Doing the right thing: Scientists reward authors who report their own errors, says study

scientificreportsWe’ve always like to highlight cases in which scientists do the right thing and retract problematic papers themselves, rather than being forced to by editors and publishers. Apparently, according to a new paper by economists and management scholars, scientists reward that sort of behavior, too.

The study by Benjamin Jones of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the National Bureau of Economic Research and colleagues, “The Retraction Penalty: Evidence from the Web of Science,” was published yesterday in Scientific Reports, a Nature Publishing Group title.

The authors lay out what they do: Continue reading Doing the right thing: Scientists reward authors who report their own errors, says study

JACS retracts polymer paper over data concerns

jacsat_v135i044.inddThe Journal of the American Chemical Society has retracted a 2009 paper on ethylene polymerization after the authors said they were unable to replicate their findings.

The article, “Bimetallic Effects for Enhanced Polar Comonomer Enchainment Selectivity in Catalytic Ethylene Polymerization,”came from the lab of Tobin Marks, a highly decorated — and grant-and-royalty-generating — chemist at Northwestern University.
Continue reading JACS retracts polymer paper over data concerns

Nature yanks controversial genetics paper whose co-author was found dead in lab in 2012

naturecover1113Nature has retracted a controversial 2012 paper by a group from Johns Hopkins University which has been the subject of a protracted public dispute.

The article, “Functional dissection of lysine deacetylases reveals that HDAC1 and p300 regulate AMPK,” came from the lab of Jef Boeke,  a celebrated biochemist. But a former lab member, Daniel Yuan, who was fired by Hopkins in late 2011 after 10 years at the institution, had repeatedly raised questions about the validity of the findings. Those concerns eventually made their way into the Washington Post, prompting this response from the university. Continue reading Nature yanks controversial genetics paper whose co-author was found dead in lab in 2012

“Personal rivalry” leads to retraction of nut-health paper

ejpcHere’s a retraction that leaves us itching to know more:

The authors of a recent paper in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology on nut intake and the risk of high blood pressure and diabetes have pulled their article from publication for an undisclosed conflict of interest.

Now, you wouldn’t know this unless you were willing to pony up the $32 to read the notice, which is behind a pay wall — something that drives us, well, nuts. But here it is:

Continue reading “Personal rivalry” leads to retraction of nut-health paper

Two detailed retraction notices correct the cardiology record

jaccTwo American College of Cardiology conference abstracts published earlier this year in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) have been retracted, one because the authors were actually measuring something other than what they reported, and the other because newer software invalidated the results.

Here’s the notice for “Worsening of Pre-Existing Valvulopathy With A New Obesity Drug Lorcaserin, A Selective 5-Hydroxytryptamine 2C Receptor Agonist: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials” by Hemang B. Panchal, Parthav Patel, Brijal Patel, Rakeshkumar Patel, and Henry Philip of East Tennessee State University: Continue reading Two detailed retraction notices correct the cardiology record

Henry IV, part 2: No retraction necessary, say some authors of royal head identification paper

Henry IV, via Wikimedia
Henry IV, via Wikimedia

Last week, we reported that some of the authors of a 2010 paper in the BMJ claiming to have identified Henry IV’s head thought the study should be retracted based on new evidence. Some of the other authors have now responded to that call for retraction, which appeared on the BMJ’s site alongside the paper.

Philippe Charlier, the corresponding author of the original paper, and five of the original paper’s 15 co-authors conclude after reviewing the evidence that

Continue reading Henry IV, part 2: No retraction necessary, say some authors of royal head identification paper

Chopping broccoli: Researchers lose paper on florets after readers raise questions

b&mclWith apologies to Dana Carvey, Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters has chopped a 2012 paper on the molecular constituents of broccoli florets after readers evidently were forced to do the job of reviewers and point out fatal flaws in the study.

The article, “Two novel bioactive glucosinolates from Broccoli (Brassica oleracea L. var. italica) florets,” came from a group in South Korea and has yet to be cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. But according to the retraction notice, after publication critics pointed out serious problems with the work. To wit: Continue reading Chopping broccoli: Researchers lose paper on florets after readers raise questions

JBC issues correction for paper by Khachigian, who has had four others retracted

jbc1113The Journal of Biological Chemistry has a fairly gory correction — we’d call it a mega-correction — for a 2010 paper by Levon Khachigian, an Australian researcher whose studies of a new drug for skin cancer recently were halted over concerns about possible misconduct, including image manipulation. As we reported earlier this year, Khachigian has already lost four papers, including one in the JBC — which the journal simply noted had “been withdrawn by the authors.”

The new correction involves the article “c-Jun regulates shear- and injury-inducible Egr-1 expression, vein graft stenosis after autologous end-to-side transplantation in rabbits, and intimal hyperplasia in human saphenous veins,” which Khachigian wrote with Jun Ni and Alla Waldman. The paper has been cited nine times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s the notice: Continue reading JBC issues correction for paper by Khachigian, who has had four others retracted

Ask Retraction Watch: Is a t-test no longer publishable?

Photo by Bilal Kamoon via flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/bilal-kamoon/
Photo by Bilal Kamoon via flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/bilal-kamoon/

Another installment of Ask Retraction Watch:

Recently I heard a graduate student was told by their advisor, ‘Don’t do a t-test, it’s not publishable.’  This seems ridiculous to me as the t-test is a robust test to aid in answering a hypothesis.  So my question is: is a t-test no longer publishable?  And if so, is this true for higher tiered journals, or all peer-reviewed journals?

I would very much appreciate hearing the opinions of your readers on this issue – do they feel they need to run more ‘elaborate’ statistics (e.g., multivariate, modeling, etc.) in order for their research to be publishable?  And if so, do researchers knowingly violate the assumptions of these more elaborate statistical tests so they can be ‘publishable’?

Please take our poll, and comment below.

Irony alert: Forensic experts have paper retracted for plagiarism

ijmbrTime to roll out the irony meter again.

A group of scientists from Uttar Pradesh, India, who study forensic bioinformatics have had a paper retracted for something that can generally be detected with a specialized form of forensic software: Plagiarism.

Here’s the notice for Kumar Ajay, Singh Neetu, Gaurav S.S. “Forensic Bioinformatics: An innovative technological advancement in the field of Forensic Medicine and Diagnosis,” signed by O.A. Sofola, editor-in-chief: Continue reading Irony alert: Forensic experts have paper retracted for plagiarism