Researchers in China have received an expression of concern for a recent paper on COVID-19 pneumonia after editors were alerted to suspicious similarities between the tables in the article and those in a 2018 study by members of the same group.
In case you missed that: The pandemic started long after 2018.
Continue reading COVID-19 pneumonia paper earns expression of concern — for being similar to a pre-pandemic article
We wrote in September in WIRED about a trend among journals of purging racist and sexist work from their archives. To that trend we can now add papers that are homophobic and racist.
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease has retracted a 1951 article by one Benjamin H. Glover, at the time a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The article, “Observations on Homosexuality Among University Students,” claimed that:
Continue reading Journal retracts 70-year-old article on homosexuality for “long discredited beliefs, prejudices, and practices”
A cancer specialist formerly affiliated with Boys Town National Research Hospital in Nebraska who was found to have committed misconduct in nearly 20 grant applications and papers has lost an article in Scientific Reports — a year after his misconduct case became public.
According to the journal, which, to its credit, flagged the paper with an editor’s note last February, the delay stemmed from efforts to verify information that was not part of the official inquiry.
The article, “Type IV collagen α1-chain noncollagenous domain blocks MMP-2 activation both in-vitro and in-vivo,” was written by a group led by Yakkanti Akul Sudhakar, whose name — last, at least — might be familiar to RW readers.
In November 2019, Sudhakar — who also has published as Sudhakar Yakkanti and Akulapalli Sudhakar — was sanctioned by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity for:
Continue reading A year after a federal misconduct finding, a cancer researcher loses a paper
A Hindawi journal has retracted two 2013 papers by a group of stem cell researchers in China over issues with the images in the articles, bringing their count to three.
Here’s the notice for “Side-by-Side comparison of the biological characteristics of human umbilical cord and adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells,” by Lili Chen and colleagues from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan:
Continue reading Stem cell researchers lose two more papers, making three
Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.
The week at Retraction Watch featured:
Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 39.
Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Continue reading Weekend reads: Robots come to scientific publishing; questions about a COVID-19 vaccine; funding by lottery
A student newspaper at Johns Hopkins has retracted an article claiming that COVID-19 has had “relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.”
The article, “A closer look at U.S. deaths due to COVID-19” (link from the Wayback Machine) was published on November 22 and relied on a presentation by Genevieve Briand, assistant program director of the Applied Economics master’s degree program at Hopkins.
From the article:
Continue reading Johns Hopkins student newspaper deletes, then retracts, article on faculty member’s presentation about COVID-19 deaths
A group of authors at Nagoya University and Kyoto University have retracted a 2019 Nature paper because of errors.
Here’s the retraction notice:
Continue reading Authors retract Nature paper after realizing some data were “calculated wrongly”
A journal published by the Royal Society in the United Kingdom has issued an updated expression of concern for a 2018 paper by a mathematician whose work has been the subject of intense scrutiny on this website and elsewhere. But the notice is less of a statement of problems than a rationalization.
The paper, “Quantum correlations are weaved by the spinors of the Euclidean primitives,” was written by Joy Christian, of the “Einstein Centre for Local-Realistic Physics in Oxford.” In May 2018, the journal issued an initial EoC about the article, stating:
Continue reading Subtraction by addition: A journal expresses concern again — but this time, with feeling
A cancer researcher faked a dozen images in three papers and a conference presentation while employed at Harvard teaching hospitals, according to a new report by a federal U.S. watchdog.
The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) found that David Panka
Continue reading Former Harvard cancer researcher faked a dozen images, say Feds
A stem cell researcher in Japan could end up with 23 retractions after officials at his former institution confirmed that he’d committed research misconduct in nearly two dozen papers.
According to a report released last week by Aichi Gakuin University, Nobuaki Ozeki misused images, fabricated data and recycled text in 20 papers. Ozeki has had 19 papers retracted to date, 17 of which are described in the analysis. The latest report — an offshoot of one in 2018 that found he had committed misconduct in three papers — expands Ozeki’s liability to 22 articles.
Ozeki has roughly 40 indexed journal articles on his CV, however, and journals may decide to conduct their own investigations into his work. Articles in the International Journal of Medical Sciences, Differentiation, and the Journal of Endodontics were named in the report but so far remain intact.
Continue reading Stem cell researcher’s retraction count may near two dozen