To climate scientist Pieter Tans, a “novel” air sampling device in a recent paper looked a little too familiar. Specifically, like a device that he had invented — the AirCore, which he calls a “tape recorder” for air. The journal editors came up with a unique solution to the disagreement that followed, which the editor in chief called … Continue reading Inventors have a dust up over air sampling device
Here’s our first post of 2016. The week at Retraction Watch featured a retraction from JAMA, and our list of most-cited retracted papers. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
An article describing a Japanese imaging device that measures eye surface temperature to help diagnose ocular conditions has been retracted because it contained duplicated material that the authors had published previously in German. Here’s the September retraction note for “Measurement of Dynamic Ocular Surface Temperature in Healthy Subjects Using a New Thermography Device,” published in … Continue reading Study on eye imaging device withdrawn for German duplication
The week at Retraction Watch featured our annual roundup of the year’s top retractions for The Scientist, a retraction from Science, and claims about a book Aristotle never wrote. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
The week at Retraction Watch featured more installments in the seemingly never-ending story of fake peer reviews. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
This week at Retraction Watch featured a look at the huge problem of misidentified cell lines, a check-in with a company that retracted a paper as it was about to go public, and Diederik Stapel’s 58th retraction. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
In Latin America, retractions for plagiarism and other issues have increased markedly — which may be a positive sign that editors and authors are paying closer attention to publishing ethics, according to a small study published in Science and Engineering Ethics. The authors examined two major Latin American/Caribbean databases, which mostly include journals from Brazil, and have been indexing … Continue reading Is an increase in retractions good news? Maybe, suggests new study
An astrophysics journal is retracting a paper on black holes whose first author is a teenager about to earn his PhD, after learning the paper “draws extensively” from a book chapter by the last author. Many papers are pulled for duplication, but few get a news release from the publisher about it. In a move that we … Continue reading Black hole paper by teenaged prodigy retracted for duplication
The authors of a paper on an anti-fungal bacterium couldn’t ward off a very common problem: plagiarism. The people credited on the paper, published in Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, apparently weren’t the original authors, according to the retraction note. We’re not sure who the original authors are. The retraction note doesn’t elaborate much:
An environmental journal has pulled a 2011 paper following an investigation, which revealed it contained “extensive similarities” with another paper published two years earlier by some of the same authors. Two of the authors of the newly retracted paper — Zulfiqar Ahmad from Quaid-i-Azam University and Arshad Ashraf of the National Agricultural Research Center, both in … Continue reading Authors object to duplication verdict by environmental journal