Fake peer review, made-up author take down a paper

Manipulated peer review strikes again, this time with a 2015 article whose authors appear to have created a straw mathematician to make their work seem more legit. 

The paper, “Fixed point theorems and explicit estimates for convergence rates of continuous time Markov chains,” appeared in Fixed Point Theory and Applications, a Springer Nature title. 

Its authors, purportedly, were affiliated with institutions in China and Japan. According to the acknowledgements for the article: 

Continue reading Fake peer review, made-up author take down a paper

Heavily criticized paper blaming the sun for global warming is retracted

via NASA

A controversial paper claiming that fluctuations in the sun’s magnetic field could be driving global warming has been retracted — prompting protests from most of the authors, who called the move 

a shameful step to cover up the truthful facts about the solar and Earth orbital motion reported by the retracted paper, in our replies to the reviewer comments and in the further papers.

The 2019 article, “Oscillations of the baseline of solar magnetic field and solar irradiance on a millennial timescale,” appeared in Scientific Reports and was written by a group of authors from the UK, Russia and Azerbaijan. The first author was Valentina Zharkova, a mathematician/astrophysicist at Northumbria University, whose group reported having received funding for the work from the U.S. Air Force and the Russian Science Foundation.  

The paper purported to find that fluctuations in the sun’s magnetic field are making the earth hotter: 

Continue reading Heavily criticized paper blaming the sun for global warming is retracted

Four retractions follow misconduct inquiry at U Maryland

via Wikimedia

The Journal of Virology has retracted three papers, and corrected two others, by a group led by a researcher at the University of Maryland, for problematic images. 

The articles, published in 2008 and 2014, describe experiments to assess the immune response to Newcastle disease virus in various animal species.  The studies were led by Siba K. Samal, a molecular biologist at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Maryland, in College Park.

The retractions make four for Samal, who also lost a 2015 paper in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, “Glycoprotein-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays for serodiagnosis of infectious laryngotracheitis,” and whose work has been scrutinized on PubPeer for more than four years. The notice for that paper reads: 

Continue reading Four retractions follow misconduct inquiry at U Maryland

Weekend reads: A big change in China; revealing a paper mill; plagiarism detection put to the test

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:

Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Continue reading Weekend reads: A big change in China; revealing a paper mill; plagiarism detection put to the test

Software error grounds pigeon-smarts paper

Source

Pigeons definitely get a bad rap. Some might consider them mere rats with wings, purveyors of pestilence, distributors of dung, but rock doves aren’t, well, as dumb as their name might suggest. Pigeons are perhaps the world’s most accurate homers, they seem to have an innate knack for game theory and they can detect breast cancer in mammograms better than many doctors. 

So when researchers in Germany reported in 2017 that pigeons were as adept, if not better, than people in multitasking, the findings seemed plausible. The study, which appeared in Current Biology, garnered a bit of media attention, including this piece in The Scientist, and has been cited five times, according to Clarivate Analytics Web of Science.

Turns out, that was a flight of fancy.

Continue reading Software error grounds pigeon-smarts paper

Lancet journal retracts letter on coronavirus because authors say it “was not a first-hand account” after all

The Lancet Global Health has swiftly retracted a letter to the editor purportedly describing the experience of nurses treating coronavirus in Wuhan, China, just two days after it was published, because the authors are now saying it “was not a first-hand account.”

In the original letter, the authors write:

Continue reading Lancet journal retracts letter on coronavirus because authors say it “was not a first-hand account” after all

Letter on vaping science paper earns expression of concern because author made up a degree

via Wikimedia

Leonard Zelig, meet Zvi Herzig.

The journal Circulation has issued an expression of concern about a 2015 letter, putatively written by Herzig, in which the author poked holes in a review article about e-cigarettes. 

According to the EoC, however, Herzig, like Zelig, may be a bit of a chameleon.

Continue reading Letter on vaping science paper earns expression of concern because author made up a degree

Journal founded by Hans Eysenck issues expressions of concern for his papers, despite calls by university to retract

Hans Eysenck

Bucking the advice of university investigators, a journal founded by Hans Eysenck has issued expressions of concern — not retractions — for three articles by the deceased psychologist whose work has been dogged by controversy since the 1980s. 

The move comes barely a week after other journals opted to retract 13 papers by Eysenck, who died in 1997. Those retractions were prompted by the findings of a 2019 investigation by King’s College London, where Eysenck worked until 1983. That inquiry concluded that: 

Continue reading Journal founded by Hans Eysenck issues expressions of concern for his papers, despite calls by university to retract

Researcher formerly of OSU and Taiwan’s Academia Sinica gets 10-year ban

After a 20-month investigation, Taiwan’s leading science institution has hit a former star cancer researcher with a 10-year ban for research misconduct. 

Academia Sinica (AS) said its inquiry found that Ching-shih Chen, formerly a distinguished research fellow at the center, was guilty of fabricating or falsifying data in several of the nearly two dozen papers he’d published while affiliated with the institution from 2014 to 2018. AS said Chen was being directed to retract one of the affected papers and correct three others. 

A 2018 article in the Taipei Times quoted an AS official, Henry Sun, saying that Chen, who resigned his post there that year, admitted that his staff had “beautified” his results and that he kept loose reins over this lab. 

Continue reading Researcher formerly of OSU and Taiwan’s Academia Sinica gets 10-year ban

Michigan State museum director “vigorously” denies “virtually all” of university panel findings against him

Mark Auslander

Earlier this month, we broke the story of a misconduct inquiry against Mark Auslander, the director of the Michigan State University Museum in East Lansing. (That story was picked up by a number of news outlets in Michigan.)

Auslander was found guilty by a university committee of having plagiarized, falsified data and committed other offenses stemming from his involvement in the repatriation to Bolivia of a 500-year-old mummy.  The claimant in the case was William Lovis, a professor emeritus of anthropology at MSU and curator emeritus of anthropology for the museum.

According to the report: 

Continue reading Michigan State museum director “vigorously” denies “virtually all” of university panel findings against him