A university in China has revoked the medical degree of a researcher found guilty of having produced his dissertation with the help of a prodigious paper mill. As Elisabeth Bik noted last year in a post on PubPeer, the thesis by Bin Chen, a lung specialist at Soochow University, was one of 121 articles produced … Continue reading Researcher loses medical degree for using paper mill to write his dissertation
Collaborations can be fraught. Ask David Ojcius. Ojcius, an emeritus professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Merced, and a department chair at the University of the Pacific, is up to four retractions, five corrections and an expression of concern in papers he wrote with collaborators in China and elsewhere. Ojcius … Continue reading On the perils of scientific collaboration from thousands of miles away
Possession is nine-tenths of the law — at least, it seems, for one journal editor, who is refusing to retract a study despite learning that one of its images previously appeared in another journal. The reason? The other study has been removed from the web. The paper is among 40 articles in Construction and Building … Continue reading Editor declines to correct paper with duplicated image after earlier study disappears
A paper suggesting that smokers were significantly less likely than nonsmokers to contract Covid-19 has been retracted because the authors failed to disclose financial ties to … the tobacco industry. The article, which appeared as a preprint and then as an “early view” in the European Respiratory Journal last July, came from a group at … Continue reading ‘Unfair and unsubstantiated’: Journal retracts paper suggesting smoking is linked to lower COVID-19 risk
Researchers in India have lost four papers in journals belonging to the Royal Society of Chemistry over concerns that the images in the articles appear to have been doctored. The senior author on the articles is Pralay Maiti, of the School of Material Science & Technology at Banaras Hindu University, in Varanasi. “Polycaprolactone composites with … Continue reading “[N]o intention to make any scientific fraud” as researchers lose four papers
A retired Nepali professor and six others have been barred from research after plagiarism and duplicated images were found in 11 of their papers. Parashuram Mishra, a retired crystallographer at Tribhuvan University, in Nepal, is the lead author on all the studies. Most of the papers contain image duplications; the same figures were reused across … Continue reading Seven barred from research after plagiarism, duplications in eleven papers
A study co-authored by an editor who has previously opined on common excuses by authors about research misconduct has received an expression of concern. The paper’s first author defended the work, explaining that the experiments in question were repeated multiple times, and that the results are “valid and reproducible.” The study, titled, “CK1δ modulates the … Continue reading Editor who opined on author excuses has paper subjected to an expression of concern
Jasti Rao, a former star scientist at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria whose career flamed out over concerns about misconduct, gambling and allegations that he had mistreated employees, is now up to 16 retractions. The International Journal of Oncology, a Spandidos title, has retracted three of Rao’s papers dating back to … Continue reading “Falsifying elements” prompt retraction of three more papers by former “Peorian of the Year”
Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: “I absolutely stand by the validity of the science” says … Continue reading Weekend reads: An apology from JAMA; a call to retract COVID-19 ayurveda paper; the treasure that was a hoax
Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Meet the postdoc who says he’s been trying to retract … Continue reading Weekend reads: Prof plagiarized student, says investigation; universities mishandle allegations; what we should learn from ‘bad science’