We are pleased to present an excerpt from Thinking About Science: Good Science, Bad Science, and How to Make It Better by Ferric C. Fang and Arturo Casadevall, published by ASM Press/Wiley, October 2023. Amidst the COVID-19 calamity, one can argue that science is one of the few aspects of the human response that has … Continue reading Research integrity during the COVID-19 pandemic: A book excerpt
A diabetes researcher who lost a defamation suit against a journal that marked four of his papers with expressions of concern now has four more papers flagged – by the same journal. Diabetes, a journal of the American Diabetes Association (ADA), placed expressions of concern on four papers led or co-authored by Mario Saad, of … Continue reading History repeats itself: Diabetes researcher gets four expressions of concern in journal he once sued
Marc Tessier-Lavigne, whose resignation as president of Stanford University becomes effective today, is retracting two papers from Science following an institutional investigation that found data manipulation in multiple figures. Both articles, “Hierarchical Organization of Guidance Receptors: Silencing of Netrin Attraction by Slit Through a Robo/DCC Receptor Complex,” and “Binding of DCC by Netrin-1 to Mediate … Continue reading Stanford president retracts two Science papers following investigation
Less than a year after he became dean of the University of Alabama Birmingham School of Dentistry, an uncomfortable email landed in Russell Taichman’s inbox. Overlapping and duplicated panels in one of Taichman’s 2005 papers were among a list of complaints relayed by the publisher of Cellular Signalling in the April 2020 correspondence – complaints … Continue reading Exclusive: How a dean went about correcting the scientific record even when at least one journal said he didn’t need to
Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to nearly 350. There are now 41,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in Edifix, EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains 200 titles. And have you seen … Continue reading Weekend reads: The black market for papers; the secret life of retractions; a ‘troublesome pattern’
A journal that didn’t get an impact factor this year after Clarivate, the company behind the closely-watched but controversial metric, identified unusual citations in several articles will retract the offending papers, according to its editor. Genetika, a publication of the Serbian Genetics Society, did not receive an updated impact factor in Clarivate’s 2023 Journal Citation … Continue reading Journal to retract papers that cost its impact factor and spot in leading index
In 2018, a newly minted PhD made an uncomfortable discovery. At a conference, he saw other researchers presenting the results of their attempt to replicate the work of one of his fellow students at Wageningen University in the Netherlands who had found a relationship between heavy rainfall and the number of prisoners in Nigeria in … Continue reading Dutch university can revoke PhD for fake data, court rules
The chair of the Department of Pulmonary Immunology at the University of Texas at Tyler Health Science Center lost a paper last year after an institutional investigation found several issues with the data in the article. Although the researcher, Ramakrishna Vankayalapati, is still identified as the chair on his online profile and the department’s website, … Continue reading Texas dept. chair no longer in position amid university investigation and retraction
A chemistry researcher in India has had seven of his papers retracted after the publisher concluded that some images in the papers showed “unexpected similarities” or had been duplicated. The retraction notices, issued in late March by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in the U.K., all state that: The authors informed the Editor that … Continue reading Chemist in India loses seven papers, blames outsourcing of images
One more paper co-authored by Australian health journalist Maryanne Demasi has earned an expression of concern for image duplication. The move comes seven years after the journal Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) was first made aware of potential problems with a figure in Demasi’s paper that showed Western blots. It marks the third time one … Continue reading Paper co-authored by controversial Australian journalist earns expression of concern