When science writer Vito Tartamella noticed a physics paper co-authored by Stronzo Bestiale (which means “total asshole” in Italian) he did what anyone who’s written a book on surnames would do: He looked it up in the phonebook.
What he found was a lot more complicated than a funny name.
It turns out Stronzo Bestiale doesn’t exist.
Continue reading Should papers be retracted if one of the authors is a total asshole?
Phyllis Wise, the chancellor of the University of Illinois and an obstetrics researcher, has called for a massive correction of a 2006 paper in Neuroscience for work she appears to have tried to pass off as having been previously unpublished — but which wasn’t.
The article, “Estrogen therapy: Does it help or hurt the adult and aging brain? Insights derived from animal models,” has been cited 47 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
And it had caught also the attention of readers on PubPeer, who noted that: Continue reading U. Illinois chancellor earns mega-correction for duplicate publication
Sometimes publishers and authors decide it’s easier to retract a paper than leave it up for discussion by other scientists.
That seems to be the case here: The authors of a paper in Langmuir retracted it in September for a math mistake, but not before the journal refused to publish a comment criticizing the publication.
Here’s the notice for “Drainage of a thin liquid film between hydrophobic spheres: Boundary curvature effects:” Continue reading Is it better to retract a paper, or publish a letter calling the conclusions “unphysical?”
Diederik Stapel’s reinvention as a teacher at a college in the Netherlands has proven to be short-lived.
According to the NRC Handelsblad, Stapel resigned from the job at Fontys in solidarity with Anton Dautzenberg, whose contract at Fontys was terminated and with whom Stapel had co-authored a play. A performance of that play was cancelled last month.
Stapel, who has 54 retractions, tells Retraction Watch that he “had to resign:” Continue reading Diederik Stapel loses teaching post, admits he was sockpuppeting on Retraction Watch
Here’s another installment of PubPeer Selections: Continue reading PubPeer Selections: PubPeer comments prompt investigation; Memory of water returns?
You know it’s a good one when it makes it onto the Wikipedia page for “scientific misconduct.”
On April 21, the International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics retracted two 2008 papers by scientist Alexander Spivak of Holon Institute of Technology in Israel. In September, the journal updated the notice to explain why: The papers both contained copy/pasted chunks from a 2001 paper by Spivak’s post-doc boss at Tel Aviv University, Zeev Schuss, and two other authors.
The tipster seems to have been Schuss himself, who told us about his role in the unravelling of the fraud: Continue reading Blatant plagiarism sinks paper (and earns a sabbatical!) for mathematician
It seemed like an egregious violation of academic standards.
A researcher forwarded us a data access agreement from the University of Oxford, in which Schedule 4 read as follows:
Continue reading Oxford group reverses authorship requirements for sharing data after questions from Retraction Watch
Here at Retraction Watch, we have a lot of fun exploring all the different kinds of science that cross our paths.
Some, though, we’re just not qualified to understand, like this retracted paper in the Journal of Management Studies, which according to the abstract “demonstrates that the persistence of brokerage positions decreases broker performance.”
What is clear is the retraction: the author already published the conclusion in a Japanese management journal in 2011.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Networking paper retracted for “overlap” with author’s prior publication
A little more than a month after removing a highly criticized article that claimed the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine increased the risk of autism in African American boys, Translational Neurodegeneration has officially retracted the paper.
Here’s the notice, dated yesterday: Continue reading Journal makes it official, retracting controversial autism-vaccine paper
The week at Retraction Watch featured yet another case of a researcher peer reviewing his own paper, and an odd defense of plagiarism. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Continue reading Weekend reads: How’d my name end up on that paper?; Bob Dylan in the scientific literature