Nature Chemistry issues its first retraction

For the first time in its eight-year history, Nature Chemistry has retracted a paper, citing “data integrity issues.”

The 2010 paper, which explored how various iron-based molecules interact with water and ethanol, was withdrawn after the authors uncovered possible duplication in two images.

According to the retraction notice, the authors could not provide the raw data to confirm their findings and could not reproduce the figures because the experimental set-up had been dismantled. The authors subsequently requested the paper be retracted because the issues undermined “our full confidence in the integrity of the study.”

Here’s the retraction notice for “Charge transfer to solvent identified using dark channel fluorescence-yield L-edge spectroscopy”: Continue reading Nature Chemistry issues its first retraction

Nature retracts paper by stem cell scientist appealing her dismissal

Susana Gonzalez

A once-rising star in stem cell biology — who recently lost both her job and a sizable grant — has had a fourth paper retracted.

The notice — issued by Nature for a 2006 letter — cites duplicated images, and a lack of raw data to verify the findings. First author Susana Gonzalez — who was dismissed from her position at the National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) in Spain last February over allegations of misconduct — couldn’t be reached by the journal.

Here’s the full text of the retraction notice:

Continue reading Nature retracts paper by stem cell scientist appealing her dismissal

“We were devastated:” Authors retract paper after realizing they had used the wrong mice

Raymond Pasek and Maureen Gannon

Longtime readers of Retraction Watch may recall a 2011 post about a research team that retracted a paper after realizing that they had ordered the wrong mice. Maureen Gannon and Raymond Pasek of Vanderbilt University contacted us earlier this week to alert us to a similar case: Their retraction, earlier this month, of a 2016 paper from American Journal of Physiology – Endocrinology and Metabolism after discovering that “a colleague from another lab had mistakenly supplied us with the wrong transgenic mouse line.”

“We strongly believe that sharing this example will encourage other researchers to do the right thing when a mistake is discovered and promote academic integrity,” they wrote. So we asked them to answer a few questions about their experience with “Connective tissue growth factor is critical for proper β-cell function and pregnancy-induced β-cell hyperplasia in adult mice,” a paper that has been cited twice, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science. 

Retraction Watch: How, and when, did you become aware of the error? Continue reading “We were devastated:” Authors retract paper after realizing they had used the wrong mice

Author “shocked” after top math journal retracts paper

One of the world’s most prestigious mathematics journals has issued what appears to be its first retraction.

The Annals of Mathematics recently withdrew a 2001 paper exploring the properties of certain symmetrical spaces.

What prompted this retraction? And why did it occur 16 years after the paper was published? Continue reading Author “shocked” after top math journal retracts paper

More notices appear for embattled Cornell food researcher

Journals have posted two corrections alongside papers by Brian Wansink, a food researcher whose work has lately come under fire.

One of the corrected papers was among the initial batch that raised eyebrows last year; after Wansink praised the productivity of one of his researchers, critics suggested four papers contained critical flaws. The questions about his work soon extended to other papers, one of which was retracted in April. That month, an internal review by Cornell University announced that Wansink made numerous mistakes, but did not commit misconduct. Wansink has pledged to reanalyze multiple papers.

One paper that was among those initially criticized has received a formal correction notice from the Journal of Product & Brand Management. The notice, which appears behind a paywall, has drawn fire from a regular critic of Wansink’s work, Jordan Anaya, who argues “this correction actually needs a correction, actually several.”

Here’s the notice for “Peak-end pizza: prices delay evaluations of quality:”

Continue reading More notices appear for embattled Cornell food researcher

Lost in translation: Authors blame a language error for wrong diagnosis

A patient’s “unusual” brain cyst excited several researchers in China so much they published a paper about it in a major journal. Soon a reader identified a glaring mistake: the authors had described the cause of the cyst incorrectly.  

A month after the paper appeared online in November 2016, the reader — a neurologist — published a letter in the journal, pointing out the incorrect diagnosis. In their response, the authors acknowledged the mistake but said it had occurred not because they had misdiagnosed the patient, but because the diagnosis had been mistranslated from Chinese to English.

The editors of Neurology retracted the paper because of the error and published a new version with the correct diagnosis on the same day, June 6.

Although we did not hear back from the paper’s two corresponding authors—Jun Guo and Guan Sun—the journal published a string of letters that chronicles the case.

Here’s the retraction (and replacement) notice:  

Continue reading Lost in translation: Authors blame a language error for wrong diagnosis

Lancet retracts (and replaces) paper a year after authors report error that changes “all numbers”

In March 2016, researchers in Switzerland and Canada published a meta-analysis in The Lancet, exploring the optimal painkiller and dose for treating pain in knee and hip osteoarthritis. Soon after, the authors were informed of an error that would change “all numbers” in a paper that may influence clinical practice.

The authors contacted The Lancet immediately, in July 2016, to inform them of the issue. Sven Trelle, the paper’s corresponding author, also told us: Continue reading Lancet retracts (and replaces) paper a year after authors report error that changes “all numbers”

Are there foxes in Tasmania? Follow the poop

Stephen Sarre, based at the University of Canberra in Australia, has made a career out of collecting and analyzing poop.

It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. Part of his work is designed to answer a multi-million dollar question: Is Tasmania home to foxes, a pest that carries rabies and other diseases and can ravage local wildlife? According to the Australian news outlet ABC, the Tasmanian and Australian governments have spent $50 million (AUD) on hunting foxes on the island since 2001 — even though many have debated whether they are even there.

In 2012, after analyzing thousands of fecal samples, Sarre published a paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology which boldly claimed that “Foxes are now widespread in Tasmania.” But many outside researchers didn’t buy it, and quickly voiced their criticisms of the paper, namely that there may be problems with false positives and the methodology used to analyze the samples. Recently, the journal issued an expression of concern for the paper, citing an ongoing investigation into the allegations.

Here’s the expression of concern (paywalled, tsk tsk):

Continue reading Are there foxes in Tasmania? Follow the poop

Weekend reads: The ‘Journal Grand Master,’ what drives online attention to studies; a song of replication

The week at Retraction Watch featured a story of unintended consequences and a broken relationship, and a retraction for a paper that had just about everything wrong with it. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: The ‘Journal Grand Master,’ what drives online attention to studies; a song of replication

Failed whistleblower suit is a reminder that public universities are hard to sue

The University of Louisville’s Kornhauser Library via Wikimedia

Suing the government is difficult. And because public universities often function as an arm of state governments, that makes them hard to sue, too, a fact reiterated in a whistleblower case decided earlier this year.

In January, Judge David Hale of the Western District of Kentucky dismissed a lawsuit filed by former employees of the University of Louisville alleging that the institution fraudulently secured millions in federal grants due to a biosafety program that had fallen out of compliance with federal regulations. The biosafety officers also alleged that they were wrongly terminated for pointing out the compliance issues to Louisville, the National Institutes of Health, and even the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But the judge’s order came before those issues would even be considered.

According to the suit, filed in 2015, plaintiffs Karen Brinkley and Carol Whetstone alleged that the university, seven principal investigators, and an administrator had worked to wrongly obtain as much as $165 million from the National Institutes of Health. Around 2008, according to the plaintiffs, the defendants began allowing persistent biosafety issues — improper training and biological material disposal methods, protocols with expired institutional biosafety committee approvals, performance of research tasks in labs with insufficient biosafety ratings — to taint their applications for multiple federal grants (the complaint didn’t specify how many). Brinkley and Whetstone filed suit under the False Claims Act (FCA), which allows individuals to recover money on behalf of the U.S. government; allegedly, the grants were improperly obtained because the defendants had certified that they were in compliance with NIH’s biosafety requirements, even though they knew that they were not. Continue reading Failed whistleblower suit is a reminder that public universities are hard to sue