After the first author admitted to fraud, his colleagues have retracted a 2013 paper in the Journal of Neuroscience, as well as a 2015 book chapter about working memory. The retractions come as part of a backstory of pulled papers authored by psychologist Edward Awh and his former graduate student David Anderson when he was based at the University … Continue reading Two more retractions bring total to 9 for neuroscience duo
Here’s an interesting case: We’ve found two retracted papers that describe the same gene, and both have nearly identical retraction notices. What’s unusual is that the two papers don’t have any authors in common, and appeared in two different journals published by two different companies. The cause of both papers’ demise: Plagiarism, and use of unpublished data … Continue reading How did two papers on same gene with different authors, publishers, end up with identical retraction notices?
A researcher who studies how others communicate is struggling with his own communications: Peter J. Schulz has lost two book chapters for misappropriating the work of others, and is under investigation by his university. Although the publisher believes the errors were unintentional, the retractions have prompted it to stop selling the books altogether. Schulz now has a total of … Continue reading Communications researcher loses two book chapters, investigated for plagiarism
The week at Retraction Watch featured a retraction from Nature, and a discussion of what it means to be an author on a paper with thousands of them. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Amidst an ongoing investigation by the University of Belgrade in Serbia into allegations of duplication by neurobiologist Lidija Radenović, a journal is planning to retract another one of her papers. Radenović has already racked up six retractions; Elinor Ben-Menachem, the chief editor of the journal, Acta Neurologica Scandinavica, confirmed her journal is planning to retract one paper co-authored … Continue reading Neuroscientist in Serbia set to notch 7th retraction amid investigation
The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a hoax article from a philosophy journal and an image in a paper that looked familiar because it was from a catalog. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A paper on the characteristics of a photodiode has been retracted corrected because one of the authors “does not want this article for her academic career.” We don’t often see this kind of reasoning in retraction notices, since adding to one’s publication record is generally a good thing. But occasionally papers do get pulled when researchers are … Continue reading Author didn’t want photodiode paper “for her academic career”
Authors have retracted a 2002 paper from PNAS because part of a figure “may have been fabricated,” and they no longer have the original data to prove otherwise. The paper in question, “Deficient Smad7 expression: A putative molecular defect in scleroderma,” studied the signaling pathways that may underlie the autoimmune disease. It has been cited 198 times, according … Continue reading Authors pull 14-year-old paper from PNAS over concerns of fabrication
We all know replicability is a problem – consistently, many papers in various fields fail to replicate when put to the test. But instead of testing findings after they’ve gone through the rigorous and laborious process of publication, why not verify them beforehand, so that only replicable findings make their way into the literature? That … Continue reading What if we tried to replicate papers before they’re published?
Lost your data? Blame nature. Microchimica Acta has retracted a paper about water-soluble quantum dots after the authors couldn’t provide back-up for a figure that contained signs of manipulation. The reason, the editor told us: The corresponding author said the raw data were lost in a flood in Sri Lanka. The journal asked the authors for … Continue reading Concerns about image manipulation? Sorry, the data were lost in a flood