In baseball, it’s three strikes and you’re out. In Nature, apparently, you can stay at the plate after three swings-and-misses.
That’s what we concluded from a Corrigendum in last week’s issue, for “CD95 promotes tumour growth,” originally published in May 2010 and now corrected not once, not twice, but three times.
Here was the first Corrigendum, from March 2011: Continue reading The Nature paper that required three corrections
We’re not generally — or ever — in the habit of running job ads here on Retraction Watch. But the purpose of this post is to highlight a new position available at the American Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (ASBMB) that we think is a great opportunity and a step forward for the society.
As regular Retraction Watch readers know, we frequently beat up on one of the ASBMB’s journals, the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC), for publishing retraction notices that say simply “This article has been withdrawn by the authors.” We’re not the only ones; Ferric Fang and colleagues name-checked the journal’s policy when they wrote about factors that Continue reading JBC publisher ASBMB hiring manager of publication ethics — and why Retraction Watch is cheering
Ulrich Lichtenthaler, the management professor at the University of Mannheim who has already retracted six papers for statistical irregularities, has another retraction for his CV.
Here’s the notice, from Organization Science: Continue reading Retraction seven arrives for Ulrich Lichtenthaler
Forgive us if we’re a tad skeptical here, but we’re not convinced about the, um, sincerity of the following retraction notice.
The International Journal of Biological Macromolecules has retracted a paper it published earlier this year by a group of Canadian researchers who had already published the same paper in a different journal.
The article, “Spectroscopic investigation of collagen scaffolds impregnated with AgNPs coated by PEG/TX-100 mixed systems,” came from researchers at the University of Saskatchewan and appeared in the April issue of the IJBM.
But according to the notice: Continue reading “Administrative error” leads to duplication retraction
Canada’s University of Waterloo is racking up the retractions, with one in July for plagiarism, another earlier this month for faked data from a graduate student who had her master’s degree revoked, and now a third for duplication.
Here’s the notice, for “The influence of friends, family, and older peers on smoking among elementary school students: Low-risk students in high-risk schools,” which appeared in Preventive Medicine in March 2006: Continue reading Another retraction from University of Waterloo, this time for duplication
A group of Chinese authors studying the Shang Ring, “a device that allows professionals to perform hundreds rather than tens of” circumcisions in a day, as had to retract the paper after editors apparently figured out they had changed some dates in the paper so it wouldn’t look as though they were trying to publish it twice. Or maybe they just changed the dates for some other reason, while publishing it twice anyway — it’s not clear.
Here’s the Journal of Urology notice for “A Randomized Clinical Study of Circumcision with a Ring Device Versus Conventional Circumcision,” by Cheng Yuea and colleagues from the Medical College of Ningbo University, the Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, and Taizhou First People’s Hospital: Continue reading Paper cuts? Duplication, data manipulation force retraction of study of circumcision by ring device
The Journal of Vinyl and Additive Technology (JVAT) — the official journal of the Society of Plastics Engineers — is retracting a 2012 paper from a group of Chinese researchers who evidently realized at some point that they didn’t know quite what they were doing.
As the notice explains: Continue reading Retraction is final destination for epoxy paper marred by “pervasive misattribution of data”
A chemistry journal has retracted a 2006 paper that had knowledgeable researchers scratching their heads from the minute it was published.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Chemistry journal and author retract paper dogged by questions since its publication in 2006
The retraction count continues to grow for a group of Iranian scientists who appear to have published similar work four times.
The group was forced to retract a Journal of Gastrointestinal and Liver Diseases paper in March. That retraction came alongside one in the New Zealand Journal of Medical Laboratory Science, whose editor had tipped JGLD editor Monica Acalovschi — who has taken a tough stance on duplication in her own journal, published in Romania — off to the duplication. Acalovschi, in turn, tipped off Biochemia Medica, the journal of Croatian Society of Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine, which has now retracted a 2009 paper by the group.
The Biochemia Medica retraction, published in its June 2012 issue, says: Continue reading Group’s duplication retractions span the globe, from New Zealand to Romania to Croatia
In June of last year, the Archives of Internal Medicine yanked a paper just 12 minutes before it was scheduled to publish, to
…allow time for review and statistical analysis of additional data not included in the original paper that the authors provided less than 24 hours before posting…
A year later, the lead author told us the paper was still under review. Now, as Larry Husten of CardioBrief reports today, it has finally been published — but in a different journal altogether: Continue reading Transcendental meditation paper pulled minutes before publication appears in a new journal