Search Results for: doing the right thing

Want to make sure your paper gets published? Just do your own peer review like this researcher did

We’ve reported on some pretty impressive cases of researchers doing their own peer review, one of which led to 28 retractions. We have another. Yongdeng Lei, of the School of Geography and Remote Sensing Science at Beijing Normal University, pulled the wool over the eyes of two Springer journals. Here’s the notice from Environmental Management … Continue reading Want to make sure your paper gets published? Just do your own peer review like this researcher did

Researcher intimidated trainees into faking heart test results: ORI

A cardiology researcher in Illinois coerced trainees to fake the results of a heart test so that patients would qualify to enter a clinical trial, according to a new finding by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI). Here’s an excerpt from the ORI’s notice about Parag V. Patel, of Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, in Park … Continue reading Researcher intimidated trainees into faking heart test results: ORI

Sports columnist Reilly loses ESPN.com gig after replaying his work

Rick Reilly, a noted sports columnist, once wrote about football replays: Tell me if I’m a crank, but do you notice that every time a football replay comes up—and I mean every time—the color guy goes, “OK, now watch this!” I mean, what else are we gonna do? Suddenly start knitting a sweater? Start collecting … Continue reading Sports columnist Reilly loses ESPN.com gig after replaying his work

Not-so-tiny ethics issues as Micron retracts first-ever paper, and authors apologize for five duplicates

The editors of the journal Micron — an Elsevier title — have retracted its first paper ever, and in an editorial marking the occasion, take on a number of issues in scientific publishing misconduct. The beginning of the editorial (which is paywalled):

Leadership journal to retract five papers from FIU scholar

Retraction Watch has learned that The Leadership Quarterly, a management journal published by Elsevier, plans to retract five papers by a Florida researcher poised to “rock” the field — but probably not quite in the way a press release intended — whose findings in the articles were questioned by readers. The scholar, Fred O. Walumbwa, … Continue reading Leadership journal to retract five papers from FIU scholar

Journal grounds paper on radiation exposure in air traffic controllers because it was “published inadvertently”

The Indian Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine has retracted a 2013 article by a pair of researchers who’d claimed to find that air traffic controllers suffer poor health from exposure to microwave radiation. But that turns out to have been an, um, flight of fancy. The article, “Adverse health effects of occupational exposure to … Continue reading Journal grounds paper on radiation exposure in air traffic controllers because it was “published inadvertently”

Psychology researcher explains how retraction-causing errors led to change in her lab

Last month, we brought you the story of two retractions by Yale’s Laurie Santos because the team discovered errors in the way the first author had coded the data. That first author, Neha Mahajan, took full responsibility for the coding problems, according to the retraction notices, and a university investigation cleared her of any “intentional, … Continue reading Psychology researcher explains how retraction-causing errors led to change in her lab

Following up: Pamela Ronald publishes updated data following two retractions

Last year, we wrote about two retractions by Pamela Ronald and colleagues, after the group found that a bacterial strain they’d been using was contaminated. The group has now published a paper in PeerJ following their investigation into what went wrong. Ronald tells us the new paper, titled “The Xanthomonas Ax21 protein is processed by … Continue reading Following up: Pamela Ronald publishes updated data following two retractions

“Stupid, it should not be done that way”: Researcher explains how duplications led to a retraction

More than two years ago, we wrote about a retraction for duplication in Biophysical Journal prompted by an email from pseudonymous whistleblower Clare Francis. That post generated a robust discussion, including one comment from someone calling himself or herself “Double Dutch.” This past weekend, the last author of that paper, Rienk van Grondelle, left a … Continue reading “Stupid, it should not be done that way”: Researcher explains how duplications led to a retraction

Fraud topples second neuroscience word processing paper

We have a second retraction from a group of neuroscience researchers in Belgium who discovered fatal errors in their work on how the brain sets about the task of reading written language. Spoiler alert: Turns out those errors weren’t errors after all. As we reported back in May, the group, from the University of Leuven, … Continue reading Fraud topples second neuroscience word processing paper