Search Results for: "plos one"

Castle made of sand: Self-plagiarism washes away paper on dune particles

A group of geologists in China have lost their paper on the aerodynamics of sand particles because the article was mashed together from previous publications. The article, “The influence of sand diameter and wind velocity on sand particle lift-off and incident angles in the windblown sand flux,” appeared in the May 2013 issue of Sedimentary … Continue reading Castle made of sand: Self-plagiarism washes away paper on dune particles

Chinese heavy metal contamination paper purged for data theft

An environmental journal has retracted a paper about pollution in China after it discovered the authors lifted the dataset from another group. The authors of the study — which chronicled the degree of heavy metal pollution on the banks of the Pearl River Delta — didn’t have permission to use the data. Environmental Monitoring and … Continue reading Chinese heavy metal contamination paper purged for data theft

Weekend reads: P values banned, climate skeptic fails to disclose corporate funding, editors behaving badly

This week at Retraction Watch featured a change of heart by a journal, and a look at Nature’s addition of double-blind peer review. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Cut and paste and a PC crash: figure manipulations sink two papers

Two papers by an overlapping group of researchers in Italy have been retracted for manipulated figures. In late 2013, perennial tipster Clare Francis sent their concerns about several papers, including the two that have been retracted, by authors who frequently publish together. One of the papers, in the Journal of Neurochemistry, is from a team led by Ferdinando Nicoletti; four other … Continue reading Cut and paste and a PC crash: figure manipulations sink two papers

Leading diabetes researcher corrects paper as more than a dozen studies are questioned on PubPeer

Prominent German diabetes researcher Kathrin Maedler has issued corrections on two papers, and told Retraction Watch she is in the process of defending the data on others. 14 of her papers have been critiqued by PubPeer commenters. The commentary, which spans from her graduate work in 2002 to a 2014 publication in Nature Medicine, includes questions about image manipulation and self-plagiarism. Laborjournal’s … Continue reading Leading diabetes researcher corrects paper as more than a dozen studies are questioned on PubPeer

AIDS denialism paper retracted after Jeffrey Beall draws attention to it

A paper arguing that HIV does not cause AIDS has been retracted a few weeks after Jeffrey Beall, who tracks predatory publishers, called attention to it on his blog. Here’s what Beall wrote about the paper on December 16: The article is entitled “Basic Principles Underlying Human Physiology” [1], and you don’t have to be … Continue reading AIDS denialism paper retracted after Jeffrey Beall draws attention to it

“Incorrect data” kills apoptosis paper

Frontiers in Pharmacology has retracted a paper on baicalin, an antioxidant sold in health food stores, because it had both “incorrect data and invalid statistical analyses.” A comment on PubPeer notes that one of the figures (see image to the right) contains two similar-looking flow cytometry images labeled with different values, which could be what the … Continue reading “Incorrect data” kills apoptosis paper

PubPeer Selections: From “this comment is clearly unfounded” to “happy to elaborate,” a range of responses

Late last week, Nature reported some details of PubPeer’s fight against a subpoena from a researcher who claims to have lost a job because of comments on the site. (Background here.) Here’s another installment of PubPeer Selections:

Heart journal pulls paper for image manipulation

Cardiovascular Research has retracted a 2010 paper by a group of prominent cardiology researchers in Brazil. The reason: Image manipulation — which the authors say didn’t materially affect the conclusions of the paper. The article, “FAK mediates the activation of cardiac fibroblasts induced by mechanical stress through regulation of the mTOR complex,” came from a … Continue reading Heart journal pulls paper for image manipulation