PLOS ONE retracts 2 malaria papers over doubts experiments ever took place

PLOS One

Authors have retracted a pair of PLOS ONE papers after an investigation suggested the articles might contain some fiction.

In the papers, the authors describe collecting and analyzing the DNA of mosquitoes to look for changes following the introduction of bed nets treated with insecticides to combat malaria. However, an investigation by the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement in France could not confirm some of the experiments ever took place.

Here’s the retraction notice for “How the Malaria Vector Anopheles gambiae Adapts to the Use of Insecticide-Treated Nets by African Populations,” which appears at the top of the paper:

Continue reading PLOS ONE retracts 2 malaria papers over doubts experiments ever took place

Should researchers guilty of misconduct go to “rehab”?

Nature_latest-cover

A report on the first few years of “researcher rehab” suggests that three days of intensive training have a lasting impact on participants.

Specifically, among participants — all of whom had been found guilty of at least one type of misconduct — the authors report that:

A year later, follow-up surveys indicate that the vast majority have changed how they work.

The authors claim this shows the program is worth the time and investment — a $500,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, and a cost of $3,000 per participant for the three-day course. Do you agree? Tell us what you think in our poll at the end of the story.

Infractions ranged from consent issues for human subjects, plagiarism, and outright fraud. Still, researchers who need this training aren’t much different from everyone else, the authors note in “Lessons of researcher rehab,” published today by Nature: Continue reading Should researchers guilty of misconduct go to “rehab”?

Meet our newest team member: Dalmeet Singh Chawla

dalmeetJoin us in welcoming new staff writer Dalmeet Singh Chawla.

Dalmeet was inspired by talks at the 2014 Association of British Science Writers meeting (including by our own Ivan Oransky) to build a niche for himself as a writer – lucky for us, he chose science publishing. His focus has been on stories about innovations in scholarly publishing, but also covered peer review, authorship and publisher policies along the way.

As Dalmeet told us: Continue reading Meet our newest team member: Dalmeet Singh Chawla

Philosopher earns 14th retraction for plagiarism

978-1-4020-3001-7Today, we bring you a case of a serial plagiarizer.

Martin W. F. Stone was a philosophy professor at the University of Leuven — by one account “widely admired and highly respected” — until 2010, when an investigation at the school concluded that his work is “highly questionable in terms of scientific integrity.” Over the past several years, he has racked up retractions, earning his 14th this spring, and spot #30 on our leaderboard.

Stone’s retractions were brought to our attention by philosopher Michael Dougherty, who found a notice for “Michael Baius (1513–89) and the Debate on ‘Pure Nature’: Grace and Moral Agency in Sixteenth-Century Scholasticism,” a chapter in Springer’s Moral Philosophy on the Threshold of Modernity.

The retraction notice says that the chapter Continue reading Philosopher earns 14th retraction for plagiarism

Pro-lifers call for JAMA to retract 2005 paper about fetal pain

JAMAPro-life activists have asked JAMA to retract a 2005 paper that suggested fetuses can’t feel pain before the third trimester.

Critics are arguing that newer findings have shown pain sensation appears earlier in gestation, yet the 2005 data continue to be cited in the discussion around abortion. What’s more, they note, some of the authors failed to mention their ties to the abortion industry.

The 2005 paper has been cited 191 times, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science. We spoke with Howard Bauchner, Editor in Chief at JAMA and The JAMA Network, who told us something similar to what he said last week, when PETA asked to retract a paper they claim could be harmful to elephants: Continue reading Pro-lifers call for JAMA to retract 2005 paper about fetal pain

Prompted by PubPeer, biologist corrects three papers

GeneA biologist has corrected three papers that are nearly a decade old, after concerns were raised on PubPeer.

A commenter first posted a comment about an image in one of the papers in 2013; after more comments on other papers appeared in November 2015, author Zoya Avramova at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln received emails alerting her to the threads. She has responded, including to the 2013 comment, noting “the said images should have been assembled more carefully.”

After repeating some of the experiments to verify the results, she has now issued corrections on three papers, about the genetics of model organism Arabidopsis. The papers share a first author, Abdelaty Saleh, who was a postdoc in Avramova’s lab at the time of the work.

The correction notice for “Dynamic and stable histone H3 methylation patterns at the Arabidopsis FLC and AP1 loci,” appearing in the July 2016 volume of Gene, explains:  Continue reading Prompted by PubPeer, biologist corrects three papers

Conservative political beliefs not linked to psychotic traits, as study claimed

American Journal of Political Science

Researchers have fixed a number of papers after mistakenly reporting that people who hold conservative political beliefs are more likely to exhibit traits associated with psychoticism, such as authoritarianism and tough-mindedness.

As one of the notices specifies, now it appears that liberal political beliefs are linked with psychoticism. That paper also swapped ideologies when reporting on people higher in neuroticism and social desirability (falsely claiming that you have socially desirable qualities); the original paper said those traits are linked with liberal beliefs, but they are more common among people with conservative values.

We’re not clear how much the corrections should inform our thinking about politics and personality traits, however, because it’s not clear from the paper how strongly those two are linked. The authors claim that the strength of the links are not important, as they do not affect the main conclusions of the papers — although some personality traits appear to correlate with political beliefs, one doesn’t cause the other, nor vice versa.

In total, three papers have been corrected by authors, and a correction has been submitted on one more.

We’ll start with an erratum that explains the backstory of the error in detail. It appears on “Correlation not Causation: The Relationship between Personality Traits and Political Ideologies,” published by the American Journal of Political Science: Continue reading Conservative political beliefs not linked to psychotic traits, as study claimed

Another paper by Duke pair with 12+ retractions is flagged

American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care MedicineAnother expression of concern (EOC) has appeared for a pair of lung researchers formerly employed by Duke University.

Co-authors Erin Potts-Kant, a research assistant who left the school and was charged with embezzlement, and Michael Foster, who has retired, share more than a dozen retractions, corrections and EOCs.

Like many of those papers, the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine is being flagged over concerns it is “unreliable.” Here’s more from the EOC:

Continue reading Another paper by Duke pair with 12+ retractions is flagged

Authors pull 4 papers from surgery journal for plagiarism

BMC SurgeryThe authors of four papers have pulled them for “significant overlap” with other publications, as well as borrowing “large portions of text” — in other words, plagiarism.

Two of the newly retracted papers published in BMC Surgery also listed co-authors who were “not involved in the study;” a similar note appears for an additional 2015 retraction that we’ve found for one of the authors.

That one author is listed on all of the newly retracted papers: Bruno Amato of the University Federico II of Naples, Italy.

Here’s the retraction notice for “Peripheral blood mono-nuclear cells implantation in patients with peripheral arterial disease: a pilot study for clinical and biochemical outcome of neoangiogenesis,” which has been cited five times since it was published in November, 2012, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science: Continue reading Authors pull 4 papers from surgery journal for plagiarism

Researcher accused of fraud, embezzlement acquitted by Italian court

University of PerugiaAn Italian court has acquitted a gastroenterologist who was accused of fraud and embezzlement.  

An earlier institutional investigation into Stefano Fiorucci, based at the University of Perugia in Italy, found that he had manipulated images in publications that he allegedly used to win two million Euros of funding. The story, which has dragged on for years, has resulted in four retractions and nine expressions of concern for publications authored by Fiorucci. 

Fiorucci’s lawyer, Stefano Bagianti, told us: Continue reading Researcher accused of fraud, embezzlement acquitted by Italian court