This week at Retraction Watch featured an ironic case of what doesn’t make a journal great, and the retraction of a paper from JAMA. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Country retraction rankings; social psychology department replication rankings
Science Signaling corrects data fudged by former UCSF student
A paper containing data fudged by former University of California San Francisco grad student Peter Littlefield has been corrected. We knew that this was coming — last month, the Office of Research Integrity issued a report that Littlefield had admitted to misconduct, and agreed to a retraction or correction of the two affected papers.
Published in Science Signaling, “Structural analysis of the /HER3 heterodimer reveals the molecular basis for activating HER3 mutations” examined the structural details of a protein associated with cancer. It has been cited two times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
According to the correction note, the concentration of a protein presented in one figure was “miscalculated;” in another figure, the error bars were “calculated incorrectly.”
A statement from the UCSF affirmed that principle investigator Natalie Jura has “not been implicated in any research misconduct finding,” and explains that Continue reading Science Signaling corrects data fudged by former UCSF student
ASU prof placed on administrative leave following plagiarism charges
A faculty member at Arizona State University has been placed on leave while the university investigates charges against him.
According to a spokesperson for ASU, Matthew Whitaker
has been placed on administrative leave and relieved of all duties. The University will follow Arizona Board of Regents policy as it reviews allegations that his conduct has fallen short of the University’s expectations for a faculty member and a scholar.
In July, we reported that Whitaker was revising a book about modern African-American history after he admitted it contained Continue reading ASU prof placed on administrative leave following plagiarism charges
Top official at Indian university plagiarized most of paper
A top official and law researcher at a university in India is facing dismissal after being charged with plagiarizing approximately three-quarters of one of her papers, among other allegations.
Chandra Krishnamurthy, the Vice Chancellor at Pondicherry University, has been “placed under ‘compulsory wait’ by the Union human resource ministry following several charges against her,” according to The Times of India.
A nine-month long investigation by the International Journal of Legal Information confirmed that the majority of one paper on Krishnamurthy’s CV, “Legal Education and Legal Profession in India,” was largely plagiarized.
Here’s the retraction note:
Continue reading Top official at Indian university plagiarized most of paper
Lizards aren’t getting hotter faster than the planet after all, says retraction
A paper that raised alarms by suggesting lizards were warming even faster than the planet has been retracted after the authors employed the wrong method to measure temperatures.
Some scientists thought that, because of the way lizards retain heat to regulate their cold-blooded bodies, they might be more sensitive to temperature changes. Well, not in this case. The paper has been retracted from Ecography because the scientists erred in calculating the “radiative conductance of the animal” — basically, how much heat it can get rid of — such that the “broad-scale” conclusions of the study are invalid.
The notice for the aptly named paper “Lizards could be warming faster than climate” reads: Continue reading Lizards aren’t getting hotter faster than the planet after all, says retraction
Erratum for economics paper after authors “failed to cite some very relevant recent papers”
The authors of a paper that examined the best way to inspire creativity in the workplace have issued an erratum after they “failed to cite some very relevant recent papers in experimental economics.”
The paper, “Incentives for creativity,” was published by Experimental Economics only a few months ago — in May — by two researchers from the University of California San Diego and the University of Amsterdam. Sanjiv Erat and Uri Gneezy found that incentives don’t actually improve creativity, and competitive incentives can actually reduce creativity.
The notice updates the paper with references to four studies published between 2012 and 2015:
Re-analysis of controversial Paxil study shows drug “ineffective and unsafe” for teens
The antidepressant Paxil isn’t safe or effective for teens after all, says a re-analysis of a 2001 study published today in The BMJ.
The original 2001 paper in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry — study 329, as it’s known — helped greenlight use of the drug (generically known as paroxetine) in young people. But it’s faced accusations of ghostwriting, undisclosed conflicts of interest, and issues with data analysis since publication.
According to a BMJ feature, also published today: Continue reading Re-analysis of controversial Paxil study shows drug “ineffective and unsafe” for teens
Animal welfare breach prompts Nature correction
A 2011 letter to Nature from Harvard researchers received its second correction today, this time after discovering the researchers conducted experiments in which mice may have “experienced more pain and suffering than originally allowed for.”
That quote comes from an accompanying editorial in the journal, a rare move for a correction to a 2011 letter. But it’s an unusual correction, for a letter that found that a component of a pepper plant appeared to selectively kill cancer cells, leaving healthy cells relatively unscathed.
Here’s the first paragraph from the detailed correction notice, published today: Continue reading Animal welfare breach prompts Nature correction
Fourth retraction for Einstein oncologist due to image manipulations
Two papers on a potential cancer drug have been retracted following an investigation that found “inappropriate manipulation of bands in gels.”
This makes four retractions by our count for Roman Perez-Soler, an oncologist at the Einstein College of Medicine, and for co-author Yi-He Ling, whose current affiliation is unknown.
Their previous two retractions, which we reported on in 2013, were also for image manipulation. At the time, Perez-Soler told us that Ling “accepted full responsibility for the changes” and he had “returned to his home country.”
The fresh retraction notes, from Molecular Pharmacology, provide a few specifics about the figures that were manipulated this time around.
Continue reading Fourth retraction for Einstein oncologist due to image manipulations
Kansas ecology prof loses whistleblower protection after alleging misconduct
The U.S. government has denied whistleblower protection for a researcher who was fired from Kansas State University after alleging his colleagues misrepresented data in an ecology paper.
Researcher Joseph Craine was asked to leave K-State after being the “subject of a dismissal campaign” by colleagues when he told the Ecology journal that he believed some had been “fraudulently characterizing field studies,” according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.
In response, Craine sought whistleblower protection status from the National Science Foundation — a sponsor of the research — which was recently denied, says the Topeka Capital-Journal:
Continue reading Kansas ecology prof loses whistleblower protection after alleging misconduct