Search Results for: sting

PLOS Blogs removes post criticizing writer over sexual harassment post

Tabitha Powledge and Beryl Benderly, two long-time science writers, have found a post they wrote on PLOS Blogs taken down. The removal follows an online dispute with another blogger, Emily Willingham, about the post, which covered a session on sexual harassment, The XX Question, at the recent National Association of Science Writers (NASW) meeting in … Continue reading PLOS Blogs removes post criticizing writer over sexual harassment post

Doing the right thing, 150 years later: Paper retracts editorial condemning Gettysburg Address as “silly”

Okay, so great speechifying isn’t always recognized the first time it’s heard. We’re sure “I Have a Dream” had its detractors at the time. And Homer probably put more than his share of listeners to sleep while reciting the Iliad (that sucker’s LONG, after all). But when the Patriot & Union, of Pennsylvania, trashed Lincoln’s … Continue reading Doing the right thing, 150 years later: Paper retracts editorial condemning Gettysburg Address as “silly”

ALS paper retracted for figure problems

A group of researchers in Ireland has retracted their 2013 article on a possible new method for treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — ALS, also commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease — after identifying errors in several images in the paper. The article, “Acidotoxicity and acid-sensing ion channels contribute to motoneuron degeneration,” was published online in Cell … Continue reading ALS paper retracted for figure problems

Who’s on first? Paper on “the ethics of being first” retracted because it was…second

Has anyone seen our irony meter? The author of a 2003 study on “the ethics of being first” is retracting it because it turns out he had already published it elsewhere — making it, well, not first. Here’s the retraction notice for “Surgical Research and the Ethics of Being First,” the Journal of Value Inquiry … Continue reading Who’s on first? Paper on “the ethics of being first” retracted because it was…second

mBio retracts anthrax paper whose authors say they misinterpreted findings

mBio, whose editor, Arturo Casadevall, has contributed greatly to our knowledge about why articles are retracted, has an interesting retraction of its own. The journal — a publication of the American Society for Microbiology and the American Academy of Microbiology — is pulling a 2011 paper by a trio of researchers from the University of … Continue reading mBio retracts anthrax paper whose authors say they misinterpreted findings

A third retraction stemming from Cardiff investigations

We’ve been reporting on retractions of research published by Cardiff University scientists following an investigation into their work. On Monday, we noted a new retraction of work by the group in Cancer Research, which we thought was the second retraction following one in the Journal of Immunology in 2011. But it turns out there was … Continue reading A third retraction stemming from Cardiff investigations

Another image falsification retraction for Emory heart researchers

A group of authors from Emory University, has lost another paper for image manipulation, bringing their total to at least four. What makes this particularly interesting is that the main actor in the figure fakery, Lian Zuo, does not appear to have been involved this time. Zuo, you may recall, was cited in multiple retraction … Continue reading Another image falsification retraction for Emory heart researchers

“Just significant” results have been around for decades in psychology — but have gotten worse: study

Last year, two psychology researchers set out to figure out whether the statistical results psychologists were reporting in the literature were distributed the way you’d expect. We’ll let the authors, E.J. Masicampo, of Wake Forest, and Daniel Lalande, of the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, explain why they did that: The psychology literature is meant … Continue reading “Just significant” results have been around for decades in psychology — but have gotten worse: study

Second retraction stemming from Cardiff investigations appears

A second retraction of a paper by a Cardiff University researcher found to have committed misconduct has appeared. In April, a Cardiff investigation found that Rossen Donev, a former researcher at the university, had manipulated images in four different papers. Donev, who was at the University of Swansea until August, according to his LinkedIn profile, … Continue reading Second retraction stemming from Cardiff investigations appears

Doing the right thing: Scientists reward authors who report their own errors, says study

We’ve always like to highlight cases in which scientists do the right thing and retract problematic papers themselves, rather than being forced to by editors and publishers. Apparently, according to a new paper by economists and management scholars, scientists reward that sort of behavior, too. The study by Benjamin Jones of the Kellogg School of … Continue reading Doing the right thing: Scientists reward authors who report their own errors, says study