Search Results for: idea retraction notice

Author retracts weight loss surgery paper after admitting most, if not all, of the subjects were made up

If you had read “Aerobic endurance training improves weight loss, body composition, and co-morbidities in patients after laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass,” a 2010 paper in Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases, you might have been convinced by the title and findings that exercise was a good idea for people who’d had stomach stapling. After all, … Continue reading Author retracts weight loss surgery paper after admitting most, if not all, of the subjects were made up

Authors retract paper claiming antidepressants prevent suicide

The authors of a study allegedly showing that antidepressants prevent suicide have retracted it over unspecified errors. Here’s the notice: At the request of the authors and in agreement with the Editor-in-Chief and Wiley-Blackwell, the following article “Antidepressant medication prevents suicide in depression”. Acta Psychiatr Scand 2010;122:454–460 has been retracted. The retraction has been requested … Continue reading Authors retract paper claiming antidepressants prevent suicide

“Failure probability” turns out to be quite high as engineers double-submit paper, then see it retracted

A couple of engineers in Iran turn out to be better at predicting the “failure probability” of water pipes than of their chances of being published. Consider this retraction notice for “Estimation of failure probability in water pipes network using statistical model,” originally published in February 2011 in Engineering Failure Analysis:

How good are journals at policing authorship?

One of the most contentious issues in scholarly publishing is authorship. Sometimes there’s forgery involved, but most of the time the tension is more mundane but also more pernicious: Researchers who did most of the work wondering why “honorary” authors suddenly appear on papers, or wondering why their own names didn’t appear. Journals, it would seem, are … Continue reading How good are journals at policing authorship?

Hopkins scientists retract prostate cancer screening study at center of 2009 lawsuits

The authors of a study in Urology that was at the center of two 2009 lawsuits brought by a company that funded the work have retracted the paper. The idea behind the research — by Robert Getzenberg and colleagues at Johns Hopkins — was to find an alternative to the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, … Continue reading Hopkins scientists retract prostate cancer screening study at center of 2009 lawsuits

Plagiarism kills weed paper

The January 2012 issue of Biosystems Engineering has a commendably thorough retraction notice regarding a case of plagiarism in its pages. The notice, regarding the article “Advanced techniques for Weed and crop identification for site specific Weed management,” by Karan Singh, K.N. Agrawal, and Ganesh C. Bora, of North Dakota State University, speaks for itself:

Stop fetishizing the scientific paper: Our invited Comment in Nature

If there’s one consistent lesson of covering retractions, it’s that science doesn’t stop when researchers publish a paper. But what also seems true is that once a paper is published, lots of people — authors and editors, in particular — are often reluctant to say just what’s happened next, particularly if it casts the study … Continue reading Stop fetishizing the scientific paper: Our invited Comment in Nature

PNAS retracts two papers on osmolytes after researchers discover crucial measurement errors

A good carpenter never blames his tools. But for scientists, sometimes machines do go bad–with disastrous results. Consider the following: The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has retracted two papers by researchers in the United Kingdom and the United States after the scientists learned that their results were based largely on a problem … Continue reading PNAS retracts two papers on osmolytes after researchers discover crucial measurement errors

Why did Science partially retract the XMRV-chronic fatigue syndrome paper?

If past experience is any indication, billions of pixels will be spilled in the coming days as scientists and advocates debate the latest twist in the story of XMRV, or xenotropic murine leukemia-related virus, and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Today’s news is that Science is partially retracting a 2009 paper by Judy Mikovits and colleagues, including … Continue reading Why did Science partially retract the XMRV-chronic fatigue syndrome paper?

Science genetics paper retracted after “unfortunate mistake”

Sometime last year, the University of Zurich’s Erik Postma was reading a paper in Science titled “Additive Genetic Breeding Values Correlate with the Load of Partially Deleterious Mutations” when he realized something. The authors, led by Joseph Tomkins of the University of Western Australia, had made a mistake. Postma set to writing a “Technical Comment,” the … Continue reading Science genetics paper retracted after “unfortunate mistake”