Time for another installment of Ask Retraction Watch. Today’s query comes from a postdoc:
I have a question regarding publications in different languages: Can I publish the same identical data in two different languages? Would this be considered duplication?
Continue reading Ask Retraction Watch: Can I publish identical data in two different languages?
The authors of an article in the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules have pulled the paper in what appears to be an authorship dispute sparked by premature submission.
The paper, “Renaturation and one step purification of the chicken GIIA secreted phospholipase A2 from inclusion bodies,” came from a group of researchers in Tunisia and Marseille, France, and was published online last May. It has yet to be cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. As the abstract states:
Continue reading Retraction for iffy data as authors of chicken enzyme paper lay an egg
MIT’s Robert Weinberg, a leading cancer researcher who retracted a Cancer Cell paper earlier this year for “inappropriate presentation” of figures, has corrected a different paper in the same journal.
Here’s the correction for “Species- and Cell Type-Specific Requirements for Cellular Transformation:”
We were apprised recently of errors made in the assembly of Figures 2B, 3A, 4A, 4B, and 5G, resulting in the incorporation of incorrect representative images in these figures. These errors occurred during the electronic assembly and have no bearing on the conclusions of the study. The corrected figures are shown below. The authors apologize for any possible confusion this might have caused.
Here’s the original Figure 2 and caption, followed by the new version (read all the way to the end of the post for more details on how this came to light): Continue reading A Cancer Cell mega-correction for highly cited researcher who retracted paper earlier this year
We’ll say it again: We like being able to point out when researchers stand up and do the right thing, even at personal cost.
In December 2011, Pamela C. Ronald, of the University of California, Davis, and colleagues published a paper in PLOS ONE,”Small Protein-Mediated Quorum Sensing in a Gram-Negative Bacterium.” Such quorum sensing research is a “hot topic” right now, so not surprisingly the paper caught the attention of other scientists, and the media, including the Western Farm Press. The study has been cited eight times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
One of those scientists who took notice was Ronald’s UC Davis colleague Jonathan Eisen, who posted about the paper on his blog. That was on January 9, 2012. But if you go to that post today, you’ll see that Eisen struck through most of it, and added this comment: Continue reading Doing the right thing: Researchers retract quorum sensing paper after public process
You might be forgiven for thinking that the editors were describing a bad relationship rather than a paper gone wrong, the journal of Plant and Cell Physiology is retracting a 2004 article by Korean researchers who “manipulated and repeatedly used” micrographs.
The article, “Ornithine Decarboxylase Gene (CaODC1) is Specifically Induced during TMV-mediated but Salicylate-independent Resistant Response in Hot Pepper,” which appeared a s a short communication in the journal, came from the lab of Kyung-Hee Paek at Korea University.
According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Image highjinx lead to retraction of hot pepper paper
Last month, we reported on a retraction in Judgment and Decision Making that said “problems were discovered with the data.” At the time, corresponding author Wen-Bin Chiou, of National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan, told us that a research assistant who had since left the lab hadn’t kept questionnaires used in the research, making replication impossible.
But it turns out that wasn’t the whole story of “Shame for money: Shame enhances the incentive value of economic resources,” to put it charitably. We’ve now heard from people familiar with the case and can provide a fuller account.
The problems with the paper, according to our source, Continue reading Real problems with retracted shame and money paper revealed
CHICAGO — Almost two years after editors at 18 journals agreed in March 2011 to retract 88 of former retraction record holder Joachim Boldt’s papers, 10% of them hadn’t been retracted.
That’s what Nadia Elia, Liz Wager, and Martin Tramer reported here Sunday in an abstract at the Seventh International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication. Elia and Tramer are editors at the European Journal of Anaesthesiology, while Wager is former chair of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
As of January 2013, nine of the papers hadn’t been retracted, Tramer said, while only five — all in one journal — had completely followed COPE guidelines, with adequate retraction notices, made freely available, along with PDFs properly marked “Retracted.” From the abstract (see page 18): Continue reading What happened to Joachim Boldt’s 88 papers that were supposed to be retracted?
A pair of researchers in India has lost a paper in Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries for lifting chunks of text from other sources.
The article, “Advancements in morphometric differentiation: a review on stock identification among fish populations,” appeared in last March from scientists at the National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources in Lucknow.
According to the retraction notice: Continue reading The one that got away: Plagiarism cuts line on fish stock paper
The journal Clinical Research and Regulatory Affairs has retracted a 2012 article on over-the-counter drugs by a trio of pharmacy researchers in India who decided to “reproduce content to a high degree of similarity” from other sources.
Here’s how the retraction notice puts it: Continue reading Paper on over-the-counter drugs goes over the line in borrowing text
A group of researchers at the Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York has retracted two papers for image manipulation.
The retraction notices for “PM02734 (Elisidepsin) Induces Caspase-Independent Cell Death Associated with Features of Autophagy, Inhibition of the Akt/mTOR Signaling Pathway, and Activation of Death-Associated Protein Kinase” and “The Phosphatase Inhibitor Menadione (Vitamin K3) Protects Cells from EGFR Inhibition by Erlotinib and Cetuximab” say the same thing: Continue reading Papers on potential cancer drugs retracted for image manipulation