A doctoral student at the University of Houston in Texas will not receive his PhD, following an institutional investigation into his work. Mousa Abkhezr, the researcher in question, is no longer enrolled at the University of Houston, his former supervisor told us. In June, the probe into papers co-authored by Abkhezr resulted in the retraction … Continue reading Researcher denied PhD after “recklessly” committing misconduct
A cancer researcher who sued PubPeer commenters for criticizing his work has lost six more papers, bringing his total to 13 retractions. Four of the new retraction notices issued by the journal Cancer cite an investigation at Wayne State University in Michigan into the work of Fazlul Sarkar and some of his colleagues. All the new notices, including the other two … Continue reading A researcher sued critics of his work. Now he has 13 retractions.
A biotechnology journal has retracted a 14-year-old review after an investigation concluded that the authors had plagiarized from numerous sources. The last author of the paper — which has been cited 289 times, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science — told us the authors took a few lines from other reviews, and unintentionally left off the … Continue reading Biotech journal pulls well-cited review that plagiarized from several sources
A journal is retracting a paper that sought to validate genotyping techniques after learning the authors skipped a key step. The authors scanned blood samples from 500 people who visited “the Blood Bank of our institution,” as they note in the abstract, to validate the use of genotyping techniques in the Saudi population. But the authors … Continue reading Saudi institution didn’t clear genotyping study
A researcher is calling for the retraction of a paper about a recent ban in the use of organs from executed prisoners in China, accusing the authors of misrepresenting the state of the practice. In April 2015, a paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics welcomed the ban by the Chinese government as “a step in the right … Continue reading Is China using organs from executed prisoners? Researchers debate issue in the literature
After two decades of submitting papers to journals, and more than 10 years of serving on an editorial board or editing journals, geography researcher Kevin Ward knows a thing or two about peer review. Recently, as the editor of Urban Geography, he received a particularly “grumpy” and “obnoxious” review in his inbox, which got him thinking. Although, he says, … Continue reading From annoying to bitter, here are the six types of peer reviewers
The week at Retraction Watch featured a first in transparency from Canada, and the second retraction for a fan of a conspiracy theory. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A biomaterials researcher has lost four more papers for figure-related issues such as duplications, bringing his total to seven retractions. We previously reported on three retractions — two by the Journal of Controlled Release (JCR) — of papers co-authored by Hossein Hosseinkhani, who is currently based at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology … Continue reading Four more retractions for biomaterials researcher brings total to 7
A vociferous advocate for correcting the literature — who has been banned by two publishers for his persistent communications — has asked journals to retract one paper and correct three others for duplications. After a reader flagged his 2004 paper on PubPeer last month, author Jaime Teixeira da Silva “immediately” contacted the journal to alert it that … Continue reading “Great shock and sadness:” Publishing gadfly to retract paper for duplication
A diabetes researcher who sued to stop a publisher from retracting his papers has just received his seventh retraction. The latest retraction for Mario Saad, who is based at the University of Campinas (Unicamp) in São Paulo, Brazil, is for a PLOS ONE paper (which was altered last year by a mega-correction). Although an institutional … Continue reading Researcher who sued to stop retractions earns his 7th