This week at Retraction Watch featured a confession about research misconduct, and a debate over whether a paper should have been retracted. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
The week at Retraction Watch featured a retraction from Nature, and a discussion of what it means to be an author on a paper with thousands of them. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Physicists have retracted a highly cited paper from Nature on the behavior of electrons at the center of the Earth after other researchers could not reproduce their findings. The 2015 paper earned coverage in Science News and Live Science, where co-author Ronald Cohen explained: There was a big problem in how you generate a magnetic field, and now, because of our … Continue reading Physicists retract Nature paper on Earth’s core after findings aren’t reproducible
We have seen plenty of projects unravel due to disputes over authorship, so we know this is a crucial issue in publishing. And the more authors are involved, the more issues can arise. So what happens when there are hundreds – or even thousands of authors on a single paper? Spencer Klein, a senior scientist … Continue reading When it takes a village to write a paper, what does it mean to be an author?
A philosophy journal that focuses on the teachings of philosopher Alain Badiou has apparently fallen victim to yet another Sokal hoax, and has retracted a fake article submitted by authors trying to expose the publication’s weaknesses. The paper, “Ontology, Neutrality and the Strive for (non-)Being-Queer,” attributed to Benedetta Tripodi of the Universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza in … Continue reading Philosophy journal spoofed, retracts hoax article
Today colleges and universities face a crisis of accountability in two domains: scientific misconduct and sexual harassment or assault. Scientific misconduct and sexual harassment/assault are obviously different, but the way they are reported, handled, and play out have many similarities. Michael Chwe at the University of California in Los Angeles has been thinking about this for … Continue reading Scientific misconduct and sexual harassment: Similar problems with similar solutions?
Our retraction notice count for Shigeaki Kato, number seven on our leaderboard, has grown to 38. The former University of Tokyo endocrinologist recently earned another retraction, for a paper in Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics that contained image manipulation. As we’ve noted before, Kato resigned from the university in 2012 as it investigated his work for misconduct; in 2013 a Japanese newspaper reported that the investigation … Continue reading Shigeaki Kato up to 38 retractions
The editor of Desalination has retracted a paper that plagiarized from another article published in the same journal six years earlier. The papers describe desalination systems, of course. This retraction happened on a relatively quick timeline: The paper, “An integrated optimization model and application of MEE-TVC desalination system,” was published online in June, and pulled in January. Here’s … Continue reading Desalination journal let a plagiarized paper — from the same journal — through its filter
We always like to get a historical perspective on how scientists have tried to correct the record, such as this attempt in 1756 to retract a published opinion about some of the work of Benjamin Franklin. Although that 18th century note used the word “retract,” it wasn’t a retraction like what we see today, in … Continue reading What did retractions look like in the 17th century?
Totalitarianism and Democracy has removed a paper claiming that German Shepherds belonging to guards at the Berlin Wall descended from dogs used at concentration camps, after learning that the paper was a work of satire, The Guardian reports. The paper, and its author, are the creation of the anonymous group “Christiane Schulte and friends.” This isn’t the first hoax we’ve … Continue reading Death camp dog satire retracted when German journal wasn’t in on joke