Search Results for: physics

Weekend reads: Scientist suspended for 13 years; a fraud buster; editor home bias?

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to more than 300. There are more than 39,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions … Continue reading Weekend reads: Scientist suspended for 13 years; a fraud buster; editor home bias?

Exclusive: Australia space scientist made up data, probe finds

A space scientist formerly based at the University of Sydney made up data in an unpublished manuscript, an investigation by the institution has found.  The researcher, Joachim Schmidt, “utilised Adobe Photoshop to make up results,” according to a letter dated Feb. 15, 2023, from Emma Johnston, deputy vice-chancellor of research at the University of Sydney, … Continue reading Exclusive: Australia space scientist made up data, probe finds

Weekend reads: ‘Is economics self-correcting?’; ’20 years of ‘terror’ in the laboratory’; a look at self-citations

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to more than 300. There are more than 39,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions … Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘Is economics self-correcting?’; ’20 years of ‘terror’ in the laboratory’; a look at self-citations

How fishy email addresses tipped off a sleuth to a paper mill

Anna Abalkina noticed something odd about a psychology paper on the “modern problems of youth extremism”: The corresponding author was affiliated with a university in Russia, but his email address had a domain name from India.  The unusual domain name was part of a pattern Abalkina, of the Freie Universität Berlin, noticed in hundreds of … Continue reading How fishy email addresses tipped off a sleuth to a paper mill

Mathematician withdraws preprint – 24 years after initial submission

Twenty-four years after submitting a manuscript on quantum algebra to the preprint server arXiv, a mathematician has now withdrawn it.  Boris Shoikhet, then of the Independent University of Moscow, posted “Lifting formulas, Moyal product, and Feigin spectral sequence,” to arXiv on Oct. 28, 1998, proposing new conjectures in the field of quantum algebra.  Last month, … Continue reading Mathematician withdraws preprint – 24 years after initial submission

Another ‘Majorana’ particle paper retracted, this time from Science

Nearly a year after marking a paper on the elusive “Majorana” particle with an expression of concern, and almost three years after publishing a critique of its reproducibility, Science has retracted the article due to “serious irregularities and discrepancies” in the data.  A few papers about Majorana particles, which would be useful in quantum computing … Continue reading Another ‘Majorana’ particle paper retracted, this time from Science

Exclusive: Elsevier retracting 500 papers for shoddy peer review

Elsevier is retracting 500 papers from a journal dedicated to conference proceedings because “the peer-review process was confirmed to fall beneath the high standards expected,” Retraction Watch has learned. As we reported a month ago, “data thug” James Heathers “found at least 1,500 off-topic papers, many with abstracts containing ‘tortured phrases’ that may have been … Continue reading Exclusive: Elsevier retracting 500 papers for shoddy peer review

Meet a sleuth whose work has resulted in more than 850 retractions

Nick Wise had always been “slightly interested” in research integrity and fraud, just from working in science.  Then, last July, from following image sleuth Elisabeth Bik on Twitter, he learned about the work of Guillaume Cabanac, Cyril Labbé, and Alexander Magazinov identifying “tortured phrases” in published papers.  Such phrases – such as “bosom peril,” meaning … Continue reading Meet a sleuth whose work has resulted in more than 850 retractions

Weekend reads: A bizarre turn in a plagiarism case; lessons of the ‘replication crisis’; special issues redux

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: In 1987, the NIH found a paper contained fake data. It was just retracted. ‘A big pain’: Professor up to six retractions for plagiarism and manipulated peer review ‘A display of extreme academic integrity’: A … Continue reading Weekend reads: A bizarre turn in a plagiarism case; lessons of the ‘replication crisis’; special issues redux

In 1987, the NIH found a paper contained fake data. It was just retracted.

Ronald Reagan was president and James Wyngaarden was director of the National Institutes of Health when a division of the agency found 10 papers describing trials of psychiatric drugs it had funded had fake data or other serious issues.  Thirty-five years later, one of those articles has finally been retracted.  A 1987 report by the … Continue reading In 1987, the NIH found a paper contained fake data. It was just retracted.