The week at Retraction Watch featured a story of unintended consequences and a broken relationship, and a retraction for a paper that had just about everything wrong with it. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
When a journal discovers elementary design flaws in a paper, what should it do? Should it retract immediately, or are there times when it makes sense to give the researchers time to perform a “do-over?” These are questions the editors at Scientific Reports recently faced with a somewhat controversial 2016 paper, which reported that microRNAs … Continue reading Instead of retracting a flawed study, a journal let authors re-do it. It got retracted anyway.
On Dec. 2, 2013, Alison Lakin, the research integrity officer at the University of Colorado Denver, received a concerning email. The emailer was alleging several problems in a 2012 paper in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, co-authored by one of its high-profile faculty members. Lakin discussed the allegations with some administrators and agreed they had … Continue reading Former prof fudged dozens of images, says university
Back in April, Springer retracted a record number 107 papers from Tumor Biology after uncovering evidence they were subject to fake peer reviews. But it appears that the Tumor Biology sweep was only part of the story. During the Tumor Biology investigation, Springer found evidence that the “peer review process was compromised” in a dozen papers … Continue reading Springer purge of fake reviews takes down 10+ more neuroscience papers
Neuroscientist Stanley Rapoport just can’t catch a break. Rapoport, who’s based at National Institute on Aging, is continuing to experience fallout from his research collaborations, after multiple co-authors have been found to have committed misconduct. Most recently, Rapoport has had four papers retracted in three journals, citing falsified data in a range of figures. Although the notices do not … Continue reading NIH neuroscientist up to 16 retractions
A gastroenterology and hepatology journal has retracted a 2017 review after discovering it included data “accessible only during peer review for another journal.” Although we don’t know the details of this particular case—for instance, how the editors and publisher of Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics learned about the transgression and which author was responsible—the journal acted quickly … Continue reading Yikes: Peer reviewer stole (and published) author’s data
On April 27, the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) retracted nine papers by a researcher based in Israel, including some dating back to 2000. The reason: Image manipulation. Michal Neeman, vice president of The Weizmann Institute of Science, told us that the researcher, Rony Seger, is under investigation following an allegation of misconduct affecting papers in multiple … Continue reading Journal retracts nine papers in one day by author under investigation at the Weizmann Institute
A pair of plant biologists has lost a string of papers over concerns about image manipulation. One author has added eight new retractions to his CV; the other has added five. Last summer, a journal retracted another paper by the pair, also citing suspicions of image manipulation. The latest batch of retractions — issued by seven … Continue reading Plant biologist earns string of retractions, bringing total to 9
The week at Retraction Watch featured a new record for most retractions by a single journal, and an impassioned plea from a biostatistician for journals to clean up their act. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Reproducibility is everywhere recently, from the pages of scientific journals to the halls of the National Academy of Sciences, and today it lands in bookstores across the U.S. Longtime NPR correspondent Richard Harris has written Rigor Mortis (Basic Books), which is published today. (Full disclosure: I blurbed the book, writing that “Harris deftly weaves gripping tales … Continue reading “Failure is an essential part of science:” A Q&A with the author of a new book on reproducibility