Paul Brookes is a biologist with a passion for sleuthing out fraud. Although he studies mitochondria at the University of Rochester, he also secretly ran a science-fraud.org, a site for people to post their concerns about papers. Following legal threats, he revealed he was the author and shut the site in 2013 — but didn’t … Continue reading What if we could scan for image duplication the way we check for plagiarism?
When Parisa Ariya was invited to write a review for a special issue of the journal Atmosphere, she asked one of her former doctoral students to take the lead. But she soon regretted that decision after discovering Lin (Emma) Si had plagiarized and duplicated significant portions of the review. Ariya, chair of the Department of … Continue reading McGill dept chair says she was blindsided by coauthor’s plagiarism
Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, would you consider a tax-deductible donation of $25, or a recurring donation of an amount of your choosing, to support it? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured a major case of misconduct at The Ohio State University, … Continue reading Weekend reads: “Weaponized transparency;” fighting academic spam with humor; NIH cracks down
Title: A mitochondrial ferredoxin is essential for biogenesis of cellular iron-sulfur proteins What Caught Our Attention: Here’s a cut-and-paste issue that gave us pause. The authors of an 18-year-old paper in PNAS corrected it after realizing some bands in a figure were duplicated (an issue raised on PubPeer one year ago). It turns out, the … Continue reading Caught Our Notice: “The first author cut the thermoprinter paper printout into pieces and reassembled them”
How much role did a potentially problematic paper play in the demise of a once-promising compound? Researchers are questioning the validity of a high-profile article, published by Nature in 2006. Although the letter is 12 years old, the concerns have current implications: It was among the early evidence used to develop a cancer compound that … Continue reading Figures in cancer paper at root of newly failed compound called into question
An external probe has concluded that a researcher based at the University of Gothenburg committed misconduct in multiple papers, all of which should be withdrawn. Among 10 papers by Suchitra Sumitran-Holgersson at the University of Gothenburg, an Expert Group concluded that eight contained signs of scientific misconduct. The Expert Group, part of Sweden’s Central Ethical … Continue reading Probe finds misconduct in eight papers by researcher in Sweden
A third paper co-authored by researchers based at a prominent lab whose work has been under investigation on and off for almost three years has been retracted. According to the notice, the university’s investigation found that a 2008 paper in FEBS Letters contained “clear signs of manipulation” in three figures. Research from geneticist David Latchman’s … Continue reading “Clear signs of manipulation” in paper co-authored by prominent geneticist
After being “blindsided” a few months ago when she was told one of her 2005 papers was going to be retracted, a researcher scrambled to get information about why. And when she didn’t like the answers, she took to PubPeer. Eight days ago, Shalon (Babbitt) Ledbetter, the first author of the 2005 paper published in … Continue reading Delays, arguing over upcoming Cell retraction leave first author “devastated”
Title: AtsPLA2-α nuclear relocalization by the Arabidopsis transcription factor AtMYB30 leads to repression of the plant defense response What Caught Our Attention: A previous collaborator with high-profile plant biologist Olivier Voinnet (who now has eight retractions) has issued an interesting correction to a 2010 PNAS paper. Susana Rivas is last author on the paper, the … Continue reading Caught Our Notice: Voinnet co-author issues another correction
A cancer researcher based at The Ohio State University has retracted five papers from one journal, citing concerns about figures. The notices for all five papers state the Journal of Biological Chemistry raised questions about some figures, and the authors were not able to supply raw data in all instances. Four of the notices say … Continue reading Cancer biologist retracts five papers