An investigation at Taipei Medical University found that an author made “serious mistakes” when preparing a manuscript. The journal prompted the university to investigate the paper, which looks at the role of a protein in repairing arteries after an injury. The retraction notice explains:
What is the difference between “reproducible” and “replicable”? And how does each relate to results that are “generalizable” and “robust”? Researchers are using these terms interchangeably, creating confusion over what exactly is needed to confirm a scientific result, argues a new paper published today in Science Translational Medicine. Here’s how the US National Science Foundation (NSF) … Continue reading What does “reproducibility” mean? New paper seeks to standardize the lexicon
Authors have retracted a study just three months after publishing it, upon realizing they made “several critical errors.” For one, the authors didn’t actually collect the data they claim to in the title of the paper, which reported on methods to screen patients for recurrence of lung cancer. The authors included data from positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT), … Continue reading Paper reports data from PET/CT scan, years before it arrived
Epilepsy researcher Toni Schneider has received a retraction and a correction in quick succession, after a former colleague raised red flags about the work. The retraction for Schneider, based at the University of Köln in Germany, is for “unintentional inclusion of erroneous data” due to limitations of the recording system used in the paper, according to the … Continue reading Epilepsy researcher gets retraction, correction after former colleague flags work
Authors have admitted to using material from another lab for their paper on neuroblastoma. A spokesperson for Springer told us that the theft came to light when: The scientists, from whom the data originated, contacted the journal. The editor in chief of the journal investigated the case, the spokesperson told us, and then issued this retraction notice:
Science has a new editor-in-chief. As of July 1st, Jeremy M. Berg will be at the helm of the family of journals published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, replacing Marcia McNutt. McNutt is leaving to become president of the National Academy of Sciences. Berg, now associate senior vice chancellor for science strategy and planning … Continue reading Science names new editor-in-chief
When authors get new data that revise a previous report, what should they do? In the case of a 2015 lung cancer drug study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the journal published a letter to the editor with the updated findings. Shortly after the paper was published, a pharmaceutical company released new data showing the drug … Continue reading How should journals update papers when new findings come out?
A sixth retraction has appeared for a diabetes researcher who previously sued a publisher to try to stop his papers from being retracted. Mario Saad‘s latest retraction, in PLOS Biology, stems from inadvertent duplications, according to the authors. Though an investigation at Saad’s institution — the University of Campinas in Brazil — found no evidence of misconduct, a critic … Continue reading Researcher who sued to stop retractions gets his sixth
The editors of a journal that recently retracted a paper after the peer-review process was “compromised” have published the fake reviews, along with additional details about the case. In the editorial titled “Organised crime against the academic peer review system,” Adam Cohen and other editors at the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology say they missed “several fairly obvious … Continue reading Editors say they missed “fairly obvious clues” of third party tampering, publish fake peer reviews
The week at Retraction Watch featured a discussion of why science has bigger problems than retractions, and a look at what happened when a journal decided to get tough on plagiarism. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: