A group of Swiss neurologists have lost their 2013 article in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience after reporting that their data were rendered null by coding errors. The article, “Spontaneous pre-stimulus fluctuations in the activity of right fronto-parietal areas influence inhibitory control performance,” purported to find that:
A group of researchers in China has lost a paper on the human microbiome in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology for cannibalizing much of it from previously published work by other scientists. The article, titled “Human gut microbiota: dysbiosis and manipulation,” appeared on Sept. 27, 2012, and was written by a team from the … Continue reading Gut instinct: Intestinal flora paper yanked for plagiarism
A plant scientist at the Colorado State University has retracted a fifth paper. Here’s the notice for “Influence of ATP-binding cassette transporters in root exudation of phytoalexins, signals, and in disease resistance, a paper originally published in July 2012: The Journal, Chief Editor and the Authors wish to retract the Original Research article cited above … Continue reading Image manipulation leads to fifth retraction for plant research group
A second investigation into work co-authored by Paul Morgan, a dean at Cardiff University, has cleared him of research misconduct, but has found that Rossen Donev, a former researcher at the university — who has already retracted one study — falsified images in four papers. As we reported last August, Cardiff “initiated its Procedure for … Continue reading Cardiff clears dean of misconduct allegations, but finds former researcher falsified images
Last week, we covered the complicated story of a paper by Stephan Lewandowsky and colleagues that had been removed — or at least all but the abstract — from its publisher’s site. Our angle on the story was how Frontiers, which publishes Frontiers in Personality Science and Individual Differences, where the study appeared, had handled … Continue reading Update: Lewandowsky et al paper on conspiracist ideation “provisionally removed” due to complaints
Last year, Stephan Lewandowsky and colleagues posted a paper, scheduled for an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, with a, shall we say, provocative title: NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science In an interview last year with Lewandowsky, NPR gathered some of the reactions … Continue reading Why publishers should explain why papers disappear: The complicated Lewandowsky study saga
The Office of Research Integrity says Adam Savine, a former post-doc graduate student in psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, committed misconduct in work that tainted three papers and six abstracts he submitted to conferences. One of Savine’s studies that drew some media attention involved Diederik Stapel-esque research showing which brain region lights up … Continue reading Wash U psych researcher cited in ORI probe, faces multiple retractions
Today, without us having planned it, has become the day of retracted papers that found a new home. This morning, we posted an item about a chimp “culture” paper that was retracted from Biology Letters after its authors found some errors, and then published, with corrections, in the Journal of Human Evolution. This afternoon, we … Continue reading Sebastiani and Perls longevity genes work finds a new home in PLoS ONE following Science retraction