Search Results for: nature

Fake email for corresponding author forces neuro journal to retract paper

A chair of a neurobiology department in China has requested the retraction of a paper on which he was unwittingly listed as the lead and corresponding author. How could a corresponding author — you know, the person with whom the journal corresponds about the paper — be added without their consent? It seems that a fraudulent email account was involved in … Continue reading Fake email for corresponding author forces neuro journal to retract paper

Journal retracting at least nine articles by education researcher

A investigation in Singapore has failed to turn up primary data that formed the basis for 11 papers from one author about special education. In addition, a forensic investigation at Noel Chia’s institution — the National Institute of Education in Singapore, part of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) — suggested that some signatures providing parental consent might not be authentic. … Continue reading Journal retracting at least nine articles by education researcher

Can misconduct be fun? A new game wants to find out

Can’t get enough of the personal and professional politics that dog a scientific career? On your off-hours, you can play a new game called Lab Wars, which lets players reenact the best – and the worst – parts of climbing the scientific career ladder. It was developed by two researchers — Caezar Al-Jassar, a structural … Continue reading Can misconduct be fun? A new game wants to find out

Weekend reads: Idiotic reviews; wrong metrics in China; questions about preprints

The week at Retraction Watch featured the corrections of papers claiming that conservative beliefs were linked to psychotic traits, and a new member of our leaderboard, from philosophy. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Author denies accusations of blatant duplication

Twitter is abuzz today over allegations that a recent paper in Scientific Reports contains a blatant example of duplication. According to the allegations, a group of researchers in Malaysia have used the same four images to represent some 30 cells at different stages of cell death. One researcher has even suggested the allegedly doctored images appear in three … Continue reading Author denies accusations of blatant duplication

Should researchers guilty of misconduct go to “rehab”?

A report on the first few years of “researcher rehab” suggests that three days of intensive training have a lasting impact on participants. Specifically, among participants — all of whom had been found guilty of at least one type of misconduct — the authors report that: A year later, follow-up surveys indicate that the vast majority … Continue reading Should researchers guilty of misconduct go to “rehab”?

Meet our newest team member: Dalmeet Singh Chawla

Join us in welcoming new staff writer Dalmeet Singh Chawla. Dalmeet was inspired by talks at the 2014 Association of British Science Writers meeting (including by our own Ivan Oransky) to build a niche for himself as a writer – lucky for us, he chose science publishing. His focus has been on stories about innovations … Continue reading Meet our newest team member: Dalmeet Singh Chawla

Philosopher earns 14th retraction for plagiarism

Today, we bring you a case of a serial plagiarizer. Martin W. F. Stone was a philosophy professor at the University of Leuven — by one account “widely admired and highly respected” — until 2010, when an investigation at the school concluded that his work is “highly questionable in terms of scientific integrity.” Over the past … Continue reading Philosopher earns 14th retraction for plagiarism

Conservative political beliefs not linked to psychotic traits, as study claimed

Researchers have fixed a number of papers after mistakenly reporting that people who hold conservative political beliefs are more likely to exhibit traits associated with psychoticism, such as authoritarianism and tough-mindedness. As one of the notices specifies, now it appears that liberal political beliefs are linked with psychoticism. That paper also swapped ideologies when reporting on people higher in neuroticism and … Continue reading Conservative political beliefs not linked to psychotic traits, as study claimed

Weekend reads: How to prove (and find) false claims; confessions of a wasteful scientist

This week at Retraction Watch featured what may be a record for plagiarism, a paper retracted because the device researchers claimed to use hadn’t arrive in the institution yet, and a technical glitch, which meant you may have missed some of our posts. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: