The week at Retraction Watch featured the tale of a scientist whose explanations for misconduct kept changing, and revelations in a big legal case involving Duke University. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Hearsay is not admissible as evidence in court — and it doesn’t seem to go very far in science, either. A pair of researchers in the field of human evolution have lost a paper which contained data from “personal correspondence” that the providing party apparently did not enjoy seeing in print. The article, “Early hominin … Continue reading Inclusion of “personal correspondence” in evolution paper prompts retraction, new journal policy
In 2013, Frank Sauer blamed “visual distortion” for problems with the images in his papers and grant applications. That explanation gave way to the production in 2016 of a mysterious and ominous letter from an unnamed researcher claiming that they’d sabotaged Sauer’s work in a plot of revenge. Soon after, Sauer was claiming that a … Continue reading “An evolving and inconsistent tale:” Biochemist barred from federal grants for five years
Two authors who had a paper retracted for fake peer review in 2015 have lost another for the same reason. Elsevier recently retracted the second paper by the duo, a 2015 paper in a cancer journal, after finding evidence of fake peer review. The paper was submitted in October 2014 and accepted just a week … Continue reading Fake peer review strikes again for pair of authors
Researchers at a prominent Japanese university have retracted a 2016 paper in a chemistry journal after the first author admitted to scientific misconduct. According to the notice, Kyushu University investigated and verified that the first author had committed scientific misconduct. We requested a copy of the misconduct report, which revealed that the researcher, Prasenjit Mahato, a … Continue reading “Searching our souls”: Authors retract paper after researcher admits to fabricating data
The week at Retraction Watch featured revelations about a case of misconduct at the University of Colorado Denver, and the case of a do-over that led to a retraction. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
The problem of fake peer reviews never seems to end — although the research community has known about it since 2014, publishers are still discovering new cases. In April, one journal alone retracted 107 papers after discovering the review process had been compromised. By tracking individual reviewers’ contributions, Publons — recently purchased by Clarivate Analytics — … Continue reading Can a tracking system for peer reviewers help stop fakes?
When a journal discovers elementary design flaws in a paper, what should it do? Should it retract immediately, or are there times when it makes sense to give the researchers time to perform a “do-over?” These are questions the editors at Scientific Reports recently faced with a somewhat controversial 2016 paper, which reported that microRNAs … Continue reading Instead of retracting a flawed study, a journal let authors re-do it. It got retracted anyway.
In 2005, the U.S. Office of Research Integrity found an obesity researcher had engaged in scientific misconduct. More specifically, the ORI report revealed that Eric Poehlman, then based at the University of Vermont, had “falsified and fabricated” data in 10 papers. The 2005 report asked that the journals issue retractions or corrections to the papers. … Continue reading 12 years after researcher found guilty of misconduct, journal retracts paper
A Nature journal has posted a editor’s note to a recent letter on potential unintended consequences of CRISPR gene editing, after an executive at a company trying to commercialize the technology said the paper should be retracted. The original article, published on May 30 as a correspondence in Nature Methods, suggested that using CRISPR in mice … Continue reading Journal alerts readers to “technical criticism” of CRISPR study