PubPeer files motion to dismiss Sarkar defamation case

sarkarAttorneys representing PubPeer in its defense against a subpoena by cancer researcher Fazlul Sarkar, of Wayne State University in Michigan, have submitted a motion to the Wayne County Circuit Court to quash the matter.

Sarkar’s work has appeared on the anonymized post-publication peer review site, and he isn’t happy about it. In October, he sued the site’s commenters, demanding that PubPeer release the names of his accusers. Sarkar, who has not been found to have committed research misconduct, claims he lost a lucrative job offer at the University of Mississippi as a result of the posts.

The motion — available here — argues that even if the claims of image irregularities levied against Sarkar by anonymous PubPeer posters are untrue, they don’t meet conventional standards of defamation: Continue reading PubPeer files motion to dismiss Sarkar defamation case

Rash decision? Duplicate submission of dermatitis paper leads to publishing ban

IJDA trio of skin specialists in Egypt has lost a 2009 paper in the Indian Journal of Dermatology for duplication. And the journal wasn’t happy about it.

The article, “Serum mucosa-associated epithelial chemokine in atopic dermatitis : A specific marker for severity,” came from a group at Ain Shams University in Cairo. According to the abstract: Continue reading Rash decision? Duplicate submission of dermatitis paper leads to publishing ban

Paper on controversial stem cell “stamina therapy” retracted

A Korean stem cell journal has retracted a paper on a controversial Italian treatment that involves harvesting stem cells from bone marrow and injecting them back into the patient.

“Stamina therapy” has been pitched as a treatment for everything from Parkinson’s disease to coma, based on a U.S. patent application filed in 2010. The Italian government pledged about $3.9 million in 2013 to support a clinical trial for stamina therapy. More than 100 people signed up for the trials, with a wide range of neurological ailments; half were children.

However, allegations of fraud led to a criminal investigation into the Stamina Foundation’s leader, psychologist David Vannoni, as well as 17 other members of the organization. Continue reading Paper on controversial stem cell “stamina therapy” retracted

Faking data earns stem cell researcher a ban on federal funding

Screen shot 2014-12-09 at 12.01.19 PMThe Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has sanctioned Kaushik Deb, a former post-doc at the University of Missouri-Columbia, who “engaged in misconduct in science by intentionally, knowingly, and recklessly” fabricating data in papers in both Science and Nature (which ultimately rejected his manuscript).

Deb was big news in 2007, when Science retracted his paper. Articles about the case appeared in many outlets, including The Scientist and USA Today. At the time, Missouri’s research integrity officer, Rob Hall, told the Columbia Tribune that: Continue reading Faking data earns stem cell researcher a ban on federal funding

Italian researcher facing criminal charges notches seventh retraction

proteomicsAlfredo Fusco, a researcher in Italy under criminal investigation, now has a seventh retraction for manipulated images.

Here’s the notice for “Retraction: Identification of new high mobility group A1 associated proteins,” to which not all of the authors agreed: Continue reading Italian researcher facing criminal charges notches seventh retraction

JCI lymphoma paper retracted after authors can’t find underlying data to explain duplicated bands

Screen Shot 2014-11-25 at 5.12.55 PMA paper in the Journal of Clinical Investigation has been retracted for manipulated images, including duplicated bands in a Western blot.

Take a look at figure one to the right and see if you can spot all the doubles.

Click here for a more zoomable image.

Here’s the notice: Continue reading JCI lymphoma paper retracted after authors can’t find underlying data to explain duplicated bands

Plagiarism scandal tarnishes student newspaper at Trinity College, Dublin

utbanner4Irish eyes definitely are not smiling at Trinity College in Dublin, where the campus paper, The University Times, has acknowledged that one of its editors seems to have been a serial plagiarist.

According to an editorial in the paper published on Friday: Continue reading Plagiarism scandal tarnishes student newspaper at Trinity College, Dublin

Phantom authorship forces retraction of electron paper

ULTRAMICUltramicroscopy has retracted a paper it published earlier this year after the corresponding author admitted to submitting the paper without the consent of his colleagues.

The article, “The post-peak spectra in electron energy loss near edge structure,” came from a group led by one Feng Tian, a materials scientist at Shanghai University for Science and Technology. The other authors were Peter Shattschneider and Micheal Stoger-Pollach, of the Vienna University of Technology. Except that they weren’t.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Phantom authorship forces retraction of electron paper

Weekend reads: Death of a scientist; Science, the Lake Wobegon of experiments

booksNews elsewhere about scientific integrity, publishing, and related issues abounded this week: Continue reading Weekend reads: Death of a scientist; Science, the Lake Wobegon of experiments

Is Rolling Stone retracting its story on UVA sexual assault?

Rolling-Stone-LOGO-2Rolling Stone has published an editor’s note that calls into question their November 19 story, “A Rape on Campus,” which details a UVA student’s alleged gang rape at a fraternity party and her subsequent struggle to get justice from the school.

Shortly after publication, the magazine was criticized for not seeking a statement from the alleged perpetrators, despite the fact that they were not named in the story, and for relying almost entirely on the testimony from one individual.

Here is managing editor Will Dana’s editor’s note: Continue reading Is Rolling Stone retracting its story on UVA sexual assault?