Search Results for: doing the right thing

Weekend reads: A White House official’s retraction; ‘bosom peril;’ nonsense with a forged authorship

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Exclusive: How a researcher faked data and gaslit a labmate for years COVID-19 spike protein paper earns an expression of concern Frontiers retracts a dozen papers, many more expected Authors to correct PNAS ‘nudge’ … Continue reading Weekend reads: A White House official’s retraction; ‘bosom peril;’ nonsense with a forged authorship

Weekend reads: It’s not all publish or perish?; plagiarism hunters; controls on ‘gain of function’ research weaken

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: Readers puzzle over marketing journal’s failures to retract Doing the … Continue reading Weekend reads: It’s not all publish or perish?; plagiarism hunters; controls on ‘gain of function’ research weaken

Second time’s the charm: The author who requested a retraction twice

As Jason Isbell sings, doing the right thing is the hardest thing to do. But sometimes it’s even harder than it needs to be. Ask Cory Xian.  When Xian, a bone researcher at the University of South Australia, in Adelaide, and his colleagues found an error in their 2018 paper in the Journal of Bone … Continue reading Second time’s the charm: The author who requested a retraction twice

‘In hindsight the mistake was quite stupid’: Authors retract paper on stroke

File this under “doing the right thing:” A group of stroke researchers in Germany have retracted a paper they published earlier this year after finding an error in their work shortly after publication that doomed the findings.  Julian Klingbeil, of the Department of Neurology at the University of Leipzig Medical Center, and his colleagues had … Continue reading ‘In hindsight the mistake was quite stupid’: Authors retract paper on stroke

A tale of three journals: Paper retracted when associate editor submits to the wrong title

What a difference a D makes.  Ask Kevin Pile. Pile edits the International Journal of Rheumatic Diseases (let’s call it the IJRD), a Wiley publication. Last year, he published a guest editorial by Vaidehi Chowdhary, a rheumatologist at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., on a form of kidney disease.  But it turns out that … Continue reading A tale of three journals: Paper retracted when associate editor submits to the wrong title

“The most horrific time of my career.” What do you do when you realize years of your published work is built on an error?

In September 2019 Nicola Smith, a molecular pharmacologist in Australia, faced a brutal decision. She’d realized that she’d made a mistake — or rather, failed to catch a mistake in her group’s research before the crippling error was published — in two academic articles which were the culmination of years of work. And she could … Continue reading “The most horrific time of my career.” What do you do when you realize years of your published work is built on an error?

Psychologist’s paper retracted after Dutch national body affirms misconduct findings

A cognitive psychologist in Germany has lost one of two papers slated for retraction after her former institution found her guilty of misconduct.  In a 2019 report, Leiden University found that Lorenza Colzato, now of TU Dresden, had failed to obtain ethics ethics approval for some of her studies, manipulated her data and fabricated results … Continue reading Psychologist’s paper retracted after Dutch national body affirms misconduct findings

Science retracts paper as authors blame pandemic for image issues

Science has retracted a paper it published in July by a group of authors in China over concerns about two images in the article — problems the researchers have attributed to chaos in their group due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper, “Proton transport enabled by a field-induced metallic state in a semiconductor heterostructure,” was … Continue reading Science retracts paper as authors blame pandemic for image issues

Ten takeaways from ten years at Retraction Watch

As we celebrate our tenth birthday and look forward to our second decade, we thought it would be a good time to take stock and reflect on some lessons we — and others — have learned. Retractions are more common than we — or anyone else — thought they were. Two decades ago, journals were … Continue reading Ten takeaways from ten years at Retraction Watch

A journal publishes a critical letter — then says it was a mistake

On Sept. 17, 2019, virologist David Sanders — who recently won a lawsuit brought against him for efforts as a scientific sleuth — wrote a letter to the Journal of Cellular Physiology about a 2004 paper whose images raised his eyebrows. The response a day later from an editorial assistant was a hint of what … Continue reading A journal publishes a critical letter — then says it was a mistake