UConn resveratrol researcher Dipak Das fingered in sweeping misconduct case

The University of Connecticut, in what clearly seems like an attempt to get ahead of damaging news, has announced an “extensive” investigation into research misconduct involving one of its scientists, Dipak K. Das. According to a press release, the university has notified 11 journals that published Das’ work about the alleged fraud. One area of … Continue reading UConn resveratrol researcher Dipak Das fingered in sweeping misconduct case

JCO retracts article from major French cancer group over apparent plagiarism

The Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) has retracted a November 2011 editorial by a group of French cancer researchers, including David Khayat, the former head of that country’s National Cancer Institute, over what appears to be fairly extensive plagiarism. Here’s the notice for the article, “Lymphocyte Infiltration in Breast Cancer: A Key Prognostic Factor That Should … Continue reading JCO retracts article from major French cancer group over apparent plagiarism

A tsunami of plagiarism in Serbia, but hardly any retractions

Today, we have the pleasure of presenting a guest post from Mico Tatalovic, who wrote in October aboutretractions in journals in his home country, Croatia. Here, he describes what appears to be an alarming rate of plagiarism in Serbian journals. A report for the Serbian science ministry by the Centre for Evaluation in Education and Science … Continue reading A tsunami of plagiarism in Serbia, but hardly any retractions

Another Hattori retraction over reused figure from cardiology pub

Another paper in Diabetologia by Yoshiyuki Hattori has been retracted for image duplication, marking the second of his articles in the journal to be pulled for that reason. The notice for the article, “A glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analogue, liraglutide, upregulates nitric oxide production and exerts anti-inflammatory action in endothelial cells,” states:

Hormesis? Information scant in unhelpful retraction notice (Psst: It was plagiarism)

The latest issue of Dose-Response, the official journal of the International Dose-Response Society, has one of the uninformative retraction notices we’ve come to hate for their inscrutability:

Expression of Concern for a Bulfone-Paus paper

Retraction Watch readers may recall the story of Silvia Bulfone-Paus, who has been forced to retract 12 papers and has another under review at Blood. All of that scrutiny came after an investigation by her home institution, Germany’s Borstel Institute, that found evidence of image manipulation. The latest development is perhaps no surprise. It concerns a … Continue reading Expression of Concern for a Bulfone-Paus paper

Why did Science partially retract the XMRV-chronic fatigue syndrome paper?

If past experience is any indication, billions of pixels will be spilled in the coming days as scientists and advocates debate the latest twist in the story of XMRV, or xenotropic murine leukemia-related virus, and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Today’s news is that Science is partially retracting a 2009 paper by Judy Mikovits and colleagues, including … Continue reading Why did Science partially retract the XMRV-chronic fatigue syndrome paper?

Publisher error handling two eye papers leads to retractions, new policy on notices

We can only imagine how Joe Hollyfield felt to learn from us, of all people, that his journal, Experimental Eye Research, had retracted two manuscripts in a recent issue. The papers, “Mechanisms of retinal ganglion cell injury and defense in glaucoma,” by Qu J, Wang D, and Grosskreutz CL, and “Mitochondria: Their role in ganglion cell … Continue reading Publisher error handling two eye papers leads to retractions, new policy on notices

Plant Science retracts paper for reused data, forged authorship

Moez Smiri, a graduate student in a Tunisian-French laboratory collaboration, clearly needed publications on his CV. But we wouldn’t recommend his solution to the problem. Smiri used cut-and-paste data (his own, to be fair) to write a flurry of manuscripts that he sent around to a variety of journals, most of them deeply obscure. And, … Continue reading Plant Science retracts paper for reused data, forged authorship

Angiogenesis retracts two papers, cites image manipulation in eight, as PI blames unethical students

The journal Angiogenesis is retracting two articles by a group of researchers in India whom it accuses of using manipulated images in six other publications as well. According to the retraction notice for one of the papers, “Gold nanoparticles inhibit vascular endothelial growth factor-induced angiogenesis and vascular permeability via Src dependent pathway in retinal endothelial … Continue reading Angiogenesis retracts two papers, cites image manipulation in eight, as PI blames unethical students