Search Results for: nature

Weekend reads: ChatGPT fools scientists; did COVID-19 trials cut corners?; do scientific societies need journals?

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 285. There are more than 38,000 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 retractions lately — or … Continue reading Weekend reads: ChatGPT fools scientists; did COVID-19 trials cut corners?; do scientific societies need journals?

Was a paper from Taiwan retracted because of a geopolitical dispute? 

A study in the journal Smart Materials in Medicine has earned a retraction, seemingly not because of scholarly malfeasance or an inadvertent oversight, but because of a “lack of agreement on affiliation format.”  The crucial fact seems to be that almost all of the article’s authors, including its two senior authors, list affiliations in Taiwan, … Continue reading Was a paper from Taiwan retracted because of a geopolitical dispute? 

Judge orders OSU cancer researcher to pay $1 million to lawyers from failed libel suit

Lawyers who represented Carlo Croce, a cancer researcher at The Ohio State University in Columbus, in failed libel and defamation suits – and who later sued him for not paying his tab – have won a judgment for $1 million against the scientist.  The judgment, dated Dec. 8, 2022, orders Croce to pay just shy … Continue reading Judge orders OSU cancer researcher to pay $1 million to lawyers from failed libel suit

Weekend reads: China cracks down; unearned authorship rife; new jargon for a new year

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 283. There are more than 38,000 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 retractions lately — or … Continue reading Weekend reads: China cracks down; unearned authorship rife; new jargon for a new year

Paper on writing centers as ‘neocolonial tools’ is retracted

Are academic writing centers agents of US hegemony, spreading the evils of colonialism as they work to topple rogue syntax and rehabilitate failing grammatical states?   So argued a pair of authors in Canada in a now-retracted 2022 article which claimed that such centers have been used as “neocolonial tools” to push American foreign policy goals.  … Continue reading Paper on writing centers as ‘neocolonial tools’ is retracted

Nearing 5,000 retractions: A review of 2022

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

Contamination leads to swift retraction for Science paper on the origins of Omicron in Africa

The authors of a paper that proposed the Omicron variant of SARS-Cov-2 had evolved in Western Africa months before it was first detected in South Africa have retracted their study after discovering contamination in their samples, as several scientists had suggested on Twitter was the case.  The article, “Gradual emergence followed by exponential spread of … Continue reading Contamination leads to swift retraction for Science paper on the origins of Omicron in Africa

Contempt judgment in penile implant spat leads to retraction

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

Cancer researcher banned from federal funding for faking data in nearly 400 images in 16 grant applications

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

PLOS flags nearly 50 papers by controversial French COVID researcher for ethics concerns

The publisher PLOS is marking nearly 50 articles by Didier Raoult, the French scientist who became controversial for promoting hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID-19, with expressions of concern while it investigates potential research ethics violations in the work.  PLOS has been looking into more than 100 articles by Raoult, but determined that the issues in 49 … Continue reading PLOS flags nearly 50 papers by controversial French COVID researcher for ethics concerns