Several years ago, a UK academic living in Thailand for decades decided to expose the fact that a Thai official had plagiarized his PhD thesis. And he’s paid the price. Last year, Wyn Ellis was held in a Thai airport for five days, as officials claimed he was a “danger to Thai society.” As some new … Continue reading Broken windows, threats, and detention: Is whistleblowing worth it?
After a prominent researcher was dismissed due to multiple instances of misconduct in his studies, how are journals responding? When an investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found multiple issues with the work of psychiatry researcher Alexander Neumeister, New York University (NYU) Langone Medical Center shut down eight of his studies. (Disclosure: The author … Continue reading A prominent psychiatry researcher is dismissed. What’s happening to his papers?
The week at Retraction Watch featured a puzzle, and the retraction of a controversial study on fracking. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A paper accidentally credited the wrong researcher with providing part of an experiment. It turns out that one of the authors supplied an expression vector to a Circulation paper about the molecular underpinnings of atherosclerosis — not the outside researcher originally thanked in the acknowledgements section. The correction notice to the paper makes the situation sound more mysterious … Continue reading Vector wasn’t a gift after all, correction notes
A plant sciences journal has pulled a 2016 paper for manipulated images after the study came under question at PubPeer. According to the notice, the authors claim that the images were supplied by a “service provider;” the editor-in-chief of the journal told us he doesn’t have any details on this third party’s identity. The first … Continue reading Botanist pair’s paper retracted, others questioned on PubPeer
A journal has retracted a paper by a leading diabetes researcher — who has also issued three corrections — after questions about her research were raised on PubPeer. Kathrin Maedler — who works at the University of Bremen in Germany — corrected another paper in 2014. All of the notices are dated from 2015, and all describe issues with … Continue reading Diabetes researcher logged 1 retraction, 3 correx, after PubPeer comments
Researchers are retracting two papers about molecular signalling in plants — including one from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) — after discovering some inadvertent genotyping errors. But that was only after they used the problematic plants for an entire year without realizing they’d made a mistake. In a pair of refreshingly transparent … Continue reading Genotyping mistake costs lab two papers and year of work
A physiology journal has retracted a paper after an institutional investigation found that portions of the work had been falsified by the first author. According to the notice issued by the American Journal of Physiology – Renal Physiology (AJP), the last author initiated the investigation at the University of Houston in Texas, which found the … Continue reading Researcher committed misconduct “recklessly,” says investigation
The week at Retraction Watch featured news that a religion journal wouldn’t be retracting a paper despite evidence of forgery in the evidence it relied on, and also news that we’re hiring. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
One journal has retracted a paper containing images that recently raised suspicions of obvious duplications, and another journal is planning to do the same. Scientists first leveled accusations against the newly retracted paper in Scientific Reports, along with two others by the same researchers, earlier this month on Twitter. One other journal — PeerJ — has announced … Continue reading Two journals retracting papers from University of Malaya featuring widely criticized figures