Facing a social media storm, a biology journal has temporarily removed a paper arguing that the proliferation of feral cats around university campuses in China is directly related to the proportion of female students — who evidently are more welcoming than men of the wild felines. The article, “Where there are girls, there are cats,” … Continue reading A paper on cats and female students uses up one of its nine lives
Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: the retraction of a preprint on coronavirus; a finding of … Continue reading Weekend reads: Highly cited scientist was manipulating citations; ‘botched and unnecessary’ operations; a flawed coronavirus study
The defense resigns. The entire editorial board of the European Law Journal, along with its two top editors, has quit over a dispute about contract terms and the behavior of its publisher, Wiley. In a statement posted on the blog of the European Law Blog, editors-in-chief Joana Mendes, of the University of Luxembourg, and Harm … Continue reading Entire board of law journal resigns in a ‘small act of resistance’
On December 29, Jan Behrends, of the Institute of Physiology at the University of Freiburg, in Germany, was checking his Google Scholar profile when he saw his name on a paper — one he’d played no part in writing. The article, “Microelectrochemical cell arrays for whole-cell currents recording through ion channel proteins based on trans-electroporation … Continue reading Former grad student forges his supervisor’s authorship — and gets smacked down
Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: growing concerns — and a new retraction — in a … Continue reading Weekend reads: A Harvard prof in handcuffs; an alleged PhD for grant scheme; unethical reviewer behavior outed
The authors of a 2018 paper on how much carbon soil can store have retracted the work after concluding that their analysis was fatally flawed. The article, “Soil carbon stocks are underestimated in mountainous regions,” appeared in the journal Geoderma. Its authors are affiliated with the French National Institute for Agricultural Research. According to the … Continue reading Digging deeper: Authors retract soil paper so “the error we made does not propagate”
A group of researchers in France has lost a 2019 paper in Cell Calcium because one of the authors took, um, a bit too much inspiration for the work from a manuscript he’d reviewed for another publication. The article, “TRPV6 calcium channel regulation, downstream pathways, and therapeutic targeting in cancer,” was written by a team … Continue reading Author ‘still shocked by the blatancy of the plagiarism and by the stupidity’ after a reviewer steals his work
We know there are a lot of causes that matter to you, but since you’re reading this, we may be one of them. So we’d like to ask for your support. On this Giving Tuesday, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to The Center For Scientific Integrity, the 501(c)3 parent organization of Retraction Watch. Any amount helps. … Continue reading This Giving Tuesday, please consider supporting Retraction Watch
Two researchers from Japan — Jun Iwamoto and the late Yoshihiro Sato — have slowly crept up our leaderboard of retractions to positions 3 and 4. They have that dubious distinction because a group of researchers from the University of Auckland the University of Aberdeen, who have spent years analyzing the work. As their efforts continue, … Continue reading ‘We badly need to change processes’: How ‘slow, opaque and inconsistent’ journals’ responses to misconduct can be
Saudi researchers have lost a pair of papers in a spectrometry journal for errors the editors found fatal but the authors apparently dismiss as trivial. The articles appeared in the Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry in the United Kingdom. The principal author on both papers is Mohammad Gondal, … Continue reading Two spectrometry papers retracted, one for “intolerable” mistakes. The authors don’t agree.