In 2002, journals retracted 119 papers from the scientific literature. What a difference two decades make. On several occasions this year, publishers announced they were retracting several times that number, all at once. (For some of the stories among 2022’s retractions that captured the most attention, see our 10th annual roundup for The Scientist.) This … Continue reading Nearing 5,000 retractions: A review of 2022
Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 280. There are more than 37,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most … Continue reading Weekend reads: UCSF apologizes for prison research; top judge in Mexico accused of plagiarism; peer review under scrutiny
The authors of a 2021 paper on a method of male enhancement have been forced to retract the paper after losing a legal battle over the technology. At the heart (er, groin?) of the matter is a dispute over the ownership of a penile implant. According to court documents, James Elist, a urologist in Beverly … Continue reading Contempt judgment in penile implant spat leads to retraction
A former associate professor at Purdue University faked data in two published papers and hundreds of images in 16 grant applications, according to a U.S. government research watchdog. Alice C. Chang, whose publications and grants listed her name as Chun-Ju Chang, received nearly $700,000 in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through grant … Continue reading Cancer researcher banned from federal funding for faking data in nearly 400 images in 16 grant applications
Twenty-four years after submitting a manuscript on quantum algebra to the preprint server arXiv, a mathematician has now withdrawn it. Boris Shoikhet, then of the Independent University of Moscow, posted “Lifting formulas, Moyal product, and Feigin spectral sequence,” to arXiv on Oct. 28, 1998, proposing new conjectures in the field of quantum algebra. Last month, … Continue reading Mathematician withdraws preprint – 24 years after initial submission
Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 278. There are more than 37,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most … Continue reading Weekend reads: Errors in clinical trials; GPT-3 and scientific papers; paleontologist accused of faking data
A former research center director and professor emeritus of urology has lost a fourth paper after a joint investigation by the University of California San Francisco and the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center found faked data in several of his articles. The other three retractions for Rajvir Dahiya, who directed the UCSF/VAMC Urology Research … Continue reading Professor emeritus loses fourth paper after UCSF-VA investigation, five years after other retractions
An early and influential paper on long COVID that appeared in The Lancet has been flagged with an expression of concern while the journal investigates “data errors” brought to light by a reader. An editorial that accompanied the paper when it was published in January of last year described it as “the first large cohort … Continue reading Buzzy Lancet long COVID paper under investigation for ‘data errors’
After reading a paper published in The Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England last March, Andrew Thomas, an orthopedic surgeon in the UK, noticed that it was very similar to an article published the previous December in another journal. He wrote a letter to the editor of Annals, notifying the journal of … Continue reading ‘Just some eccentric guy in Australia’: The story of a non-retraction for plagiarism
Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 276. There are more than 37,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most … Continue reading Weekend reads: What should happen to a paper by Theranos?; Diederik Stapel continues to be cited; a scientist accused of hiding China ties wins $2 million