And the award for the most self-referential abstract ever goes to…

dev cogn neuroscienceHere at Retraction Watch, we like to dig for what lies behind sometimes opaque retraction notices. But today, thanks to Neil Martin, we have a glimpse into something a bit different: The back-and-forth between an author and his editor.

In Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Peter Reiner, of the University of British Columbia, wrote a comment on “Can transcranial electrical stimulation improve learning difficulties in atypical brain development? A future possibility for cognitive training,” by Beatrix Krause and Roi Cohen Kadosh.(Recent related work by Cohen Kadosh’s group has earned some media attention.

The comment is pretty straightforward, except for what’s listed as the abstract: Continue reading And the award for the most self-referential abstract ever goes to…

A double-bill from Digestive Diseases and Sciences, both for regurgitation — aka duplication

ddsComing back up?

Digestive Diseases and Sciences has retracted two papers for duplication.

The first paper, “Membrane-Bound Mucins and Mucin Terminal Glycans Expression in Idiopathic or Helicobacter pylori, NSAID Associated Peptic Ulcers,” was published in October 2012 by a group from Israel and the United States. It found that:

Cytoplasmic MUC17 staining was significantly decreased in the cases with idiopathic ulcer. The opposite was demonstrated for MUC1. This observation might be important, since different mucins with altered sialylation patterns likely differ in their protection efficiency against acid and pepsin.

But, as the retraction notice suggests, that much had been found before: Continue reading A double-bill from Digestive Diseases and Sciences, both for regurgitation — aka duplication

Five Kato papers subject to an expression of concern, plus, a statute of limitations on correcting the literature?

katoShigeaki Kato, an endocrinology researcher who resigned last year from the University of Tokyo and has retracted five papers, now has five more papers subject to an expression of concern.

Here’s the notice in Molecular and Cellular Biology: Continue reading Five Kato papers subject to an expression of concern, plus, a statute of limitations on correcting the literature?

Retraction cites “unintended excessive reuse” in commentary — of paper it was praising

rejuvreschcoverWe here at Retraction Watch HQ are always on the lookout for euphemisms for plagiarism (and other misconduct, of course). Among our favorites are “referencing failure” and the journal that allowed researchers to call plagiarism an “approach” to writing.

Here’s a new one that’s sure to do well with voters.

The journal Rejuvenation Research has retracted a commentary for, well, containing too much of the very text it was supposed to be commenting on.

The editorial was by Giorgio Aicardi, of the University of Bologna, in Italy, and the article Aicardi was writing about was titled “Synaptic distributions of GluA2 and PKMζ in the monkey dentate gyrus and their relationships with aging and memory.” That article had been published in the Journal of Neuroscience last year by a group from Mount Sinai in New York.

We’ll let the notice do the explaining: Continue reading Retraction cites “unintended excessive reuse” in commentary — of paper it was praising

Authors hit for image manipulation cycle, but don’t worry, they’ll resubmit retracted paper

j virologyRegrets were had, mistakes were made, but gosh-darn-it, they’re gonna resubmit that retracted paper in the future.

Such is the message from a retraction of “Tsg101 Interacts with Herpes Simplex Virus 1 VP1/2 and Is a Substrate of VP1/2 Ubiquitin-Specific Protease Domain Activity,” from Italian virologists who admitted to copying and pasting their way into the Journal of Virology: Continue reading Authors hit for image manipulation cycle, but don’t worry, they’ll resubmit retracted paper

Updated: Integrity “uncertain,” journal retracts stroke paper

emmcover

Experimental & Molecular Medicine has retracted a 2012 paper on stroke by a group of South Korean researchers after learning that one of the figures in the article was unreliable.

The article was titled “Protective effects of transduced Tat-DJ-1 protein against oxidative stress and ischemic brain injury,” and it came from a team at Hallym University in Chunchon.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Updated: Integrity “uncertain,” journal retracts stroke paper

Quorum sensing paper retracted when new study suggests compounds weren’t what they seemed

plos oneThe authors of a paper on quorum sensing — in simple terms, how bacteria “talk” to one another — have retracted it after another group’s findings led them to discover that the mixture they used weren’t what they thought.

The refreshingly detailed retraction notice in PLOS ONE explains: Continue reading Quorum sensing paper retracted when new study suggests compounds weren’t what they seemed

Duplicate submission costs authors two papers on Parkinson’s disease

neuropeptidecoverA group of pharmacology researchers in the UK has lost two papers after submitting effectively identical versions to different journals — and getting them accepted, of course — just a day apart.

The first article appeared on the British Journal of Pharmacology‘s website on July 10, 2012. It was titled “Exendin-4 reverts behavioural and neurochemicaldysfunction in a pre-motor rodent model of Parkinson’s disease with noradrenergic deficit.”

Paper 2 appeared in the journal Neuropeptides in October, although it has an online pub date of August 24, and was titled “Exendin-4 reverses biochemical and behavioral deficits in a pre-motor rodent model of Parkinson’s disease with combined noradrenergic and serotonergic lesions.”

Continue reading Duplicate submission costs authors two papers on Parkinson’s disease

A partial retraction appears for former Salzburg crystallographer who admitted misconduct

j imm april 2013A paper by a crystallographer fired from his university for misconduct has been partially retracted.

Last year, we covered the case of Robert Schwarzenbacher, formerly of Salzburg University. Schwarzenbacher had provided the crystallographic data for a paper in the Journal of Immunology, but those results raised questions with another crystallographer and prompted an investigation by the university.  Schwarzenbacher admitted he’d committed misconduct, although he recanted at one point, and was eventually fired.

Now, the authors have retracted the crystallographic data from the Journal of Immunology paper. Here’s the partial retraction, which is listed as a correction:
Continue reading A partial retraction appears for former Salzburg crystallographer who admitted misconduct

Amid a legal dispute, journal downgrades a retraction to an expression of concern

cellcyclecoverThe journal Cell Cycle is expressing a “note” of concern about a 2012 paper by a former researcher at the University of Minnesota, who has claimed that her mentor at the institution was violating her copyright. It turns out the journal had briefly retracted the paper, but reversed itself with the expression of concern — a curious about-face that, in our experience, often indicates the work of lawyers.

That seems to be the case here, too.

The article, “Chalcone-based small-molecule inhibitors attenuate malignant phenotype via targeting deubiquitinating enzymes,” was already the subject of an erratum, available here:

Continue reading Amid a legal dispute, journal downgrades a retraction to an expression of concern