The January 2012 issue of Biosystems Engineering has a commendably thorough retraction notice regarding a case of plagiarism in its pages. The notice, regarding the article “Advanced techniques for Weed and crop identification for site specific Weed management,” by Karan Singh, K.N. Agrawal, and Ganesh C. Bora, of North Dakota State University, speaks for itself:
More than 14 months after Blood issued a notice of concern about a paper by a Harvard stem cell scientist and her former post-doc, the journal has retracted the article. Here’s the notice for the paper, “Osteolineage niche cells initiate hematopoietic stem cell mobilization,” by Shane Mayack and Amy Wagers:
Just days after the retraction of a paper in Science that had claimed a link between chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and the virus XMRV, the authors of a similar paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) have retracted theirs. The PNAS paper, “Detection of MLV-related virus gene sequences in blood of … Continue reading Another shoe drops as authors retract PNAS chronic fatigue syndrome-virus paper
Several journals in the field of orthopedics and related disciplines have been victimized by an apparent serial plagiarist. The author, Bernardino Saccomanni, of Gabriele D’ Annunzio University, in Chieti Scalo, Italy—across the boot and up a bit from Rome—appears to have lifted significant amounts of text in several articles. Last January, for example, Current Reviews … Continue reading Multiple retractions as brazen plagiarist victimizes orthopedics literature
Is retracting a paper like shutting the barn door after the horses have bolted? Sadly, that’s a more apt metaphor than we’d like for a retraction in Equine Veterinary Journal of a short paper about efforts to save Przewalski’s horses, an endangered species closely related to domestic horses. Here’s the notice:
Alirio Melendez, whose former employer, the National University of Singapore, is investigating about 70 of his papers, has retracted a second study. Here’s the notice for the 2010 Journal of Molecular Cell Biology paper, “Sphingosine-1-phosphate mediates proliferation maintaining the multipotency of human Adult Bone Marrow and Adipose Tissue-derived Stem Cells:”
When is a retraction not a retraction? Why, when it’s a correction, of course — like the one the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases issued this month: In the article Reassortment of Ancient Neuraminidase and Recent Hemagglutinin in Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Virus (P. Bhoumik, A.L. Hughes), errors were made in selection of the hemagglutinin (HA) and … Continue reading Retraction (in all but name) of flu paper raises eyebrows
Ivan is on a public panel in Berlin at 7 p.m. on Wednesday night, November 2: “Science 2.0 – More knowledge, more transparency, more quality? How Web 2.0 has changed science.” Joining him in the discussion, which will be in English, are:
The Alirio Melendez case is likely to become quite complicated, as the National University of Singapore (NUS) looks into about 70 papers by the researcher whose work has already been the subject of a retraction and Expression of Concern. One such wrinkle seemed to have already surfaced when a blog called the Gigamole Diaries pointed out last week … Continue reading National University of Singapore official who co-authored Melendez papers won’t be part of investigation
We’ve been following the case of Zhiguo Wang, the former Montreal Heart Institute researcher who was forced to resign his post in early September following an investigation into his work. At the time of that announcement, two retractions of the Wang group’s papers — which we had reported on in August — had appeared. The … Continue reading Remaining Zhiguo Wang retractions will be in the Journal of Cellular Physiology