Elsevier journals ask Retraction Watch to review COVID-19 papers

Ivan Oransky: Not a COVID-19 expert
credit: Elizabeth Solaka

At the risk of breaking the Fourth Wall, here’s a story about peer reviews that weren’t — and shouldn’t have been.

Since mid-February, four different Elsevier journals have invited me to review papers about COVID-19. Now, it is true that we will occasionally review — often with our researcher, Alison Abritis — papers on retractions and closely related issues. And at the risk of creating more work for ourselves, we often wonder who exactly reviewed some of the papers we see published, given how badly they mangle retraction data. 

These manuscripts, however, had nothing whatsoever to do with retractions. In case you need evidence, here it is:

Continue reading Elsevier journals ask Retraction Watch to review COVID-19 papers

Authors retract Nature Majorana paper, apologize for “insufficient scientific rigour”

Leo Kouwenhoven, credit De Sebastiaan ter Burg

The authors of a Nature paper that could have meant a great leap forward for Microsoft’s computing power are retracting it today after other researchers flagged serious problems in the work.

The researchers, led by Leo Kouwenhoven, a physicist at Delft Technical University in the Netherlands who is also employed by Microsoft, published “Quantized Majorana conductance” on March 28, 2018. Along with work at other labs, the paper, which claimed to have found evidence for a long-elusive particle known as a Majorana fermion, prompted this quotation in a BBC story: 

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Journal flags a dozen papers as likely paper mill products a year after sleuths identified them

via Pixy

A journal has issued a dozen expressions of concern over articles that a group of data sleuths had flagged last year on PubPeer as showing signs of having been cranked out by a paper mill. 

The 12 articles were published between 2017 and 2019 in the International Journal of Immunopathology and Pharmacology and were written by authors in China. They carry the same notice: 

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Weekend reads: An apology from JAMA; a call to retract COVID-19 ayurveda paper; the treasure that was a hoax

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 86.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: An apology from JAMA; a call to retract COVID-19 ayurveda paper; the treasure that was a hoax

An author loses a fifth paper because it “bears the hallmarks of plagiarism”

via James Kroll

A researcher in France has lost his fifth paper for plagiarism, this one a 2015 article on weakness in the elderly.  

The study, “Identification of biological markers for better characterization of older subjects with physical frailty and sarcopenia,” appeared in Translational Neuroscience and came from a group in France led by Bertrand Fougère, of the Universitaire de Toulouse. 

As we reported in 2019, Fougère had tallied previous retractions for plagiarism dating back to 2018.  At the time, he told us: 

Continue reading An author loses a fifth paper because it “bears the hallmarks of plagiarism”

University of Tennessee investigation finds manipulated images in Science paper

An investigation by the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center, in Memphis, into a 2006 Science paper found evidence that three figures in the article had been manipulated.

Science sleuth Elisabeth Bik first flagged the paper, titled “Molecular Linkage Between the Kinase ATM and NF-κB Signaling in Response to Genotoxic Stimuli,” to the editors of Science in 2015. Today, Science issued an expression of concern for the paper: 

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University of New Mexico investigation finds manipulated data and images, prompts retractions

A research group at the University of New Mexico has lost at least two papers after an inquiry found evidence of manipulated data. 

One article, “Large-Area Semiconducting Graphene Nanomesh Tailored by Interferometric Lithography,” appeared in 2015 in Scientific Reports, a Springer Nature title, and has been cited 25 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science. 

The other, “Vertical Charge Transfer and Lateral Transport in Graphene/Germanium Heterostructures,” was published in 2017 in the American Chemical Society’s journal Applied Materials & Interfaces. It has been cited twice.

The senior author on both articles was Sanjay Krishna, who has since moved to the Ohio State University, where he is the George R. Smith Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering. 

The retraction notice for the paper in Scientific Reports states: 

Continue reading University of New Mexico investigation finds manipulated data and images, prompts retractions

Legal researcher who claimed false affiliation up to 31 retractions

A law researcher who has falsely claimed to have been affiliated with several institutions has lost eight more publications, bringing his retraction total to 31 and earning him a spot in the top 20 of our leaderboard.

The most recent retractions for Dimitris Liakopoulos include The Regulation of Transnational Mergers in International and European Law, an entire book he co-authored. They also include three papers from Homa Publica and two from Lex et Scientia International Journal. An example:

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“The right decision”: Group retracts Nature Chemical Biology paper after finding a key error

Nicola Smith, credit Karl Welsch, Welsch Photography

Researchers in Australia have retracted a 2016 paper in Nature Chemical Biology after discovering a critical error in their research, bringing some closure to a gut-wrenching case for the scientists involved. 

As we reported in January, Nicola Smith, the senior author of the article, titled “Orphan receptor ligand discovery by pickpocketing pharmacological neighbors,” described learning of the error as “the most horrific time” of her career. 

Smith, then at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney (she’s now at the Orphan Receptor Laboratory at the University of New South Wales) told us that she briefly considered letting the flawed research — which has been cited 26 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science — go uncorrected. 

After all, as one colleague told her, the subject of the studies was so arcane that 

Continue reading “The right decision”: Group retracts Nature Chemical Biology paper after finding a key error

What happened when a group of sleuths flagged more than 30 papers with errors?

Jennifer Byrne

Retraction Watch readers may recall the name Jennifer Byrne, whose work as a scientific sleuth we first wrote about four years ago, and have followed ever since. In a new paper in Scientometrics, Byrne, of New South Wales Health Pathology and the University of Sydney, working along with researchers including Cyril Labbé, known for his work detecting computer-generated papers, and Amanda Capes-Davis, who works on cell line identification, describe what happened when they approached publishers about errors in 31 papers. We asked Byrne several questions about the work.

Retraction Watch (RW): You focused on 31 papers with a “specific reagent error.” Can you explain what the errors were?

Continue reading What happened when a group of sleuths flagged more than 30 papers with errors?