Search Results for: "stem cell"

Scientist threatening to sue PubPeer claims he lost a job offer because of comments

Last month, PubPeer announced that a scientist had threatened to sue the site for defamation. At the time, all PubPeer would say was that the “prospective plaintiff” is a US researcher” who was “aggrieved at the treatment his papers are getting on our site.” Today, PubPeer revealed the that the prospective plaintiff was Fazlul Sarkar, … Continue reading Scientist threatening to sue PubPeer claims he lost a job offer because of comments

Weekend reads: Reading Nature and Science “very unpleasant,” how to spot fake journals

The week at Retraction Watch featured revelations about the backstory of an expression of concern, and Office of Research Integrity findings in a case that had its beginnings in Retraction Watch comments. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

PubPeer Selections: Boosting memory in Science, extending lifespan in Nature, quantum anesthesia in PNAS

As Retraction Watch readers probably know, we’re big fans of PubPeer, the post-publication peer review site that allows comments on papers. Discussions there have led to a number of corrections and retractions, and even more importantly, authors are starting to respond to clarify results, acknowledge errors, or otherwise advance knowledge. After all, as we often … Continue reading PubPeer Selections: Boosting memory in Science, extending lifespan in Nature, quantum anesthesia in PNAS

Australian university to repay $275K grant because of “misleading and incorrect” information

Courtesy of The Australian, we have an update on a story we first covered in late 2012. As we reported then: A contested retraction in Stem Cells and Development has left the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) graduate student who fought for it in limbo, uncertain if he will earn his PhD. And many of … Continue reading Australian university to repay $275K grant because of “misleading and incorrect” information

On vigorous scientific debates, witch hunts, and the tragedy of suicide

The suicide earlier this week of Yoshiki Sasai, one of the scientists who worked on the now-discredited STAP stem cell work, was a startling and sobering reminder to the research community and the public that misconduct can take a heavy human toll – even on people like Sasai, whom by all accounts only had the … Continue reading On vigorous scientific debates, witch hunts, and the tragedy of suicide

Authors retract paper “confirming” that narcolepsy is an autoimmune disease

A group of researchers at Stanford and elsewhere is retracting a 2013 paper that another scientist told Nature was “one of the biggest things to happen in the narcolepsy field for some time.” The Science Translational Medicine paper caused a buzz because it claimed to show that narcolepsy was an autoimmune disease. Here’s the notice:

Incorrect analysis leads to Nature’s sixth retraction in 2014

In what seems to be an example of researchers swiftly and transparently correcting the literature, and acknowledging errors, a pair of scientists have retracted a 2013 paper from Nature. Here’s the retraction notice for “Genomic organization of human transcription initiation complexes,” by Bryan Venters and Frank Pugh: