis of trust’; letters to editors surge

Dear RW readers, can you spare $25?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Embattled journal Cureus delisted from Web of Science, loses impact factor
• ‘A new low’: Researchers at Iraqi university must cite colleagues, school journals in papers
• Challenge accepted: A reader wrote a program to find fake references in books
• Widespread image reuse, manipulation uncovered in animal studies of brain injury
• Exclusive: Web of Science company involved in dubious awards in Iraq

Did you know that Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are  projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity?  Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.   

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Another CDC journal in trouble; Web of Science company endorses Iraq awards; on the scarcity of peer reviewers