Two of three authors in Argentina of a 2002 paper purporting to show evidence of bird-like fossil footprints from the Late Triassic age have retracted it after subsequent research suggested their estimates were off.
Here’s the notice for “Bird-like fossil footprints from the Late Triassic:” Continue reading Authors retract Nature paper on bird-like footprints thought to date to Late Triassic
It was the last study ever published from prominent scientist Gerd Maul’s lab. And now it’s been retracted.
Maul was a highly cited cell biologist, with 30 papers cited at least 100 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. He was also a well-known sculptor. When he died in 2010, he had a paper under submission at Cancer Research, which was published late that year.
This year, however, his co-authors found problems with the study. And as the notice — one of the most detailed we’ve ever seen — explains: Continue reading A sad postscript: Paper by deceased researcher retracted
Irony alert: If you’re going to write a paper about face recognition technology, well, do we really need to go on?
A group of researchers in Wuhan, China, evidently didn’t quite realize they were walking into a ridicule trap when they agreed to have their paper, “Face Recognition with Learning-based Descriptor,” published in IERI Procedia. The article appeared in 2012 and was part of an issue devote to that year’s International Conference on Future Computer Supported Education, which took place in Seoul.
And now comes this: Continue reading That face rings a bell, but where have I published it before?
The Journal of Immunology has retracted a 2011 paper on T cell activity after the authors decided they couldn’t stand by the reliability of the work.
The article was titled “Human Regulatory T Cells Require IL-35 To Mediate Suppression and Infectious Tolerance.” (On Pubmed the title has the rather ironic precursor “Cutting edge” in front). Here’s the abstract: Continue reading “Sufficient concern” about data prompts retraction of T-cell paper
Maybe it was a case of hitting the “send” button a bit too soon, or maybe it was a spasm of seller’s remorse, but a group of Chinese researchers has retracted a paper they’d published preliminarily a few months earlier.
The paper, “Antitumor and immunomodulatory activity of a polysaccharide from fungus Coprinus comatus (Mull.:Fr.) Gray,” by a group from various institutions in Shaanxi, appeared in April on the website of International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (as what appears to have been an uncorrected proof). But that didn’t stick.
According to a retraction notice dated August 2nd: Continue reading Anticancer-fungus paper retracted because some of the results “may be inaccurate”
Since last May, we’ve been reporting on a case at the University of Utah involving two retractions and two corrections. When the story first broke, the lab blamed a former worker for inappropriately removing data from the premises, and the university has been investigating. Last month, we reported that Ivana De Domenico, the junior faculty member who was first author on those papers, had left the university, and that senior author Jerry Kaplan had retired.
But the problems went beyond the four papers we reported on, as the Salt Lake Tribune reported on Friday. In a 9-page report provided to the Tribune, the panel overseeing the investigation details its examination of 11 papers. This is the first of six findings: Continue reading University of Utah finds former faculty member guilty of misconduct because of “reckless disregard”
The University of São Paulo and Brazil’s National Council of Technological and Scientific Development funding agency (CNPq) have cleared a researcher of fraud following a six-month investigation.
The CNPq’s Commission on Integrity in Scientific Activity noted, however, that “there was failure to exercise rigor in the conduct and dissemination of results [in Rui Curi’s work], essential to quality research.” Continue reading University, funding agency clear researcher Rui Curi of fraud charges
Diederik Stapel is up to 54 retractions.
Here’s the notice from Self and Identity: Continue reading Measure by measure: Diederik Stapel count rises again, to 54
Our list of ways that authors and editors find to dance around writing the word “plagiarism” seems to grow longer by the week. Today, we can add “administrative error” to that collection of euphemisms, thanks to authors from South Africa and the editors of an education journal.
Here’s the notice for “Development studies students as constructors of classroom pedagogy in practice: Observed classroom dynamics from the Kingdom of Lesotho,” published in Educational Research in October 2010: Continue reading That’s not plagiarism, it’s an “administrative error”
Okay, so it’s not quite Kafka, but a group of forensic geneticists from Prague’s Charles University has lost a paper in Folia Biologica (a journal from that famed institution where Kafka studied) over what appears to be a rather Byzantine dispute about authorship and the quality of the data.
The 2010 article, “DNA analysis of ancient skeletal remains” was written by a trio of authors from Charles University’s Department of Anthropology and Human Genetics. According to its abstract: Continue reading Author stalemate in Czech DNA paper leads to retraction