Search Results for: nature

“We do not want to create false hope”: Authors retract Cell paper they can’t replicate

A few years ago, researchers in Sweden had something to celebrate: They thought they had discovered a chink in the armor of the most common type of malignant brain cancer. In a 2014 Cell paper, the team — led by Patrik Ernfors at the Karolinska Institutet — reported that they had identified a small molecule … Continue reading “We do not want to create false hope”: Authors retract Cell paper they can’t replicate

What a report into scientific misconduct reveals: The case of Frank Sauer

Oct. 3, 2011, was the beginning of the end for Frank Sauer’s tenure at the University of California, Riverside. On that day, an anonymous emailer contacted Sauer’s institution with accusations that the biochemist had cooked his research in at least eight papers over a 16-year period. Sauer was found to have doctored images in studies … Continue reading What a report into scientific misconduct reveals: The case of Frank Sauer

The RW week in review: Doing the right thing, two journals’ first retractions

Did you miss some of this week’s posts? Here they all are, in one handy roundup:

Weekend reads: Six-figure publishing bonuses; Google’s scientific influence campaign

The week at Retraction Watch featured the story of a group devastated to learn that they had used the wrong mice in their experiments, and the tale of how keycard swipe records gave away faked data. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

More notices appear for embattled Cornell food researcher

Journals have posted two corrections alongside papers by Brian Wansink, a food researcher whose work has lately come under fire. One of the corrected papers was among the initial batch that raised eyebrows last year; after Wansink praised the productivity of one of his researchers, critics suggested four papers contained critical flaws. The questions about … Continue reading More notices appear for embattled Cornell food researcher

Weekend reads: The ‘Journal Grand Master,’ what drives online attention to studies; a song of replication

The week at Retraction Watch featured a story of unintended consequences and a broken relationship, and a retraction for a paper that had just about everything wrong with it. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Fake peer review, forged authors, fake funding: Everything’s wrong with brain cancer paper

The paper had everything: Fake peer review, forged authors, even a fake funder. In other words, it had nothing. A 2015 paper is the latest retraction stemming from an investigation into fake peer review by Springer, which has now netted more than a hundred papers. According to a spokesperson at Springer:

Weekend reads: Why a vice-chancellor uses Impact Factors; plagiarizing principals; time to publish less?

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:

Inclusion of “personal correspondence” in evolution paper prompts retraction, new journal policy

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

“An evolving and inconsistent tale:” Biochemist barred from federal grants for five years

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