“We gave you the wrong information.” An apology from the CBC

CBCWhenever we see someone step forward and admit their mistakes, along with a clear explanation so others can avoid the same, we applaud them.

Today, our digital hands are clapping for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), whose Marketplace has issued a lengthy explanation for why they reported incorrect results from tests of popular vitamins and supplements.

Since they do it so well, we’ll let them tell what happened: Continue reading “We gave you the wrong information.” An apology from the CBC

Can a journal retract its plan to retract? Science may

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Science is reconsidering its plan to retract a paper about using RNA to make palladium nanoparticles after one of the authors submitted a last-minute correction.

Editor in chief Marcia McNutt told us that the journal will make a decision about whether to retract or correct the paper by February 5th.

We are not certain that what he submitted changes anything, but we wanted to consider this new information before acting.

In the meantime, today the journal issued an Expression of Concern for the paper.

The journal’s initial decision to retract the paper stemmed from an investigation at the National Science Foundation, which concluded that co-authors Bruce Eaton and Dan Feldheim — currently at the University of Colorado at Boulder — engaged in “a significant departure from standard research practices,” and cut them off from NSF funding unless they took specific actions. When the report on the investigation came to light earlier this month, Science editor in chief Marcia McNutt told us that she planned to issue a retraction:

We are checking to see how soon we can get it published.

McNutt explained what changed:  Continue reading Can a journal retract its plan to retract? Science may

So, pot may not be as harmless as a recent study suggested

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Researchers are correcting a widely covered study that suggested chronic use of pot might not put users at risk of problems later in life.

It turns out that initial, unexpected finding — covered by Newsweek, The Washington Post, Quartz, and (of course) The Stoner’s Cookbook (now known as HERB) — wasn’t quite right, and a reanalysis found users had a small uptick in risk for psychosis. The authors have issued a lengthy correction in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors that includes some supplemental analysis, too.

Not surprisingly, the study’s findings engendered some controversy, which prompted the authors to reanalyze their data, collected from 408 males with varying levels of marijuana use, who were followed from their teens into their 30s.

Now, an American Psychological Association press release that accompanied the initial findings in August contains an editors note explaining why those aren’t quite correct:

Continue reading So, pot may not be as harmless as a recent study suggested

Wiley published a biology paper in the wrong journal

Screen Shot 2016-01-04 at 2.47.07 PMWiley Periodicals is withdrawing a biochemistry paper after mistakenly publishing it in the wrong journal.

The mistake took a few months to sort out.  Wiley initially published “Protein Kinase C Is Involved in the Induction of ATP-Binding Cassette Transporter A1 Expression by Liver X Receptor/Retinoid X Receptor Agonist in Human Macrophages” online in Journal of Cellular Physiology in May of last year. The article was posted in the correct journal — Journal of Cellular Biochemistry — in July.

At the very end of 2015, the publisher officially withdrew the version it posted in the Journal of Cellular Physiology.

Here’s the withdrawal note (which is paywalled — tsk, tsk):

Continue reading Wiley published a biology paper in the wrong journal

Lawsuit against Ole Miss for rescinded Sarkar job offer dismissed; briefs filed in PubPeer case

court caseWe recently obtained court documents showing that, in September, a judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by cancer researcher Fazlul Sarkar against the University of Mississippi after it rescinded a job offer after reviewing concerns raised about his research on PubPeer.

Sarkar’s connection to PubPeer will be familiar to many readers — he has also taken the site to court to force them to reveal the identity of the anonymous commenters who have questioned his findings. He has accused the commenters of defamation, arguing they cost him the job offer. Today, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a brief on behalf of PubPeer’s appeal of the court’s most recent ruling, that the site must disclose the identity of an anonymous commenter. At the same time, some heavy hitters in science – Bruce Alberts and Harold Varmus — and technology — Google and Twitter — filed briefs in support of the appeal.

The lawsuit against Ole Miss has brought to light the reasoning behind the school’s decision to rescind their offer to Sarkar — and the key role played by the concerns raised on PubPeer.

In a letter dated June 19, 2014 to Sarkar from Larry Walker, the director of the National Center for Natural Products Research at the University of Mississippi, Walker chides Sarkar for not revealing the extent of the ongoing questions over his research during the interview process:

Continue reading Lawsuit against Ole Miss for rescinded Sarkar job offer dismissed; briefs filed in PubPeer case

Here are the 10 — yes, 10 — reasons PLOS ONE retracted this paper

Screen Shot 2016-01-19 at 10.50.25 AMPLOS One is retracting a paper for overlapping with a Wikipedia page. And for containing material lifted from other sources. And for “language errors.” And for insufficient evidence that authors found the pathogens floating around in hospital air that they claimed to find.

The instances of plagiarism are a “huge problem,” each “enough for retraction on its own,” Jonathan Eisen, a microbiologist at the University of California, Davis, told us. Eisen, who posted several comments to the paper after its publication in October, added that the paper was “simply not technically sound.”

The paper — which even contains a spelling error in its title, “Metagenomic Human Repiratory Air in a Hospital Environment” — describes a gene sequencing method to screen the air in hospitals for pathogens. The retraction note lists 10 concerns with the paper: Continue reading Here are the 10 — yes, 10 — reasons PLOS ONE retracted this paper

Paper on pine tree genetics chopped for duplication

naslovna_vol6_no2A 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 co-authors on both papers which caused the papers to be overlapped.

The overlapping papers share a first author, Aleksandar Lucic, who works at the Institute of Forestry in Serbia. The other author on both papers is Vasilije Isajev, at the Faculty of Forestry in Belgrade.

“Analysis of Genetic Variability of Austrian Pine (Pinus nigra Arnold) in Serbia Using Protein Markers” was published in South-East European Forestry. The journal is not indexed on Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the retraction note:

Continue reading Paper on pine tree genetics chopped for duplication

Three expressions of concern added to cancer researcher’s notice list

3.coverQuestions about data and conclusions in papers by a cancer researcher at the University of Maryland have led to three expressions of concern in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

The notices follow four retractions — two for image duplications and two for unknown reasons — for Anil K. Jaiswal. The three papers under notice are all on mechanisms that regulate gene expression; PubPeer commenters have raised questions about some of the figures in the papers.

The expression of concern on all three papers reads, in full:

Continue reading Three expressions of concern added to cancer researcher’s notice list

Former UCSD prof’s company admits to grant fraud

court caseA company headed by a former astrophysicist at the University of California, San Diego, has agreed to forfeit $180,000 after admitting to defrauding the government.

If SciberQuest, Inc. is unable to pay back the money — the result of fraudulently obtaining government grants and contracts — then its CEO Homayoun Karimabadi will be personally liable, the lawyer for SciberQuest and Karimabadi told Retraction Watch.

We asked if the company was going to be able to repay the $180,000; in response, Robert Rose of firm Sheppard Mullin told us: Continue reading Former UCSD prof’s company admits to grant fraud

ASU prof resigns following plagiarism charges, receives $150k+ salary until May 2017

Matthew Whitaker
Matthew Whitaker

A faculty member at Arizona State University has resigned after he was placed on administrative leave while the university investigated plagiarism charges against him.

According to a copy of the settlement agreement obtained by the Arizona Republic, he will continue to receive his salary of more than $150,000 for more than one year.

He will also be reimbursed $25,000 in attorney fees.

According to the agreement: Continue reading ASU prof resigns following plagiarism charges, receives $150k+ salary until May 2017