Tired of waiting for a university, a publisher commissions its own investigation — and retracts two papers

The journal Diabetes has retracted two 2006 papers by a group of researchers in Germany whose work has long been the subject of concerns about image duplication and manipulation.  The first author of the articles is Kathrin Maedler, a prominent diabetes specialist at the University of Bremen, where she’d been a named professor but lost … Continue reading Tired of waiting for a university, a publisher commissions its own investigation — and retracts two papers

Georgia State researcher up to nine retractions disagrees with the journal

A prominent researcher at Georgia State University who had two papers retracted and eight subjected to expressions of concern for problematic images last year is now up to nine retractions. Ming-Hui Zou is the common author on all nine retracted papers, which were published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry from 2003 and 2010. Of … Continue reading Georgia State researcher up to nine retractions disagrees with the journal

PLOS ONE retracts a paper first flagged in 2015 — and breaks the 100 retraction barrier for 2019

A team of researchers in Saudi Arabia, led by an ex-pat from Johns Hopkins University, has lost three papers for problems with the images in their articles.  The three retractions pushed the journal — which has become a “major retraction engine” for reasons we explain here and here — over 100 for 2019. In December, … Continue reading PLOS ONE retracts a paper first flagged in 2015 — and breaks the 100 retraction barrier for 2019

Endocrinology researcher in South Korea scores four retractions in a year

Hueng-Sik Choi, a researcher at Chonnam National University in Gwangju in South Korea, is up to four retractions for image manipulation. The latest retraction for Choi, for a 2006 paper titled “Orphan nuclear receptor Nur77 induces zinc finger protein GIOT-1 gene expression, and GIOT-1 acts as a novel corepressor of orphan nuclear receptor SF-1 via … Continue reading Endocrinology researcher in South Korea scores four retractions in a year

“Commendable”: Researchers retract a paper when they find gene sequence errors

Researchers in Italy have retracted a 2019 paper on the genetics of a form of herpes virus after determining that the genomic sequences they thought they’d been analyzing proved to be something else. The paper, “A complex evolutionary relationship between HHV-6A and HHV-6B,” appeared in July in Virus Evolution, an Oxford University Press title. The … Continue reading “Commendable”: Researchers retract a paper when they find gene sequence errors

Award-winning researcher in India retracts two papers, corrects three

Kithiganahalli Narayanaswamy Balaji, a professor at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, has retracted two papers and corrected three for duplication of images. Balaji, who won the 2011 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize from India’s Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) “for outstanding contributions to science and technology,” is last author of the five … Continue reading Award-winning researcher in India retracts two papers, corrects three

‘The policy of Creativity Research Journal is to consider only original material.’ Prominent Cornell professor has another paper retracted for duplication.

Robert Sternberg, a Cornell psychology professor whose work has earned three retractions for duplication, has had another paper retracted for the same reason. Here’s the notice:

“I cannot agree to this unfounded, unscientific, and rather Kafkian retraction.”

Mladen Pavicic, of the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, and the Ruder Boskovic Institute in Zagreb, Croatia has had a paper retracted from Nanoscale Research Letters. He’s not happy about it.  In a preprint posted to arXiv, “Response to “Retraction Note: Can Two-Way Direct Communication Protocols Be Considered Secure,” Pavicic writes:

NIH to lift Duke sanctions stemming from misconduct

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) plans to lift sanctions it placed on Duke University more than 1.5 years ago following concerns about how the school responded to recent cases of misconduct. In a memo today to faculty and staff obtained by Retraction Watch, Lawrence Carin, Duke vice president for research wrote: