Search Results for: author ban

Controversial pyramid paper retracted when authors turn out to have radiocarbon-dated nearby dirt

A journal has retracted, over the objections of the authors, a controversial 2023 paper claiming a dig site in Indonesia is home to the largest pyramid built by humans.  The work was led by the Indonesian geologist-cum-archeologist Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, of the Research Center for Natural Disasters in Bandung. Hilman has been working at the … Continue reading Controversial pyramid paper retracted when authors turn out to have radiocarbon-dated nearby dirt

Weekend reads: An authorship dispute goes to court; peer review mills; falsely accused of using ChatGPT to write a paper

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 46,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 250 titles. And have … Continue reading Weekend reads: An authorship dispute goes to court; peer review mills; falsely accused of using ChatGPT to write a paper

Indian paper mill disbands WhatsApp community following investigation

An Indian paper mill featuring prominently in our recent investigation in Science and a companion piece on our website shut down its WhatsApp community six days after the stories ran, Retraction Watch has learned. The company, called iTrilon, used the messaging platform to hawk authorship of “readymade” publications to scientists “struggling to write and publish … Continue reading Indian paper mill disbands WhatsApp community following investigation

Journal retracts more than 50 studies from Saudi Arabia for faked authorship

The journal Cureus has retracted 56 papers nearly two years after it first began to suspect the works were of dubious lineage. Cureus – an open access journal founded in 2009 and acquired by Springer Nature in 2022 – slapped 55 of the papers with expressions of concern in April 2022. At that time, at … Continue reading Journal retracts more than 50 studies from Saudi Arabia for faked authorship

Publisher donating author fees from retracted articles to charity

What should happen to the millions of dollars publishers rake in from authors whose work is later retracted?  Guillaume Cabanac, one of the developers of the Problematic Paper Screener, has repeatedly suggested publishers donate such revenue to charity.  And now one is doing just that.

Author of ‘gibberish’ paper admits to extensive plagiarism

A paper that claimed to have developed a new method to predict acid drainage from mines was not so novel after all, according to one of its authors. In a series of emails to Retraction Watch, Dulian Zeqiraj of the Polytechnic University of Tirana, Albania, admitted to lifting figures and tables from other articles and … Continue reading Author of ‘gibberish’ paper admits to extensive plagiarism

What’s in a name? Made-up authors are penning dozens of papers

Researchers apparently don’t need to be real to publish in scientific journals.  Take Nicholas Zafetti of Clemson University, in South Carolina, who has at least nine publications to his name. Or Giorgos Jimenez of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with 12 papers under his belt. Both identities seem to be bogus, according to Alexander Magazinov, a … Continue reading What’s in a name? Made-up authors are penning dozens of papers

US VA scientist banned from agency research for faking data

A research biologist at the Jesse Brown Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Chicago faked images and inflated sample sizes in published papers and a grant application, the federal agency has determined.  Hee-Jeong Im Sampen, also a research professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Illinois, Chicago, “engaged in research misconduct by intentionally, knowingly and/or … Continue reading US VA scientist banned from agency research for faking data

Weekend reads: ‘The band of debunkers’; a superconductor retraction request; ‘the banality of bad-faith science’

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: We also added The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List. Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to well over 350. There are more than 43,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. … Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘The band of debunkers’; a superconductor retraction request; ‘the banality of bad-faith science’

Eight papers retracted after author found to be fictional

Elsevier journals are retracting eight studies after learning that one of the authors on the papers was “fictitious” – as in a similar case we reported on recently.  The ostensible author, Toshiyuki Bangi, was listed as affiliated with the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The eight studies, which … Continue reading Eight papers retracted after author found to be fictional