Weekend reads: Unscientific peer review; impact factor revolt; men love to cite themselves
The week at Retraction Watch featured a puzzle, and the retraction of a controversial study on fracking. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Search Results for: nature
Authors who lost paper linking fecal transplants to obesity have another retracted
An obesity journal has retracted a study by authors who previously lost another paper that suggested a link between the fecal microbiome and obesity. We first came across on the now-retracted paper in the International Journal of Obesity (IJO) in April when we reported on the authors’ other retraction in Diabetes. The 2014 paper had … Continue reading Authors who lost paper linking fecal transplants to obesity have another retracted
You’ve been dupe’d (again): Do these data look familiar? They are
We can’t keep up with the growing number of retraction notices, so we’ve compiled a list of recent duplications to update our records. 1. Authors don’t always intentionally duplicate their own work, of course. The first paper on our list was retracted after the authors included a figure from a previous paper by accident, according … Continue reading You’ve been dupe’d (again): Do these data look familiar? They are
Author, among others, loses four papers for “compromised” peer review
Journals have retracted four papers from an author after uncovering evidence the peer review process had been compromised. Three papers have all common authors. In one notice, issued last month, Annals of Human Genetics said it had reason to believe the paper had been reviewed by unqualified reviewers. Last year, another journal, Molecular Biology Reports, pulled two papers by … Continue reading Author, among others, loses four papers for “compromised” peer review
Weekend reads: Publisher under fire; Canadian scientists demand change; a troubled psychiatry trial
The week at Retraction Watch featured an unwitting co-author and a painful example of doing the right thing. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Here’s why this lawyer defends scientists accused of misconduct
More scientists are trying to settle accusations of misconduct in court, a trend very familiar to Washington, DC-based lawyer Paul Thaler. Regular readers may recall the name of one of Thaler’s clients — Rakesh Kumar, a scientist at George Washington University who filed an $8 million lawsuit for how the school handled an investigation into his work. … Continue reading Here’s why this lawyer defends scientists accused of misconduct
Genotyping mistake costs lab two papers and year of work
Researchers are retracting two papers about molecular signalling in plants — including one from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) — after discovering some inadvertent genotyping errors. But that was only after they used the problematic plants for an entire year without realizing they’d made a mistake. In a pair of refreshingly transparent … Continue reading Genotyping mistake costs lab two papers and year of work
Researcher committed misconduct “recklessly,” says investigation
A physiology journal has retracted a paper after an institutional investigation found that portions of the work had been falsified by the first author. According to the notice issued by the American Journal of Physiology – Renal Physiology (AJP), the last author initiated the investigation at the University of Houston in Texas, which found the … Continue reading Researcher committed misconduct “recklessly,” says investigation
Investigation raises questions about top cancer researcher’s work
A prominent pancreatic cancer researcher has lost a meeting abstract and corrected a Nature paper following an institutional investigation. Queen Mary University of London determined that, in an abstract by Thorsten Hagemann, “elements of the study summarised by this abstract are not reliable.” Hagemann has recently issued a correction to a 2014 Nature paper he co-authored, which also … Continue reading Investigation raises questions about top cancer researcher’s work
Weekend reads: Open data’s downsides; do journals serve a purpose?; fraud allegations down in China
The week at Retraction Watch featured news that a religion journal wouldn’t be retracting a paper despite evidence of forgery in the evidence it relied on, and also news that we’re hiring. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: