Every now and then, we’re accused of “gotcha journalism” here at Retraction Watch. But here’s the story of a paper that we hope you’ll agree is “gotcha” science of the best kind, involving a different kind of retraction. The research is of, shall we say, a pressing problem known as Tie Retraction Syndrome, or TRS … Continue reading Tie Retraction Syndrome? Fat chance
A bit of intellectual property indiscretion has led to the retraction of a paper by Korean scientists. Although the details are fuzzy, several of the authors are affiliated with a Korean pharma company called SK. The paper, “A Novel Carbamoyloxy Arylalkanoyl Arylpiperazine Compound (SKL-NP) Inhibits Hyperpolarization-Activated Cyclic Nucleotide-Gated (HCN) Channel Currents in Rat Dorsal Root … Continue reading Loose lips sink paper on company’s experimental pain drug
October, apparently, is “studies of retractions month.” First there was a groundbreaking study in PNAS, then an NBER working paper, and yesterday PLoS Medicine alerted us to a paper their sister journal, PLoS ONE, published last week, “A Comprehensive Survey of Retracted Articles from the Scholarly Literature.” The study, by Michael L. Grieneisen and Minghua Zhang, … Continue reading Most retraction notices don’t involve research misconduct or flawed data: new study
A new study from a group of Boston-area economists sheds some light on whether retractions have downstream effects on related fields, particularly when it comes to funding. From the abstract of the working paper, called simply “Retractions,” by Pierre Azoulay, Jeffrey L. Furman, Joshua L. Krieger, and Fiona E. Murray: We find that scientifi c misconduct … Continue reading Collateral damage: What effect do retractions have on scientific funding?
It’s not often that wade into retractions in the mainstream media on this blog, but in this case, we’ll make an exception. As Politico and Poynter — and probably others — have reported, CNN has retracted a story about a yet-to-be-published study in Psychological Science claiming to find a link between estrogen and elections (disclosure: … Continue reading Psychological Science in the news again: CNN retracts story on hormone-voting link
The Journal of Computational Chemistry is retracting a 2011 paper by a group of Chinese researchers for duplication. The article was titled “Predicting Protein Folding Rates Using the Concept of Chou’s Pseudo Amino Acid Composition.” According to the notice:
The authors of a study estimating how much radioactive material from two sunken Russian submarines is taken up by fish in the Barents Sea have retracted it, citing the need for “significant and extensive” corrections. Here’s the notice, from Environmental Pollution:
Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering is retracting a 2011 paper by an Italian researcher who submitted a similar article to another journal. What makes this interesting is that the retracted article appears to be the one that was published first. The article, “Free vibrations of laminated composite doubly-curved shells and panels of revolution … Continue reading Bad vibrations: Composites paper pulled after subsequent, duplicate article appears
A new study out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) today finds that two-thirds of retractions are because of some form of misconduct — a figure that’s higher than previously thought, thanks to unhelpful retraction notices that cause us to beat our heads against the wall here at Retraction Watch. The … Continue reading Majority of retractions are due to misconduct: Study confirms opaque notices distort the scientific record
Michael Hertl, a leading dermatology researcher at Philipps-University Marburg, has been cleared of any wrongdoing in a case that spawned a retraction last year and two just-published retractions. Felicitas Riedel, a legal officer for the university, tells Retraction Watch that the …Committee for Scientific Misconduct of the Philipps-University Marburg closed the matter and submitted its … Continue reading University clears leading dermatology lab head of misconduct as authors issue two corrections