Search Results for: elsevier

Study rating attractiveness of women with endometriosis is not yet retracted

Despite media reports announcing the retraction of a much-criticized study of whether women with endometriosis were more attractive than other women, the study has yet to be retracted by the journal. Last week, several news outlets, picking up on a story in The Guardian, said the study, first published in 2012 in Fertility and Sterility, … Continue reading Study rating attractiveness of women with endometriosis is not yet retracted

A retraction and a retraction request as Twitter users call out sexism, fat-shaming, and racism

Overweight people are more dishonest, women with endometriosis are more attractive, and affirmative action needs to stop: Papers with these three conclusions have come under intense scrutiny on social media in recent days, with at least one retracted.  First up, a study — widely criticized for being sexist — which claimed to find that Women … Continue reading A retraction and a retraction request as Twitter users call out sexism, fat-shaming, and racism

Journal editor breaks protocol to thank an anonymous whistleblower

As Retraction Watch readers may recall, we’ve been highlighting — and championing — the work of anonymous whistleblowers throughout the 10-year history of the blog. Our support for such anonymity, however, is not universally shared.  In 2011, for example, in our column at Lab Times (unfortunately no longer online), we wrote:

A bitter aftertaste: Legal threats, alleged poisoning muddy the waters for a trial of a tea to treat malaria

Xavier Argemi first heard the claim that tea made from artemisia herbs could be useful in the treatment of malaria from a TV documentary in 2017. The documentary, featuring Lucile Cornet-Vernet, the director of the La Maison de l’Artemisia, a non-profit organization that grows artemisia and promotes its use in centers across Africa, focused on … Continue reading A bitter aftertaste: Legal threats, alleged poisoning muddy the waters for a trial of a tea to treat malaria

‘Some papers can slip through the net,’ says journal that published 5G-COVID-19 paper

We have heard back this morning from the publisher of a journal that yanked a paper that linked 5G cellphone technology and the novel coronavirus last week — a paper that scientific sleuth Elisabeth Bik mused was the “worst paper of 2020.” The response to our request for comment from editor in chief Pio Conti … Continue reading ‘Some papers can slip through the net,’ says journal that published 5G-COVID-19 paper

High-profile sleep researcher loses paper for duplication

A prominent sleep researcher whose work has come under intense scrutiny has lost a paper for duplication, aka self-plagiarism. Matthew Walker, of UC Berkeley, is the author of Why We Sleep, a bestselling treatise on the many woes of fatigue. Instantly popular, it was touted everywhere, from Bill Gates to The New York Times, which … Continue reading High-profile sleep researcher loses paper for duplication

French hydroxychloroquine study has “major methodological shortcomings” and is “fully irresponsible,” says review, but is not being retracted

A March 2020 paper that set off months of angry debates about whether hydroxychloroquine is effective in treating COVID-19 has “gross methodological shortcomings” that “do not justify the far-reaching conclusions about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in Covid-19,” according to a review commissioned by the journal that published the original work. The comments, by Frits Rosendaal, … Continue reading French hydroxychloroquine study has “major methodological shortcomings” and is “fully irresponsible,” says review, but is not being retracted

A mystery: How did this team plagiarize an unpublished paper?

A study on a wireless communication algorithm was retracted for being an exact duplicate of a paper submitted to a separate journal last year — but the authors were different and it’s unclear how they got hold of it. The retracted study, “Energy-aware resource management for uplink non-orthogonal multiple access: Multi-agent deep reinforcement learning” was … Continue reading A mystery: How did this team plagiarize an unpublished paper?

“Stunned, very confused”: Two more journals push back against Impact Factor suppression

At least two more journals are fighting decisions by Clarivate — the company behind the Impact Factor — to suppress them from the 2019 list of journals assigned a metric that many rightly or wrongly consider career-making. In a letter to the editorial board of Body Image, an Elsevier journal that was one of 33 … Continue reading “Stunned, very confused”: Two more journals push back against Impact Factor suppression

Brand researchers have a second study retracted due to data “anomalies”

Three researchers who study consumers’ relationships with brands have lost their second paper, this one a study which sought to explain why some people buy things to relieve inner conflicts, because of “data and analysis anomalies.” The study, “Identity Threats, Compensatory Consumption, and Working Memory Capacity: How Feeling Threatened Leads to Heightened Evaluations of Identity-Relevant … Continue reading Brand researchers have a second study retracted due to data “anomalies”