‘Prince of panspermia’ has a paper retracted, and sues Springer Nature

A neuroscientist once dubbed the “prince of panspermia” has lost a 2019 paper claiming that Venus may hold life seeded from Earth. 

The paper, titled “Life on Venus and the interplanetary transfer of biota from Earth,” was written by Rhawn Gabriel Joseph, whose affiliations have included outfits called Astrobiology Associates of Northern California San Francisco and the Brain Research Neuroscience Laboratory. 

A once-avid YouTuber, Joseph also has a consulting business, charging $500 for a 30-minute phone call, $500 an hour to review documents and $250 per page for his writing services. He’ll also sit with you face-to-face (six feet away and fully masked, we trust) for three hours if you have $5,000 for the privilege. 

That’s high-priced lawyer money. Speaking of which, according to Vice, Joseph in 2014 tried to use the courts to force NASA to investigate what he believed was evidence of life on Mars. 

Continue reading ‘Prince of panspermia’ has a paper retracted, and sues Springer Nature

Almond, no joy: Plant geneticist in Iran up to at least six retractions

A plant geneticist in Iran is up to at least six retractions for misuse of figures and other material from previously published papers. 

The newest retraction involves a 2017 paper in Scientific Reports, a Springer Nature publication, titled “Comparison of traditional and new generation DNA markers declares high genetic diversity and differentiated population structure of wild almond species.” PubPeer commenters have been discussing it for some seven months.

According to the notice: 

Continue reading Almond, no joy: Plant geneticist in Iran up to at least six retractions

Weekend reads: ‘Unicorn poo’ and other fraudulent COVID-19 treatments; disgraced researchers and drug company payouts; a fictional account of real fraud

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Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 33.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘Unicorn poo’ and other fraudulent COVID-19 treatments; disgraced researchers and drug company payouts; a fictional account of real fraud

Duo that used legal threats to force scientists to pay for a tool face off in court

Donald Morisky

Steven Trubow and Donald Morisky made a small fortune through a controversial company that licensed, often at what researchers thought were exorbitant rates, a tool to scientists, wielding the cudgel of costly legal action if they balked at payment. 

Now, in what critics of the pair will doubtless find a delicious irony, the pair is embroiled in a lawsuit over … licensing of the licensing business. 

Morisky, of UCLA, is the developer of the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS), a proprietary research instrument he rents out to scholars and institutions — often at fees that have, in some cases, exceeded $100,000. Many researchers who don’t obtain permission have been forced to pay up or retract their work.

Continue reading Duo that used legal threats to force scientists to pay for a tool face off in court

“This unfortunate situation”: Journal retracts bizarre paper about a black hole at the center of Earth

A black hole, not at the center of the Earth (via Wikimedia)

It was a paper that caught the attention — and bemusement — of Twitter:

And now it is no more, along with four more articles from the Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences in what was billed as a special issue on Global Dermatology.

Here’s the whole title: “A black hole at the center of earth plays the role of the biggest system of telecommunication for connecting DNAs, dark DNAs and molecules of water on 4+N- dimensional manifold.” (Be warned that the link takes you to a login.)

You may fairly wonder what a terrestrial black hole and skin diseases have in common. The abstract, which we present for posterity, sheds no, ahem, light on the question:

Continue reading “This unfortunate situation”: Journal retracts bizarre paper about a black hole at the center of Earth

Author says ‘misguided efforts for the ideal western blot led to the withdrawal of these studies’

A figure marked up by Elisabeth Bik on PubPeer

The Journal of Biological Chemistry has retracted two papers by a group from the University of Toronto over what the leader of the research says were “misguided efforts” by a co-author to make the perfect Western blot. 

The retractions are among a batch of seven recent removals by the journal for image issues, some of which were flagged on PubPeer. 

Two of the papers, which date back to 2004, come from one group, two from another and two from a third. The seventh is a stand-alone for a group with a history of problematic articles. 

Continue reading Author says ‘misguided efforts for the ideal western blot led to the withdrawal of these studies’

The Doctor Who Fooled The World: An excerpt from Brian Deer’s new book about Andrew Wakefield

Retraction Watch readers are no doubt familiar with the case of Andrew Wakefield, the former gastroenterologist who led a 1998 paper in The Lancet — now retracted — that led him to claim a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. It was journalist Brian Deer who revealed the true details of that work, and in this excerpt from his new book, The Doctor Who Fooled the World, released today in the U.S., Deer reports on Wakefield’s formative years.

In some imaginary universe, he might be revered as Professor Sir Andrew Wakefield. Two decades before his invitation to Donald Trump’s inauguration ball, the destination he felt beckoned, like a big bony finger, wasn’t in Washington, DC, or anywhere in America, but a concert hall in downtown Stockholm. Dressed like Fred Astaire in white tie and tails, his dream, people said, was to collect a gold medal from the hands of the King of the Swedes.

“You’d hear them in the canteen,” a former colleague of his tells me. “They’d be talking about the Nobel Prize.”

But to that, or any, universe, the gateway was the same: the portal to all his possibilities. It stood then—and stands now—on Beacon Hill: high above the city of Bath, in the county of Somerset, ninety minutes by train west of London. Here you’ll find the entrance to his childhood home, and the exit to all roads he will travel.

It’s no picket gate. This isn’t Tom Sawyer. I’d guess the frame weighs more than a ton. Embracing two ten-foot Doric columns and matching pilasters, with an ornately carved frieze across a multilayered architrave, it resembles the entrance to a Victorian mausoleum, or a side door to the Colosseum of Rome. It speaks of wealth, class, authority, and entitlement. In uppercase, the lintel is lettered:

Continue reading The Doctor Who Fooled The World: An excerpt from Brian Deer’s new book about Andrew Wakefield

Major heart journal retracts two papers from Oxford group for misconduct

The Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) has retracted two 2018 papers out of the University of Oxford because of misconduct.

Both retraction notices blame first author Alexander Liu, a student in the lab at the time, who disputes the retractions. The studies were part of a larger effort to improve heart imaging that caught the attention of cardiologists and was highlighted by Oxford in 2015.

Here’s the notice for “Diagnosis of Microvascular Angina Using Cardiac Magnetic Resonance,” a paper that has been cited 59 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, earning it a “highly cited paper” designation:

Continue reading Major heart journal retracts two papers from Oxford group for misconduct

Weekend reads: Steak-umm in the scientific literature; hushed-up COVID-19 data; major award cancelled for 2020

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 33.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Continue reading Weekend reads: Steak-umm in the scientific literature; hushed-up COVID-19 data; major award cancelled for 2020

23 becomes 22: Publisher retracts retraction, apologizes for the error

A publisher that retracted nearly two dozen papers earlier this month for plagiarism and other problems has retracted one of the retractions, apologizing to the authors for its error.

All of the 23 — now 22 — retracted papers had either Jesus Silva or Amelec Viloria as one of the authors, but Silva and Viloria turn out to be the same person, according to the publisher, IOP Publishing. Viloria is last author of the now unretracted paper, “Energy potential of vinasse derived from rum manufacturing,” from IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering.

The first author of that paper, Carmen Vásquez, of Universidad Nacional Experimental Politécnica Antonio José de Sucre in Venezuela, told Retraction Watch by email (we used Google Translate to translate from Spanish to English) that she had contacted the publisher when the retractions appeared to let them know that her paper did not plagiarize:

Continue reading 23 becomes 22: Publisher retracts retraction, apologizes for the error