From the, No Further Explanation Required files: The journal Animal Behaviour has retracted a 2009 article by an international group of researchers who, well, did just about everything one could do wrong with a paper. Here’s the notice, res ipsa loquitur:
Yesterday, we reported on a retraction in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology involving plagiarism and author issues. Well, it turns out we only had half the story. Thanks to a comment on Derek Lowe’s In the Pipeline blog, which picked up our item yesterday, we’ve learned of a remarkable pair of letters in the journal about … Continue reading Should journals apologize to victims of plagiarism? More on Journal of Clinical Microbiology case
Genes & Development (G&D) — a journal published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory that published only its second retraction in its 24-year history a few weeks ago, has published another. The study, “PRMT1-mediated arginine methylation of PIAS1 regulates STAT1 signaling,” was published in 2009 and has been cited 22 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web … Continue reading Another G&D paper retracted, this one for faked data
Elsevier, the publisher of Applied Mathematics Letters, which retracted a paper questioning the second law of thermodynamics earlier this year, will issue an apology and pay $10,000 in legal fees. According to John West at the Discovery Institute’s blog, which broke the story:
A controversial study of how relationships between climate change scientists may affect the field, and that has been dogged by charges of plagiarism, will be retracted, USA Today reports. The abstract of the 2008 paper in Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, by Edward Wegman and colleagues, concluded: We conjecture that certain styles of co-authorship lead … Continue reading Controversial paper critiquing climate change science set to be retracted because of plagiarism
Last month, we brought you news of two retractions in math journals for duplicate publication and apparent guest authorship. Last week, we learned that the lead author of one of those papers, Amir Mahmood, has retracted another paper, this one in Nonlinear Analysis: Real World Applications. According to the retraction notice, the paper was an … Continue reading Another math paper retracted because of duplication
Misconduct happens. So what can journal editors do find and prevent it? While we don’t claim to be experts in working on the other side of the fence — eg as editors — Ivan was flattered to be asked by session organizers at the Council of Science Editors to appear on a panel on the … Continue reading How journal editors can detect and deter scientific misconduct
A team of Australian medical writers who analyzed four decades worth of retractions has reached the conclusion — we trust you’re sitting — that people in their profession are more honest than, well, the rest of us. According to the authors, articles in the medical literature are substantially less likely than other papers to be … Continue reading Want to avoid a retraction? Hire a medical writer, say medical writers
Graham Ellis-Davies says January 25th was one of the worst days of his life. That was when the journal ChemBioChem retracted an article, published barely two weeks earlier, for a mistake Ellis-Davies blames squarely on himself. The fallout has been nearly two months of painful self-recrimination, a tattered friendship and, perhaps most significant, he adds, … Continue reading Aftermath: Gut-wrenching misstep leads to retraction, frayed feelings and a paperless postdoc
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who was stripped of his PhD last week after being found guilty of plagiarizing his law thesis, has resigned his post as Germany’s defense minister. According to Reuters: “I was always ready to fight but I’ve reached the limit of my powers,” Guttenberg, 39, told journalists in a hastily arranged news briefing … Continue reading German defense minister Guttenberg resigns after losing his PhD for a plagiarized thesis