The week at Retraction Watch featured the launch of the greatest journal ever, and a story about the backlash against widely covered research on why men eat more. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Sabotage in the lab; a lab animal database disappears; PACE authors push back
Researchers submit two similar papers 8 days apart; one is retracted
After a research group submitted two similar papers only days apart to different journals, one journal has retracted the paper — and told the other it should do the same.
The papers, by a group of authors based in Romania, describe a new polymer to stop the formation of biofilms. After a reader flagged the papers — which were submitted within eight days of each other in September, 2015 — as being similar, a journal has retracted one, and recommended the other journal retract the second. Although the second journal told us it planned to flag the paper with a notice alerting readers to the duplication, the notice has not yet appeared online.
The journal that issued the retraction — the International Journal of Polymer Analysis and Characterization (IJPAC) — called it a “a clear case of self-plagiarism,” according to the notice:
Continue reading Researchers submit two similar papers 8 days apart; one is retracted
Columbia University probe prompts retraction of cardiovascular paper
A journal has retracted a 2011 study at the request of Columbia University.
According to Jeanine D’Armiento, the study’s last author, the newly retracted paper in Clinical Science contained a figure from a Journal of Hypertension paper published by the same authors earlier that year.
First and corresponding author Joseph George told Retraction Watch the error was unintentional. A Columbia spokesperson sent us this statement: Continue reading Columbia University probe prompts retraction of cardiovascular paper
Backlash prompts prominent nutrition researcher to reanalyze multiple papers
To Brian Wansink of Cornell University, a blog post he wrote in November, 2016, was a meant as a lesson in productivity: A graduate student who was willing to embrace every research opportunity submitted five papers within six months of arriving to his lab, while a postdoc who declined two chances to analyze a data set left after one year with a small fraction of the grad student’s publications.
But two months and nearly 50 comments on the post later, Wansink — known for so much high-profile nutrition research he’s been dubbed the “Sherlock Holmes of food” — has announced he’s now reanalyzing the data in the papers, and will correct any issues that arise. In the meantime, he had to decline requests to share his raw data, citing its proprietary nature.
As Wansink writes in the second addendum to the November blog post, “The Grad Student Who Never Said ‘No’:”
Continue reading Backlash prompts prominent nutrition researcher to reanalyze multiple papers
Meet the latest addition to our team, Victoria Stern
Please join us in welcoming our newest staff writer, Victoria Stern, to the Retraction Watch team.
Vicky first worked with editor Alison McCook in 2009 at The Scientist. Since then, she has been freelancing for a number of outlets, including Medscape, Scientific American Mind (where she became a contributing editor), General Surgery News, MedPage Today, and Reuters Health.
Funding for Vicky’s position is primarily thanks to Continue reading Meet the latest addition to our team, Victoria Stern
Journals pull two papers after blogger shares plagiarism suspicions
Journals have retracted two papers after they were flagged by a pseudonymous blogger, who suspected all had copied text from other sources.
What’s more, a third paper seems to have simply disappeared from the journal’s website, after the blogger, Neuroskeptic, alerted the journal to the text overlap.
Neuroskeptic became suspicious about the three unrelated papers – about food chemistry, heart disease, and the immune system and cancer – after scanning them with plagiarism software. After alerting the journals, two issued formal retractions for the papers – but neither specifies plagiarism as the reason.
The retractions were the result of a larger project, Neuroskeptic told us:
Continue reading Journals pull two papers after blogger shares plagiarism suspicions
How did a book chapter end up with two authors who didn’t contribute to it?
An erratum for a book chapter about water pollution has removed two out of the three original authors.
What’s more, the notice specifies that “any mistakes or omissions are the sole responsibility” of the remaining author, Michael Yodzis of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.
This isn’t something we see every day, but one of the removed authors told us he believes the paper is scientifically valid — he just didn’t have anything to do with it. Yodzis told us he included the two authors by mistake, after believing he had corresponded with them about the paper, which was an extension of their previous work together.
Here’s the erratum, issued in December: Continue reading How did a book chapter end up with two authors who didn’t contribute to it?
Welcome to the Journal of Alternative Facts. They’re the greatest! And winning!
Ever since Kellyanne Conway, counselor to U.S. President Donald Trump, used the term “alternative facts” on Meet The Press earlier this month, the term — an awful euphemism for falsehoods, as many have pointed out — has become a meme. And like every new field, alternative facts needs its own journal. Enter the Twitter feed for the Journal of Alternative Facts, featuring such gems as Scientistonce, I.A. (2017), “We Have All the Best Climates, Really, They’re Great.”
We spoke to the founding editor to find out more about how they became the greatest overnight: Continue reading Welcome to the Journal of Alternative Facts. They’re the greatest! And winning!
Author objects to retraction of paper suggesting fingerprints can predict facial features
A journal has pulled a paper about predicting people’s faces from their fingerprints due to “significant overlap” with a previous paper by the same authors.
According to the retraction notice in Intelligent Automation & Soft Computing, the authors didn’t cite or acknowledge the other study in the Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science.
First author of both papers, Şeref Sağıroğlu, who is based at Gazi University in Ankara, Turkey told Retraction Watch that he doesn’t believe the two papers have significant overlap. Still, the research is related, so when he learned the retracted paper didn’t reference the previous one:
High-profile book on North Korea earns 52 corrections
The author of a high-profile book about the history of North Korea is issuing 52 corrections to the next edition, scheduled to appear this spring. The changes follow heavy criticism of the book, alleging it contained material not supported by the list of references.
Last month, author Charles Armstrong, a professor at Columbia University, announced on his website that he was issuing the changes after reviewing the book in detail, especially the footnotes. He writes:
Continue reading High-profile book on North Korea earns 52 corrections