The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a paper on the effects of fracking, authors who retracted a paper when they realized they’d been studying the wrong species, and a story about why a paper linked to an alleged doping scandal in Norway was retracted. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Researchers in Norway have retracted a second high-profile exercise paper — again after running afoul of an ethical approval committee. As part of the 2016 study, the researchers gave athletes asthma medication to measure its effect on signals from the nervous system to the lungs; although the drug appeared to have no detectable effect on … Continue reading Second paper tied to drug scandal in Norway ski team retracted
A pharmacy journal has retracted a 2017 cancer paper after determining that the lead author forged her co-author’s signature. Alain Li Wan Po, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics, told Retraction Watch that, after discovering the forgery, the journal lost confidence in “the integrity of the whole report,” and decided to retract … Continue reading Journal retracts paper after discovering lead author forged co-author’s signature
Title: Effects of cyclin E gene silencing on the proliferation of esophageal cancer cell lines, EC9706, Eca109 and KYSE30 What Caught Our Attention: When a reader noticed that six panels in one figure from a 2013 paper looked a little fishy, the authors decided to take a closer look. Following an internal investigation, the authors … Continue reading Caught Our Notice: When data went missing, lab tech filled in the gaps
Researchers from Nepal who had two papers retracted last year for plagiarism will face sanctions, according to a local media report. According to coverage last month from Republica, a news outlet in Nepal, the editor of Bali Medical Journal said he will blacklist the six authors. In a follow-up article, Dipak Shrestha, associate dean of … Continue reading Authors who lost two papers for plagiarism will be fired from university: report
Title: Tanshinone IIA Induces Apoptosis in Human Oral Cancer KB Cells through a Mitochondria-Dependent Pathway What Caught Our Attention: Thousands of papers have relied on contaminated or wrong cell lines, a problem journals have not been particularly proactive in addressing. So far, only a few studies have been retracted for using misidentified cell lines.
The week at Retraction Watch featured the world energy solution that wasn’t, a story about Elsevier and fake peer reviews, and a question from a readers about citing retracted papers. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Here’s a rather odd case: A postdoctoral researcher says his former boss changed his name on a paper without his permission. According to the postdoc, Antonio Herrera-Merchan, his principal investigator at University of Granada insisted on the name change to distance them both from a scandal in Herrera-Merchan’s previous lab. After publishing a paper in … Continue reading Lead author changes co-author’s name on a paper without his permission. Why?
A 2016 case study in Neurology exploring a “mystery case” has been retracted because four figures had already been published in a 2012 article. The two papers have three authors in common, but according to the retraction notice, none could explain the duplicate publication. The notice states that Pierre Labauge, the corresponding author on the … Continue reading Paper retracted when co-author forgets he had published a figure before
The week at Retraction Watch featured the year’s top 10 retractions, more than two dozen retractions at Elsevier for fake peer review, and the resignations of two editors in chief over a controversial paper. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: