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A paper on the characteristics of a photodiode has been retracted corrected because one of the authors “does not want this article for her academic career.”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
Thrombosis Research has removed an abstract after all seven authors authors listed did not know that it had been submitted for publication. We’ve seen many instances of some authors not being in on a submission, but a case in which all of the authors are in the dark? That’s new to us. A spokesperson for Elsevier, the journal’s … Continue reading How does an abstract get published without any of the authors knowing?
A paper about using solar energy to make water potable has been flagged for citing God. The shout-out isn’t subtle; in fact, it’s the first sentence of the Introduction in “Solar still with condenser – A detailed review:” Water is a gift from God and it plays a key role in the development of an … Continue reading Paper calls water “a gift from God”
The editor of Desalination has retracted a paper that plagiarized from another article published in the same journal six years earlier. The papers describe desalination systems, of course. This retraction happened on a relatively quick timeline: The paper, “An integrated optimization model and application of MEE-TVC desalination system,” was published online in June, and pulled in January. Here’s … Continue reading Desalination journal let a plagiarized paper — from the same journal — through its filter
A paper on a hybrid algorithm turned out to be a hybrid itself — some original data, plus some from a paper that the authors had published earlier. According to the retraction note, the overlap was significant enough to pull it from the scientific record. The retracted paper describes an algorithm that is the combination of a “genetic … Continue reading Algorithm paper retracted for “significant overlap” with another
The list of co-authors on a paper about a “bioelectronic composite” was apparently too sparse. According to its retraction note — posted at the request of the editor-in-chief and the corresponding author — the paper failed to include some of the collaborators. The Biosensors & Bioelectronics paper looks at a protein complex that could function as part of … Continue reading Journal retracts bioelectronics paper for lack of credit to collaborators