The week at Retraction Watch featured more installments in the seemingly never-ending story of fake peer reviews. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
If you could help reduce the waste of tens of billions of dollars per year in research spending, you’d do it, right? This is the second in a series of two guest posts about the havoc misidentified cell lines can wreak on research, from Leonard P. Freedman, president of the Global Biological Standards Institute. Freedman who … Continue reading We’re wasting a lot of research funding using the wrong cell lines. Here’s one thing we can do.
A paper on the quality of computed tomography (CT) images of the human body didn’t stand up to a close examination. It’s been retracted after an investigation found that it plagiarized work from two publications and a poster by another researcher. The text in the Journal of the Korean Physical Society paper was taken from work by Kenneth Weiss, a … Continue reading Investigation into CT scan paper reveals plagiarism
We’re presenting a Q&A session with Peter Wilmshurst, now a part-time consultant cardiologist who has spent decades embroiled in misconduct investigations as a whistleblower. Retraction Watch: A UK judge recently upheld two findings of dishonesty by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service against Andrew Dowson, director of headache services at King’s College Hospital and your former … Continue reading My life as a whistleblower: Q&A with Peter Wilmshurst
Two journals published by Elsevier are retracting a pair of material science papers that appear to share figures. The papers — in Materials Letters and Optics Communications — discuss photonic crystals, a kind of material used to manipulate light. They share the same first author, Zheng-qi Liu at Jiangxi Normal University and Nanjing University in China, as well as … Continue reading Duplication shatters two photonic crystal papers
An investigation at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia has found that a paper on air pollution and human health contains a host of issues with the data and its analysis. The paper has been retracted with a very detailed note from Environmental Research. The issues with the paper include an “incorrect analysis of the data,” and its failure to … Continue reading Investigation finds data issues polluted air quality paper
The week at Retraction Watch featured a particularly misleading retraction notice, and a university stripping a graduate of her PhD for misconduct. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
We’ve stumbled upon a trio of retractions published in August, 2013 from BMJ Case Reports for “redundant publication” to a group of researchers based in India. Editors found that the reports, which were published between 2012 and 2013, had considerable “overlaps” with articles that had been published in other journals. Although one of the retracted authors was also an … Continue reading BMJ Case Reports pulled three dental papers for plagiarism
PLOS Biology has retracted a paper about the molecular details of β-catenin expression following an investigation by the first author’s institution in Italy. The investigation, by the Istituto Nazionale per la Ricerca sul Cancro, found that there were multiple “figure anomalies.” According to the note: An explanation of inadvertent error was given for some of the issues … Continue reading Mol bio paper pulled by PLOS following investigation into figures
Chronic fatigue syndrome researcher Judy Mikovits was scheduled to head is heading to court today, where a California judge will would decide whether or not to dismiss her lawsuit against fourteen people and two Nevada corporations. (Note: This story has been updated. See below.) Among the defendants: the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Reno, Nevada where Mikovits used to work; the institute’s cofounders, … Continue reading Chronic fatigue syndrome-XMRV researcher scheduled to head to court today, alleging conspiracy