“Great shock and sadness:” Publishing gadfly to retract paper for duplication

A vociferous advocate for correcting the literature — who has been banned by two publishers for his persistent communications — has asked journals to retract one paper and correct three others for duplications. After a reader flagged his 2004 paper on PubPeer last month, author Jaime Teixeira da Silva “immediately” contacted the journal to alert it that … Continue reading “Great shock and sadness:” Publishing gadfly to retract paper for duplication

Author denies accusations of blatant duplication

Twitter is abuzz today over allegations that a recent paper in Scientific Reports contains a blatant example of duplication. According to the allegations, a group of researchers in Malaysia have used the same four images to represent some 30 cells at different stages of cell death. One researcher has even suggested the allegedly doctored images appear in three … Continue reading Author denies accusations of blatant duplication

Poll: Is duplication misconduct?

If authors duplicate portions of their own work in multiple papers — such as descriptions of methods, a boilerplate background to their field, etc. — should that be considered misconduct? Of course, to many journals, duplication — also known as “self-plagiarism” is a retractable offense. A recent letter to the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) from … Continue reading Poll: Is duplication misconduct?

Authors suspended as duplications sink papers on ship building

A pair of researchers affiliated with the University of Galati in Romania were suspended after duplicating work in their papers on materials used to build ships, earning them four retractions last year, and one the year before. According to Romanian newspaper Impact Est, in December an ethics committee found that co-authors Ionel Chirica and Elena-Felicia Beznea committed “a number of breaches of ethics,” including … Continue reading Authors suspended as duplications sink papers on ship building

Image splicing, duplications, inversions kill paper for well-known longevity researcher and alum of lab

A well-known scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies longevity has retracted a paper for “numerous examples of unindicated splicing of gel lanes,” as well as other problems. This is Leonard Guarente‘s second retraction. He shares both with Gizem Donmez, an alum of his lab who now has three retractions. Donmez left her post as a Tufts professor in … Continue reading Image splicing, duplications, inversions kill paper for well-known longevity researcher and alum of lab

Cancer researcher earns 9th retraction, for image duplication

Alfredo Fusco, a researcher in Italy who has been under criminal investigation for scientific misconduct, has earned his ninth retraction. Retraction number nine, by The Journal of Clinical Investigation, is for duplicating data from another publication — which has also faced questions on PubPeer about image manipulation, along with many other papers by Fusco. The retraction note for “The … Continue reading Cancer researcher earns 9th retraction, for image duplication

Journals retracts three bone papers for duplication by same author

A journal is Journals are retracting three papers after a biomaterials researcher duplicated his own work, sometimes using the same figures to describe different experiments. Two of the papers are on bone regeneration; one is about targeting tumors. In addition to issues with figures, two one of the retraction notes explain that the papers contain “widespread plagiarism of text” … Continue reading Journals retracts three bone papers for duplication by same author

Paper on pine tree genetics chopped for duplication

A paper on genetic variability in Austrian pine trees apparently didn’t vary enough from other work. The journal is now retracting the 2012 paper for having significant overlap with another paper published in 2008. Another researcher pointed out the duplication — which was unintentional, according to the note, the result of an apparent failure in communication between the … Continue reading Paper on pine tree genetics chopped for duplication

Study on eye imaging device withdrawn for German duplication

An article describing a Japanese imaging device that measures eye surface temperature to help diagnose ocular conditions has been retracted because it contained duplicated material that the authors had published previously in German. Here’s the September retraction note for “Measurement of Dynamic Ocular Surface Temperature in Healthy Subjects Using a New Thermography Device,” published in … Continue reading Study on eye imaging device withdrawn for German duplication

Duplication shatters two photonic crystal papers

Two journals published by Elsevier are retracting a pair of material science papers that appear to share figures. The papers  — in Materials Letters and Optics Communications — discuss photonic crystals, a kind of material used to manipulate light. They share the same first author, Zheng-qi Liu at Jiangxi Normal University and  Nanjing University in China, as well as … Continue reading Duplication shatters two photonic crystal papers