Search Results for: sting

Weekend reads: The fake sex doctor and his bizarre research; prof alleged to have stolen student’s work; worst scientific scandal of all time?

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a highly cited paper on the effects … Continue reading Weekend reads: The fake sex doctor and his bizarre research; prof alleged to have stolen student’s work; worst scientific scandal of all time?

Will scientific error checkers become as ubiquitous as spell-checkers?

How common are calculation errors in the scientific literature? And can they be caught by an algorithm?  James Heathers and Nick Brown came up with two methods — GRIM and SPRITE — to find such mistakes. And a 2017 study of which we just became aware offers another approach. Jonathan Wren and Constantin Georgescu of the … Continue reading Will scientific error checkers become as ubiquitous as spell-checkers?

Why journal editors should dig deeper when authors ask for a retraction

Imagine you’re a journal editor. A group of authors sends you a request to retract one of their papers, saying that “during figure assembly certain images were inappropriately processed.” What do you do next? Do you ask some tough questions about just what “inappropriately processed” means? Do you check your files for whether the author’s … Continue reading Why journal editors should dig deeper when authors ask for a retraction

A reviewer stole a manuscript and published it himself. But you wouldn’t know it from this retraction notice.

Fish off someone else’s peer review! So writes (in somewhat different words) Mina Mehregan, a mechanical engineer at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in Iran. Mehregan and a colleague recently discovered that they’d been victimized by a group of unscrupulous reviewers who used the pretext of a long turnaround time to publish a hijacked version of … Continue reading A reviewer stole a manuscript and published it himself. But you wouldn’t know it from this retraction notice.

Do the humanities need a replication drive? A debate rages on

Since last year, a half-dozen researchers have been having a debate: Should the humanities focus on replication? No, said Sarah de Rijcke and Bart Penders in Nature last August: “Resist calls for replicability in the humanities.” In the most recent piece on this subject, de Rijcke and Penders were joined by J. Britt Holbrook to again … Continue reading Do the humanities need a replication drive? A debate rages on

University of Texas lacks authority to revoke PhDs, judge rules

The University of Texas (UT) at Austin does not have the authority to revoke degrees, a Texas judge ruled yesterday in a case involving a chemist whom the university alleges committed misconduct. UT revoked Suvi Orr’s PhD in 2014, two years after the retraction of a paper that made up part of her thesis because, … Continue reading University of Texas lacks authority to revoke PhDs, judge rules

Is it time for a new research integrity board in the U.S.?

Nearly two years ago, a report from the U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) called for a new advisory board that would promote research integrity and tackle misconduct. That board does not yet exist, but today in Nature, five authors, led by C. K. Gunsalus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, … Continue reading Is it time for a new research integrity board in the U.S.?

Weekend reads: A call for 400 retractions of papers on organ donors; “citation mania;” AAAS reassessing award for work on herbicide

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured the tale of the reviewer who told authors to cite … Continue reading Weekend reads: A call for 400 retractions of papers on organ donors; “citation mania;” AAAS reassessing award for work on herbicide

The case of the reviewer who said cite me or I won’t recommend acceptance of your work

Some peer reviews evidently are tempted to ask authors to cite their work, perhaps as a way to boost their own influence. But a recent episode at the journal Bioinformatics suggests, the risk can outweigh the reward. We’ll let the editors — Jonathan Wren, Alfonso Valencia and Janet Kelso — tell the tale, which they … Continue reading The case of the reviewer who said cite me or I won’t recommend acceptance of your work

Food packaging journal to retract paper by researchers in Thailand

A food packaging journal plans to retract a 2018 article by Thai researchers who tried to repackage (ahem) a virtually identical article of theirs, Retraction Watch has learned. That’s not particularly unusual; duplication, sometimes inaccurately called “self-plagiarism,” happens, as they say. What makes the case more interesting is the back-and-forth between the journal and the … Continue reading Food packaging journal to retract paper by researchers in Thailand