The authors of a paper on quorum sensing — in simple terms, how bacteria “talk” to one another — have retracted it after another group’s findings led them to discover that the mixture they used weren’t what they thought. The refreshingly detailed retraction notice in PLOS ONE explains:
Readers of this blog — and anyone who has been following the Anil Potti saga — know that MD Anderson Cancer Center was the source of initial concerns about the reproducibility of the studies Potti, and his supervisor, Joseph Nevins, were publishing in high profile journals. So the Houston institution has a rep for dealing … Continue reading Half of researchers have reported trouble reproducing published findings: MD Anderson survey
One of the things we try to do here at Retraction Watch is keep tabs on retracted work that appears again the literature. We did that twice in one day last year, once with a paper about chimps that was retracted from Biology Letters and ended up in the Journal of Human Evolution, and then … Continue reading A retracted Cell paper reappears elsewhere, sans author who didn’t sign retraction notice
Jesús A. Lemus, the Spanish researcher whose work has left a lot of people questioning his data, has another Expression of Concern for his resume. Here’s the notice, from Functional Ecology:
The retraction counts keep mounting for two Retraction Watch frequent flyers. First, Diederik Stapel’s 26th retraction, according to our count. Psychologist Stapel admitted to making up data in dozens of studies, and is also facing a criminal inquiry for misuse of funds. Here’s the notice:
October, apparently, is “studies of retractions month.” First there was a groundbreaking study in PNAS, then an NBER working paper, and yesterday PLoS Medicine alerted us to a paper their sister journal, PLoS ONE, published last week, “A Comprehensive Survey of Retracted Articles from the Scholarly Literature.” The study, by Michael L. Grieneisen and Minghua Zhang, … Continue reading Most retraction notices don’t involve research misconduct or flawed data: new study
Jesús A. Lemus, the Spanish veterinary researcher whose work has been the subject of a misconduct inquiry, has another retraction for his CV. It’s his third, according to our count. The newest retraction is from PLoS ONE:
With apologies to the Bangles for this post’s title, we have another vulture-related retraction from Jesús A. Lemus, the Spanish veterinary researcher whose results have come into question. This one involves a paper that appeared in PLoS ONE in 2009, titled “Susceptibility to Infection and Immune Response in Insular and Continental Populations of Egyptian Vulture: … Continue reading Walk (back) an Egyptian (vulture): Another paper by Spanish vet under scrutiny retracted
Last week was a bit of a whirlwind in Retraction Land, thanks to a big study of retractions in PNAS and a lot of resulting press coverage. So we didn’t have a chance to update readers on an ongoing story and discussion involving the PLoS journals. As ScienceInsider was first to report last week, the … Continue reading Catching up: PLoS Pathogens apologizes for retracting XMRV-prostate cancer paper before contacting a corresponding author
A new study out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) today finds that two-thirds of retractions are because of some form of misconduct — a figure that’s higher than previously thought, thanks to unhelpful retraction notices that cause us to beat our heads against the wall here at Retraction Watch. The … Continue reading Majority of retractions are due to misconduct: Study confirms opaque notices distort the scientific record