The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a paper on the effects of fracking, authors who retracted a paper when they realized they’d been studying the wrong species, and a story about why a paper linked to an alleged doping scandal in Norway was retracted. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Here’s a rather odd case: A postdoctoral researcher says his former boss changed his name on a paper without his permission. According to the postdoc, Antonio Herrera-Merchan, his principal investigator at University of Granada insisted on the name change to distance them both from a scandal in Herrera-Merchan’s previous lab. After publishing a paper in … Continue reading Lead author changes co-author’s name on a paper without his permission. Why?
A university in Japan has found a former professor guilty of falsifying and altering images in four published papers, including a 2014 paper about stem cells. On Dec. 15, Tottori University announced the results of its misconduct investigation, in which the cancer researcher, Norimasa Miura, confessed to altering images in the four papers. According to … Continue reading University in Japan finds cancer researcher guilty of misconduct
A researcher found guilty of misconduct earlier this year has been temporarily banned from funding by the German Research Foundation. The Foundation’s decision, issued on Dec. 14, 2017, comes six months after the Leibniz Association, made up of 91 independent research institutions, found Karl Lenhard Rudolph guilty of “grossly negligent scientific misconduct.” The research body … Continue reading Former director earns two-year funding ban after misconduct finding
An anatomy journal has banned a researcher from submitting papers for three years after determining one of his recently published papers suffered from “serious ethical” issues. According to Jae Seung Kang, associate editor at the journal Anatomy and Cell Biology (ACB), the paper’s sole author—Jae Chul Lee—falsified both his affiliation and approval for conducting animal … Continue reading Journal bans author for three years after retracting paper with “serious ethical” problems
Title: Concise Review: Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Neurodegenerative Diseases What Caught Our Attention: Everyone makes mistakes — but some are more amusing than others. In one recent correction, the publisher (Wiley) admitted to including a proofreader’s query in the published manuscript. But didn’t say what the query was. We looked around, and think we found the added … Continue reading Caught Our Notice: Oops — paper included proofreader’s query
An ethical review board in Sweden is asking journals to retract six papers co-authored by former star surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, after concluding that he and his co-authors committed misconduct. One of the papers is the seminal 2011 article in The Lancet, which described the first case of a transplant using an artificial trachea seeded with … Continue reading Swedish review board finds misconduct by Macchiarini, calls for six retractions
Nature has added an “editor’s note” to a high-profile August paper alerting readers to the fact that the article has been subject to criticism. Journals often flag papers that are being debated — what’s unusual here is that the journal doesn’t label the notice as an official “Expression of Concern,” which are indexed by PubMed. … Continue reading Nature adds alert to heavily debated paper about gene editing
The week at Retraction Watch featured a post on just how much an authorship costs if you want to buy one, anger over charges to use a common research tool, and the revocation of a PhD from a once-rising star scientist. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
The week at Retraction Watch featured a battle over psychologists and torture, a case of misconduct at Harvard, allegations of bribery, and a lawsuit against the New York Times. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: