Two years of stonewalling: What happened when a scientist filed a public records request for NASA code

Retraction Watch readers may know Nathan Myhrvold, who holds a PhD in physics, as the former chief technology officer at Microsoft, or as the author of Modernist Cuisine. They may also recall that he questioned a pair of papers in Nature about dinosaurs. In that vein, he has also been raising concerns about papers describing … Continue reading Two years of stonewalling: What happened when a scientist filed a public records request for NASA code

Famous Harvard economist reused parts of 2002 paper multiple times, says journal

A former Harvard economist and co-founder of a massive repository of free papers in social sciences has been accused of reusing similar material over multiple papers. The three papers share the same title. According to an investigation by one of the journals, two papers by Michael Jensen, now an emeritus faculty member at Harvard, are … Continue reading Famous Harvard economist reused parts of 2002 paper multiple times, says journal

Dental journal pulls a dozen papers for recycled images and “unreliable data”

A leading orthodontics journal has retracted 12 papers after determining that they contained either reused images, questionable data or both. Several of the articles involved experiments conducted in dogs — and one person familiar with the case told us that the duplication was an attempt to avoid sacrificing more animals than necessary for the research. … Continue reading Dental journal pulls a dozen papers for recycled images and “unreliable data”

A distorted record on blood pressure drugs: Why one group is trying to clean up the literature

In 2015, a group of researchers based in Spain decided to write a review article on high blood pressure. But when they looked over eight articles co-authored by the same person, they noticed some undeniable similarities. Over the last few years, Giuseppe Derosa, based at the University of Pavia in Italy, has racked up 10 … Continue reading A distorted record on blood pressure drugs: Why one group is trying to clean up the literature

A new “data thug” is born

In the last week, a lot more people know the name of Brendan O’Connor. Recently, the graduate student at the University of Leicester in the UK posted allegations on Twitter that a prominent psychologist at Cornell University, Robert Sternberg, had recycled large swaths of text in multiple publications. Since then, other so-called “data thugs” — … Continue reading A new “data thug” is born

Weekend reads: Jailed for speaking the truth; sexual harassment allegations at the Salk; children at risk in trials

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 a debate over a flawed climate change paper, seven new … Continue reading Weekend reads: Jailed for speaking the truth; sexual harassment allegations at the Salk; children at risk in trials

Author under fire has eight papers retracted, including seven from one journal

A researcher whose work on the use of nanomaterials has been heavily scrutinized on PubPeer — with one critic alleging a paper contained “obviously fabricated” images — has lost eight papers. [Editor’s note: See update below.] The eight articles — seven from Biosensors and Bioelectronics and one from Analytica Chimica Acta, both published by Elsevier … Continue reading Author under fire has eight papers retracted, including seven from one journal

“Youth Guru” loses turkey-neck paper that overlapped with book chapter

A prominent cosmetic surgeon and his daughter have lost a 2017 paper on treating men with excessive neck flab — otherwise known as “turkey neck” — because much of the work appears to have duplicated a book chapter he co-authored about the topic. The first author of the retracted article is Ronald L. Moy, a … Continue reading “Youth Guru” loses turkey-neck paper that overlapped with book chapter

Weekend reads: Brazen plagiarism; why animal studies don’t hold up in humans; motherhood citation penalty

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, would you consider a tax-deductible donation of $25, or a recurring donation of an amount of your choosing, to support it? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured the delisting of more than a dozen journals from one … Continue reading Weekend reads: Brazen plagiarism; why animal studies don’t hold up in humans; motherhood citation penalty

Highly cited paper by dep’t chair at Sloan Kettering is corrected — three times

A radiology journal has published an addendum to a 2005 review on cancer imaging techniques, alerting readers to figure duplication. But that’s not what caught our attention about this case. The addendum, published in January, is the third notice that The British Journal of Radiology (BJR) has issued for the 2005 review by Hedvig Hricak, … Continue reading Highly cited paper by dep’t chair at Sloan Kettering is corrected — three times