Shikeagi Kato, an endocrinology researcher who resigned from the University of Tokyo in March 2012 amid an investigation that concluded 43 of his papers should be retracted, has retracted five more papers.
The newest is in this week’s Nature, for “GlcNAcylation of a histone methyltransferase in retinoic-acid-induced granulopoiesis,” a paper first published in 2009. Here’s the notice: Continue reading Shigeaki Kato notches five more retractions, including one in Nature
By now, Retraction Watch readers may have heard about new Nobel laureate Randy Schekman’s pledge to boycott Cell, Nature, and Science — sometimes referred to the “glamour journals” — because they damage and distort science. Schekman has used the bully pulpit of the Nobels to spark a conversation that science dearly needs to have about the cult of the impact factor.
The argument isn’t airtight. Schekman — now editor of eLife, an open access journal — says that open access journals are a better way to go, although he doesn’t really connect mode of publishing with the quality of what’s published. Others have pointed out that the move will punish junior members of his lab while likely having no effect on the career of someone who has published dozens of studies in the three journals he’s criticizing, and has, well, won a Nobel.
All that aside, it was Schekman’s reference to retractions that, not surprisingly, caught our eye: Continue reading Cell, Nature, Science boycott: What was Randy Schekman’s tenure at PNAS like?
We’re always glad to have guest posts, and here’s one from François-Xavier Coudert, reporting from France.
As we reported the other day, a Nature editorial suggested that police involvement might be an appropriate response to research misconduct. The French seem to agree, based on reports in the media there, as Coudert writes:
A husband-wife team of French odontology researchers at l’université Paul-Sabatier in Toulouse have been on trial in that country for research misconduct. Christine Marchal-Sixou, an associate professor, faces a charge of plagiarism, and Michel Sixou, full professor and dean of the faculty of dental medicine until September, has been charged with complicity. Continue reading France tries husband-wife team for research misconduct in plagiarism case
A rheumatology researcher in France is retracting a paper for errors in several sentences.
Here’s the retraction notice for “Odanacatib for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis, a paper originally published in October in Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy:
Unfortunately, due to an honest error from the author, a small portion of this otherwise reliable published article contains clinically inaccurate data. The publisher and author agree to retract the paper pending correction.
The author of the paper, Roland Chapurlat, tells us: Continue reading A “small portion of this otherwise reliable published article contains clinically inaccurate data”
The author of a paper on the phenomenon of the vanishing twin has lost the article for failure to list his co-author on the article.
The paper, “Genotyping Analysis of Circulating Fetal Cells Reveals High Frequency of Vanishing Twin Following Transfer of Multiple Embryos,” had appeared earlier this year in Avicenna Journal of Medical Biotechnology, a publication of the Avicenna Research Institute, in Tehran, Iran. The author was Hussein Mouawia, a biologist at Lebanese University in Beirut.
According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Vanishing citation for vanishing twin paper
Amine Bahi, a neuroscience researcher in the United Arab Emirates, has had a third paper retracted.
Here’s the notice for “Blockade of Protein Phosphatase 2B Activity in the Amygdala Increases Anxiety- and Depression-Like Behaviors in Mice,” which was posted on November 19: Continue reading Rats! Neuroscientist notches third retraction, this one for using the wrong RNAs
It’s been another busy week at Retraction Watch. Here’s a sampling of scientific publishing and misconduct news from around the web: Continue reading Weekend reads: Stapel as an object lesson, peer review’s flaws, and salami slicing
It’s really hard to get papers retracted, police might be best-equipped to handle scientific misconduct investigations, and there’s finally software that will identify likely image manipulation.
Those are three highlights from a number of pieces that have appeared in Nature and Nature Medicine in the past few weeks. Not surprisingly, there are common threads, so join us as we follow the bouncing ball. Continue reading Should scientific misconduct be handled by the police? It’s fraud week at Nature and Nature Medicine
The paper is dead. Long live the paper!
Earlier this year, we brought you the case of a group of Brazilian insect researchers who lost two 15-year-old papers in different journals for duplication. One of those papers has been resurrected, albeit in a rather puzzling way.
The article, “Non-local interactions and the dynamics of dispersal in immature insects,” had appeared in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, which had issued the following retraction notice:
Continue reading A retracted retraction? Authors salvage entomology paper with image issues
Nearly six months after first expressing concern about the validity of a 2010 paper on multiple sclerosis, Nature Medicine has retracted the article for containing “erroneous” data — which in this case don’t seem to have existed, making them more fabricated than wrong.
The paper, “Crucial role of interleukin-7 in T helper type 17 survival and expansion in autoimmune disease,” came from a group led by Jingwu Zhang, who at the time ran GlaxoSmithKline’s Research and Development Center in Shanghai.
In June, the journal issued an expression of concern about the article after readers discovered problems with the data, as reported by Nature Medicine’s blog.
Continue reading Nature Medicine retracts MS paper with ghost data by former GSK researcher