The week at Retraction Watch featured health care fraud charges for a researcher who committed scientific fraud, and a first-ever government agency lawsuit against a scientific publisher for deceit. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A researcher in Egypt is threatening to sue a mathematics journal if it doesn’t un-retract one of his papers. The American Journal of Computational Mathematics in May retracted Mostafa M. A. Khater‘s 2015 paper, “The Modified Simple Equation Method and Its Applications in Mathematical Physics and Biology.” The retraction notice is sparse on the details, indicating … Continue reading Author of retracted math paper defends against plagiarism charge, threatens to sue journal
The week at Retraction Watch featured an inscrutable retraction notice, and a raft of new retractions for a cancer researcher who once threatened to sue us. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Fazlul Sarkar has not had a good month: In the last few weeks, he has earned 13 retractions across four journals, the latest in the fallout from a string of legal cases that have pitted him against one of science publishing’s major players. Sarkar gained attention in 2014 when he sued anonymous commenters of PubPeer for defamation, and … Continue reading Meet the researcher with 13 retractions who’s trying to sue PubPeer commenters: Fazlul Sarkar
The week at Retraction Watch saw news of a settled lawsuit, and had us celebrating our sixth anniversary with the announcement of a new partnership. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
The week at Retraction Watch featured an unwitting co-author and a painful example of doing the right thing. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Academic publishers argue they add value to manuscripts by coordinating the peer-review process and editing manuscripts — but a new preliminary study suggests otherwise. The study — which is yet to be peer reviewed — found that papers published in traditional journals don’t change much from their preprint versions, suggesting publishers aren’t having as much of an influence … Continue reading Do publishers add value? Maybe little, suggests preprint study of preprints
Misconduct by a chemist at a Colorado lab run by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has potentially affected 24 research and assessment projects, supported by $108 million in federal funding, government officials have disclosed. According to a June 15 statement from the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees … Continue reading More than $100M worth of research may be tainted by govt lab misconduct
The former director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at the U.S. National Institutes of Health has a new job. On July 1st, biochemist Jeremy Berg will take the helm as the editor-in-chief of Science. He’s currently the associate senior vice chancellor for science strategy and planning in the health sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. We … Continue reading How does Jeremy Berg plan to address reproducibility in Science?
Today, we bring you a case of a serial plagiarizer. Martin W. F. Stone was a philosophy professor at the University of Leuven — by one account “widely admired and highly respected” — until 2010, when an investigation at the school concluded that his work is “highly questionable in terms of scientific integrity.” Over the past … Continue reading Philosopher earns 14th retraction for plagiarism