If you’ve ever submitted a paper, you know that many journals ask authors to suggest experts who can peer review your work. That’s understandable; after all, as science becomes more and more specialized, it becomes harder to find reviewers knowledgeable in smaller niches. Human nature being what it is, however, it would seem natural for … Continue reading Should authors be encouraged to pick their own peer reviewers?
We have a bizarre tale to relate involving the journal Surgery News, which recently lost its editor-in-chief over a rather strange editorial he wrote in the February issue of the magazine. The ill-fated — and, we’ll stipulate, ill-advised — commentary has led to a de facto retraction of the entire publication — meaning that although … Continue reading Forget chocolate on Valentine’s Day, try semen, says Surgery News editor. Retraction, resignation follow
A new retraction has appeared in the journal Cell. The article, “DNA-PKcs-PIDDosome: A Nuclear Caspase-2-Activating Complex with Role in G2/M Checkpoint Maintenance,” had initially appeared in February 2009. According to the notice:
Last week, we started a new series at Retraction Watch, “Retractions we haven’t had a chance to cover.” The first edition had sort of an environmental theme. This one has a duplication and self-plagiarism theme. But it’s not always the authors’ fault, as you’ll learn.
Regular readers of this blog by now know that one of our goals is to make retractions as open and informative as possible. Which is why when they’re not, we get irritated that not everyone seems to agree. Consider the editors of Computational and Theoretical Chemistry, which this month has retracted two papers from a … Continue reading Sigh: “The purpose of keeping these retraction notices slim is not to produce too much detail”
Last October, Retraction Watch readers will recall, up-and-coming stem cell researcher Amy Wagers retracted a study in Nature describing how her team rejuvenated blood-forming stem cells in older mice. Shane Mayack, a postdoc in Wagers’ lab who had been dismissed after an inquiry into what happened, did not sign that retraction. Since then, Mayack … Continue reading In a retraction’s wake: Postdoc Shane Mayack, dismissed from Amy Wagers’ stem cell lab, speaks out
Have you read yesterday’s post on a retraction in Applied Mathematics Letters yet? (If you haven’t, you’ve missed the explanation of how “Both science and spirituality came from space,” along with other oddities. We’ll wait while you go read it.) But for those of you who have, it turns out that this wasn’t the first … Continue reading More on Applied Mathematics Letters: Journal retracted paper questioning second law of thermodynamics
Sometimes, things just don’t add up. Take this retraction notice, from the March 2011 issue of Applied Mathematics Letters: This article has been retracted at the request of the editor as the authors have falsified mathematical findings and have made unsubstantiated claims regarding Euclid’s parallel postulate (Appl. Math. Lett. 23 (2010) 1137–1139. doi:10.1016/j.aml.2010.05.003). This article … Continue reading Faked data, unsubstantiated claims, and spirituality add up to a math journal retraction
Graham Ellis-Davies says January 25th was one of the worst days of his life. That was when the journal ChemBioChem retracted an article, published barely two weeks earlier, for a mistake Ellis-Davies blames squarely on himself. The fallout has been nearly two months of painful self-recrimination, a tattered friendship and, perhaps most significant, he adds, … Continue reading Aftermath: Gut-wrenching misstep leads to retraction, frayed feelings and a paperless postdoc
About a month ago, the New England Journal of Medicine told us that they didn’t “have any plans” to retract a paper by Anil Potti. Apparently, they’ve changed their minds. Today, they posted this retraction notice: