Yesterday,we posted on the retraction of a 2004 Nature paper on innate immunity whose findings had been questioned by two groups. A few hours after we posted that item, we heard back from the senior author of one of the papers doubting that data, Tom DeCoursey. DeCoursey makes a number of important points, so we … Continue reading More on Ahluwalia et al Nature retraction, from Tom DeCoursey
“Because of its growing reach and influence, Retraction Watch’s investigations and revelations have helped to address the issue of ‘unhelpful retraction notices’.” In 2020, NewsGuard said we were “unsung heroes,” one of ten sites they pointed to as “models in producing content that is truthful, compelling, credible, and transparent.” “The seamier side of academia, lying, … Continue reading What people are saying about Retraction Watch
How well do databases flag retracted articles? There has been a lot of interest recently in the quality of retraction notices and notifications, including new guidelines from the National Information Standards Organization (NISO; our Ivan Oransky was a member of the committee) and a new study which Ivan and our Alison Abritis joined. In another … Continue reading ‘A threat to the integrity of scientific publishing’: How often are retracted papers marked that way?
Last May, Devrim Çavuşoğlu, an engineer at Turkish software company OBSS, was looking at feedback from a conference reviewer of a paper he and his colleagues had submitted. One comment stood out to him: The reviewer had noticed a resemblance between Çavuşoğlu’s work and another paper accepted to a different conference on computational linguistics. When … Continue reading Caught by a reviewer: A plagiarizing deep learning paper lingers
A psychology researcher already under fire for several questionable studies has had her PhD revoked by a university tribunal that found it likely she fabricated data in her thesis. Ping Dong, who was a doctoral student at the University of Toronto from 2012 to 2017, had already earned retractions for two papers based on her … Continue reading Exclusive: Psychology researcher loses PhD after allegedly using husband in study and making up data
A professor of aerospace engineering in India who developed a scientific theory critics call “absolute nonsense” said he is suing journal editors and publishers for pulling three papers he claims could help protect “millions of lives.” The articles, one in Springer Nature’s Scientific Reports and two in Wiley’s Global Challenges, described a highly technical concept … Continue reading Controversial rocket scientist in India threatens legal action after journals pull papers
A journal has retracted, over the objections of the authors, a controversial 2023 paper claiming a dig site in Indonesia is home to the largest pyramid built by humans. The work was led by the Indonesian geologist-cum-archeologist Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, of the Research Center for Natural Disasters in Bandung. Hilman has been working at the … Continue reading Controversial pyramid paper retracted when authors turn out to have radiocarbon-dated nearby dirt
Not long ago, it came to my attention that a 2016 paper by my students and me, “Measuring Semantic Similarity Of Words Using Concept Networks,” had been plagiarized, verbatim. The offenders had added two words to the title, which now read: “A Novel Methodology For Measuring Semantic Similarity Of Words Using Concept Networks.” Their article … Continue reading ‘The sincerest form of flattery’: How a math professor discovered his work had been plagiarized
You can love math, but can you math love? Scientific Reports has retracted a 2023 paper that tried to do just that by imposing a numerical model onto an ancient Persian love story that may have influenced Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The paper, “A fractional order nonlinear model of the love story of Layla and … Continue reading ‘Nonsensical content’: Springer Nature journal breaks up with a paper on a love story
A journal says a content management mishap led to the publication, and subsequent retraction, of a gag essay not intended for wide distribution. Why the retraction happened three and a half years after the paper’s publication remains murky. This story belongs to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, back when Proteins: Structure, Function, and … Continue reading Publisher error claims joke paper, April Fools’ tradition – three years later