Less than three months after publishing a paper in Science which they claim to have been able to detect the spin of a single proton, the authors have retracted it for “a potentially serious issue with the main conclusion.” Here’s the notice:
Two solar cell researchers at the University of New South Wales have lost a paper in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews after the discovery of “substantial overlap” with work by a UNSW graduate student. The notice cites three sources for the plagiarism. One is an unpublished manuscript by UNSW student Matthew Wright, which he shared with the … Continue reading Solar paper retracted after plagiarism and duplication come to light
In April 2014, we wrote about the case of a former hydrologist at the University of Kansas (KU), Marios Sophocleous, who had plagiarized in at least seven studies, two of which were retracted by the journal Ground Water. At the time, we mentioned two other articles, in the Hydrogeology Journal, that appeared destined for retraction … Continue reading Water under the bridge? Hydrology journals won’t retract plagiarized papers despite university request
A paper in Food Chemistry suggesting cranberry extract has healing properties was retracted after some of the authors complained they had no idea the paper was being published. Here’s the notice for “Phenolic composition, antioxidant properties, and endothelial cell function of red and white cranberry fruits:”
Take us at our word when we tell you this isn’t some exercise in meta-irony or meta-criticism or any other meta-bullshit, but a pair of researchers at Drexel University in Philadelphia have published a paper calling for an end to irony in science. First, some background: In 2001, an Israeli researcher named Leonard Leibovici wrote … Continue reading Does irony have a place in science?
One of the complaints about peer review — a widely used but poorly studied process — is that it tends to reward papers that push science forward incrementally, but isn’t very good at identifying paradigm-shifting work. Put another way, peer review rewards mediocrity at the expense of breakthroughs. A new paper in the Proceedings of … Continue reading Peer review isn’t good at “dealing with exceptional or unconventional submissions,” says study
Fake peer reviews: They’re all the rage. Sixteen papers are being retracted across three Elsevier journals after the publisher discovered that one of the authors, Khalid Zaman, orchestrated fake peer reviews by submitting false contact information for his suggested reviewers. This particular kind of scam has been haunting online peer review for a few years now, as loyal Retraction … Continue reading Elsevier retracting 16 papers for faked peer review
Faked peer reviews — a subject about which we’ve been writing more and more recently — are concerning enough to a number of publishers that they’ve approached the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) to work together on a solution. In the past, we have reported on a number of cases in which authors were able … Continue reading Are companies selling fake peer reviews to help papers get published?
In April 2012, we wrote about a case of disputed authorship and misused data involving one Varun Kesherwani, a former postdoc at the University of Nebraska. As we reported then, Kesherwani was first author of a paper in Cytokine. The second author, Ajit Sodhi, of Banaras Hindu University, claimed to have had no knowledge of … Continue reading Former postdoc threatens Retraction Watch with lawsuit over vague defamation claims
The Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education has published a special issue on scientific ethics, and it includes an invited piece from us. In “What Studies of Retractions Tell Us,” we decided to do a literature review of the small but growing field of retraction studies. Five years ago, this would have been a very short … Continue reading What do studies of retractions tell us?