A bumper crop of material about misconduct, peer review, and related issues came to our attention this week, so without further ado: Continue reading Weekend reads: Most scientific fraudsters keep their jobs, random acts of academic kindness, and more
Jonah Lehrer’s German publisher will release adjusted version of Imagine sans fabricated quotes
An edited version of Jonah Lehrer’s Imagine, the book withdrawn from shelves in 2012 by his publisher Houghton Mifflin because he had fabricated quotes by Bob Dylan, will be released in Germany next month, according to a report in the German media.
In a story titled “Free ride for the falsifier” (“Freie Fahrt für den Fälscher”), Buchreport.de reports (via Google Translate) that despite the known fabrications, “the publisher wants to keep the book on creativity:” Continue reading Jonah Lehrer’s German publisher will release adjusted version of Imagine sans fabricated quotes
Federal court rebuffs request to discredit article that malpractice lawyers want retracted
We’re a bit late to this, but a Federal court in Massachusetts last fall heard a medical malpractice case with fascinating implications for journals.
The case involved allegations by the plaintiffs — two children who had suffered permanent birth defects and their mothers — that they had lost previous malpractice suits because a fraudulent case report was being used to bolster the defense.
The case targeted two ob-gyns, Henry Lerner, of Harvard, and Eva Salamon, of the Bond Clinic, in Winter Haven, Fla., who had published the case study in question. It also named the clinic itself and the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, which published the article in early 2008.
The article, titled “Permanent brachial plexus injury following vaginal delivery without physician traction or shoulder dystocia,” purported to show:
Zero dark thirty for Al-Qaeda article
An Israeli terrorism scholar has lost a review of a 2011 book on Al-Qaeda because he published it twice in different outlets.
The researcher, Isaac Kfir, is with the International Institute for Counter- Terrorism, where he studies
issues relating to post-conflict reconstruction (security issues) and transitional justice (restorative and retributive justice). His other research looks at the effect of Islamic radicalism within the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The book in question is Al-Qaeda: From Global Network to Local Franchise, by Christina Hellmich of the University of Reading in the UK. The offending article appeared in Terrorism and Political Violence, a Taylor & Francis title. According to the notice: Continue reading Zero dark thirty for Al-Qaeda article
Gut instinct: Intestinal flora paper yanked for plagiarism
A group of researchers in China has lost a paper on the human microbiome in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology for cannibalizing much of it from previously published work by other scientists.
The article, titled “Human gut microbiota: dysbiosis and manipulation,” appeared on Sept. 27, 2012, and was written by a team from the Beijing Genomics Institute-Shenzhen. It has been cited just once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge, by another paper in the same journal.
According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Gut instinct: Intestinal flora paper yanked for plagiarism
Five more retractions appear for Shigeaki Kato
Shigeaki Kato, the former University of Tokyo endocrinology researcher who resigned in 2012 and has retracted at least ten papers, by our count, has five more retractions.
Here are the papers, all in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC): Continue reading Five more retractions appear for Shigeaki Kato
University of Luxembourg investigation leads to neuroscience retraction
A study published in Glia is being retracted following a university investigation that found “incorrect and, therefore, misleading” results in a number of figures.
Here’s the notice for “Jagged1 regulates the activation of astrocytes via modulation of NFκB and JAK/STAT/SOCS pathways” by Eleonora Morga, Laila Mouad-Amazzal, Paul Felten, Tony Heurtaux, Mike Moro, Alessandro Michelucci, Sebastien Gabel, Luc Grandbarbe, and Paul Heuschling: Continue reading University of Luxembourg investigation leads to neuroscience retraction
St. Louis Krokodil paper reappears
Earlier this month, we reported on the unexplained withdrawal of a case report from the American Journal of Medicine whose authors said they had treated a man in St. Louis who used krokodil, a homemade mixture of prescription painkillers heroin and flammable contaminants that has proven deadly in Russia.
At the time, all the journal’s publisher, Elsevier, would say about why the article was removed was that there was “a permission problem that the originating institution is working to resolve.”
The paper has now reappeared. And contrary to the notice that appeared on the withdrawal Continue reading St. Louis Krokodil paper reappears
Punked 2.0: Indian engineer uses “My Cousin Vinny” to publish fake paper, expose “science” conference
A technology entrepreneur from Pune named Navin Kabra has pulled back the sheets on a local conference, the International Conference on Recent Innovations in Engineering, Science & Technology, by submitting two bogus manuscripts for presentation — both of which were accepted.
Although the conference organizers were charging 6,000 rupees — about $100 — apiece for submission, Kabra bargained them down to half that amount
by haggling with them in the same way we haggle with vegetable vendors.
Kabra, in an illuminating post on his blog titled “How I published a fake paper, and why it is the fault of our education system” that was first covered by mid-day.com, says Continue reading Punked 2.0: Indian engineer uses “My Cousin Vinny” to publish fake paper, expose “science” conference
Urology researcher in Iran has third paper retracted
Mohammad Reza Safarinejad, a urologist in Iran, has had three papers retracted recently for reasons that are not entirely clear.
Here’s the most recent notice, from the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, of a paper that has been cited 23 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge: Continue reading Urology researcher in Iran has third paper retracted