Partial retractions — as opposed corrections or the full monty — are unusual events in scientific publishing. But they appear to come in twos. The journal Infection and Immunity, the work of whose editor, Ferric Fang, is much admired by this blog, has a fascinating example of the breed in its February issue. The article … Continue reading Plague paper partially retracted
Jesús A. Lemus, he of the likely ghost author and questionable data, has earned his sixth retraction, this one in Biology Letters. Here’s the notice for “Stress associated with group living in a long-lived bird:”
Yesterday, we reported on two retractions in the Journal of Neuroscience whose notices referred to a University of Lisbon report that had determined there was “substantial data misrepresentation” in the original articles. The notice didn’t say anything about misconduct, but when we see “misrepresentation,” we tend to think — as do many others — that … Continue reading University of Lisbon investigation that spawned neuroscience retractions found no evidence of misconduct
Retraction Watch Rule 5.1, which governs ironic article titles (and does not actually exist), clearly states that researchers who plagiarize should avoid the use of words like “new” or “novel” when describing their research (or lack thereof). Failure to adhere to Rule 5.1 can lead to embarrassment — as in the case below. A pair … Continue reading Note to authors: Please don’t use the word “novel” when you plagiarize
Royal jelly — “the goo that sustains honeybees destined for royalty” and is touted dubiously for everything “from youthful skin to virility,” as Nature put it — is apparently a hot research topic. So when a Retraction Watch tipster sent us a corrigendum that seemed to have done something we hadn’t seen before — retract … Continue reading Royal jelly figure flushed: Author removes figure from 2002 paper
An anti-terrorism researcher at the University of Southern Denmark has had a number of papers in conference proceedings retracted for plagiarism. Debora Weber-Wulff, who has researched plagiarism for a decade, reports on her blog Copy, Shake, and Paste that eight papers by Nasrullah Memon have been retracted after the Vroniplag website revealed similarities between his … Continue reading Eight papers by anti-terrorism professor retracted for plagiarism
Nature published an interesting piece yesterday, titled “Rehab’ helps errant researchers return to the lab.” Excerpt: With the rapid growth of misconduct cases, some scientists are worried that preventative training in research ethics might not be enough. Nor will it be possible simply to dismiss all violators from science. Scientific rehabilitation, they say, will have … Continue reading Can we — or should we — rehabilitate scientists who commit misconduct?
Three new retractions — two of papers by Lawrence Sanna and one of work by Dirk Smeesters — have appeared in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. The retractions come along with a hard-hitting piece by the journal’s editor. In a tough soul-searching editorial called “On Fraud, Deceit, and Ethics” (unfortunately only available behind a paywall), … Continue reading “Fraud committed by any social psychologist diminishes all social psychologists”: New Sanna, Smeesters retractions
Milena Penkowa, the former University of Copenhagen scientist found by her university to have embezzled grant funds and to have possibly committed misconduct in 15 papers, has another retraction. An international panel released its findings in July, as Nature reported then:
A contested retraction in Stem Cells and Development has left the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) graduate student who fought for it in limbo, uncertain if he will earn his PhD. And many of those who didn’t want the paper retracted have a significant financial interest in a company whose work was promoted by the … Continue reading Stem cell retraction leaves grad student in limbo, reveals tangled web of industry-academic ties