When misconduct strikes: A fictional tale

Raw dataPernille Rørth is not your typical novelist. She was a scientist for 25 years and was also editor-in-chief of the EMBO Journal for five years. But now, she’s written a novel – Raw Data – about an incident of misconduct that forces a top lab in Boston to retract a prominent Nature paper. The novel exposes how scientists – even the most well-intentioned – can crack under the intense pressure of such a career-killing event. (There’s even a twist at the end.) We spoke to Rørth about her novel, and what she wants it to achieve.

Retraction Watch: Misconduct is – thankfully – a relatively rare event in science. Why write a novel about it? Continue reading When misconduct strikes: A fictional tale

Poll: Should “the Creator” paper have been retracted?

Screen Shot 2016-01-19 at 10.50.25 AMThe scientific community has been abuzz the last few days after some readers discovered language mentioning “the Creator” in a PLOS ONE paper about hand biomechanics — hours after which, the journal promptly retracted the paper.

But not everyone agrees with that decision. In one comment thread attached to the paper, a writer claiming to be an author says the language was a translation mistake, and was a reference to Nature, not God — and, as a result, asks the journal to correct (not retract) the paper. Others, such as blogger “dr24hours,” agree.

So what do you think, readers? Should PLOS ONE have retracted “Biomechanical Characteristics of Hand Coordination in Grasping Activities of Daily Living?” Take our poll below.  Continue reading Poll: Should “the Creator” paper have been retracted?

PLOS ONE retracting paper that cites “the Creator”

Screen Shot 2016-01-19 at 10.50.25 AMPLOS ONE has retracted a paper published one month ago after readers began criticizing it for mentioning “the Creator.”

The article “Biomechanical Characteristics of Hand Coordination in Grasping Activities of Daily Living” now includes a reader comment from PLOS Staff, noting: Continue reading PLOS ONE retracting paper that cites “the Creator”

More than half of top-tier economics papers are replicable, study finds

scienceApproximately six out of 10 economics studies published in the field’s most reputable journals — American Economic Review and the Quarterly Journal of Economics — are replicable, according to a study published today in Science.

The authors repeated the results of 18 papers published between 2011 and 2014 and found 11 — approximately 61% — lived up to their claims. But the study found the replicated effect to be on average only 66% of that reported in the earlier studies, which suggests that authors of the original papers may have exaggerated the trends they reported.

Colin Camerer, a behavioral economist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who co-authored the study, “Evaluating replicability of laboratory experiments in economics,” told us: Continue reading More than half of top-tier economics papers are replicable, study finds

Sample tampering leads to plant scientist’s 7th retraction

Jorge Vivanco
Jorge Vivanco

Plant scientist Jorge Vivanco has earned his seventh retraction, after an investigation found data from soil samples were “intentionally fabricated by a third party.”

Vivanco and his former postdoc Harsh Bais made a name for themselves by discovering the secret behind a nasty invasive plant: It secretes a harmful form of catechin, which kills everything around it, suggesting it could serve as a new herbicide. The findings earned the researchers a story in the New York Times.

In the newly retracted paper, published in 2005, first author Laura Perry — then a postdoc at Colorado State University — further explored the role of the plant-killer, working with Vivanco as the last author. However, when a team working in the building next door had trouble finding catechin in their samples, Perry took another look, and concluded that her samples had been tampered with.

In other words, Perry told us:   Continue reading Sample tampering leads to plant scientist’s 7th retraction

Author with seven retractions makes Thomson Reuters list of top scientists — plus another twist

aggarwal
Bharat Aggarwal

A cancer researcher who recently retired from MD Anderson Cancer Center —  and also recently lost seven papers from one journal following a multi-year investigation — is one of the world’s top scientists, according to a new ranking.

In Thomson Reuters Web of Science’s 2015 list of The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds, Bharat Aggarwal’s name tops the section for Pharmacology and Toxicology (see p. 89). In all fairness, the list is presented in alphabetical order, and seven of Aggarwal’s papers have each been cited at least 1,000 times. But in addition to his recent seven retractions, he has has six corrections, two unexplained withdrawals, and two Expressions of Concern.

We contacted Thomson Reuters Web of Science to inquire, and a spokesperson told us: Continue reading Author with seven retractions makes Thomson Reuters list of top scientists — plus another twist

Hands are the “proper design by the Creator,” PLOS ONE paper suggests

Screen Shot 2016-01-19 at 10.50.25 AMA paper about the biomechanics of human hands published last month in PLOS ONE is raising some questions on Twitter, after readers stumbled upon some curious language in the abstract:

The explicit functional link indicates that the biomechanical characteristic of tendinous connective architecture between muscles and articulations is the proper design by the Creator to perform a multitude of daily tasks in a comfortable way.

Yeah, that’s right — “the Creator.” You don’t see such language all that often in academic papers.

Not surprisingly, it’s prompted some harsh reactions from readers: Continue reading Hands are the “proper design by the Creator,” PLOS ONE paper suggests

EMBO awardee under investigation loses grant

Sonia Melo
Sonia Melo

Sonia Melo, the recipient of an early career award from the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) who fell under investigation after one of her papers was retracted, has now lost the grant.

On the EMBO release announcing the nine awardees of the 2015 Installation Grants, there now appears an asterisk beside Melo’s name. At the bottom of the page, this message appears: Continue reading EMBO awardee under investigation loses grant

Molecular self-assembly paper fell apart

1049_soft_matter_f2c-900Authors are retracting a 2014 paper about how liquid-crystalline materials self-organize in low temperature conditions after realizing they had measured the temperatures incorrectly.

The error affected three figures and a table in “Milestone in the NTB phase investigation and beyond: direct insight into molecular self-assembly.” The paper, published in Soft Matter, has been cited three times, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science.

The retraction note, published in August, offers more detail as to exactly what went wrong:

Continue reading Molecular self-assembly paper fell apart

Death camp dog satire retracted when German journal wasn’t in on joke

Screen Shot 2016-03-01 at 2.46.54 PMTotalitarianism and Democracy has removed a paper claiming that German Shepherds belonging to guards at the Berlin Wall descended from dogs used at concentration camps, after learning that the paper was a work of satire, The Guardian reports.

The paper, and its author, are the creation of the anonymous group “Christiane Schulte and friends.”

This isn’t the first hoax we’ve seen in publishing: Don’t forget journalist John Bohannon, who submitted hundreds of fake papers to open access journals, and more recently conjured up a study that showed chocolate helps you lose weight. (And, of course, a paper in a Romanian magazine that listed porn star Ron Jeremy and Michael Jackson among its references.) Like many other hoaxers, the group say in a statement their purpose was to shine light on problems in academic publishing.

The latest victim: a Dresden-based journal, The Guardian explains:

Continue reading Death camp dog satire retracted when German journal wasn’t in on joke