It’s clear science has a reproducibility problem. What’s less clear is how to address it. Recently, the U.S. National Institutes of Health awarded the Global Biological Standards Institute (GBSI) $2.34 million to train students in good experimental design (also covered by The Scientist). The first week begins June 2018 at Harvard Medical School. We spoke … Continue reading Lesson one: How to design a good experiment
When examining the roles of conflicts of interest in academic publishing, most research focuses on transparency around the payments authors receive. But what about journal editors? According to a new Peer J preprint, two-thirds of editors at prominent journals received some type of industry payment over the last few years – which, at many journals, … Continue reading Most editors of top medical journals receive industry payments: report
Science is retracting a 2014 paper from the lab of a Nobel winner after replication attempts failed to conclusively support the original results. In January, Bruce Beutler, an immunologist at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, emailed Science editor-in-chief Jeremy Berg to report that … Continue reading Science retracts paper after Nobel laureate’s lab can’t replicate results
As a journal editor, are you tired of hearing the same excuses from authors who are facing allegations of problematic data? If so, you’re not alone. Recently, an editor of the journal Oncogene co-authored an editorial in the journal listing the types of excuses he often hears — and why none of them is valid. … Continue reading “My dog ate the data:” Eight excuses journal editors hear
Is having money linked to bad behavior? A high profile paper published in 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) set out to answer that question — and found that yes, the more money people have, the more likely they are to lie, cheat, and steal. And the greedier they are, … Continue reading Are rich people meaner? While trying to find out, two teams find errors in each other’s work
A journal has withdrawn an essay that called for a return to colonialism after the editor received alleged threats tied to the article. Soon after Third World Quarterly published the controversial essay, readers began to object. When the journal defended its decision, 15 editorial board members resigned in response. More than 10,000 people signed a … Continue reading “Credible threats of personal violence” against editor prompt withdrawal of colonialism paper
When several recent submissions raised a red flag, a pediatrics journal decided to investigate. The journal, Pediatrics in Review, discovered “citation and attribution errors” in three case studies, which the journal has now retracted. Luann Zanzola, the managing editor of the journal, explained that the editors caught the errors when they scanned the three … Continue reading So, was it plagiarism? Journal retracts three papers over “citation and attribution errors”
Last year, Boris Ratnikov was reading a paper and saw a familiar image. He quickly realized: The image was from a 2012 paper he’d written, but wasn’t cited. The 2016 Cell Metabolism paper he was reading had copied a figure from his 2012 PLOS ONE paper without referencing it. In September 2016, Ratnikov, who is … Continue reading When is a citation not enough?
A psychiatry journal has retracted a 2011 paper exploring the use of ketamine to treat patients with severe depression following an investigation at Yale University. According to the retraction notice, Yale determined that the paper, published in the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, did not accurately describe the research. But the study’s lead author, Gregory Larkin, … Continue reading Ketamine-depression paper retracted following investigation at Yale
A subject in a documentary film about the psychology of religious ideation has pushed the BMJ to take down its review of the film, based on a complaint citing a European internet privacy rule. On July 3, BMJ posted a retraction notice for an article that barely said anything: This article has been retracted by … Continue reading “Right to be forgotten” takes down BMJ’s 15-year-old film review