Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: A whistleblower’s allegations about hundreds of dodgy papers from four … Continue reading Weekend reads: The fate of fraudsters; TV doctors sting a predatory journal; best paper title ever?
A preliminary study which found that using cold treatment worked to combat a Mediterranean species of fruit flies in blueberries has been retracted. The study, “Cold Responses of the Mediterranean Fruit Fly Ceratitis capitata Wiedemann (Diptera: Tephritidae) in Blueberry” was published in Insects, an MDPI journal on May 1, 2020. The retraction appears to be … Continue reading A study on fruit flies is retracted “owing to legal issues of confidentiality”
Is too much irony even a thing? Let’s test the principle. The guest editor of a special issue on failures in public health and related projects has quit the effort because she and her colleagues couldn’t convince the journal to include more researchers from developing countries in the initiative. In a blog post about the … Continue reading Failure fails as publisher privileges the privileged
We’ve been tracking retractions of papers about COVID-19 as part of our database. Here’s a running list, which will be updated as needed. (For some context on these figures, see this post, our letter in Accountability in Research and the last section of this Nature news article. Also see a note about the terminology regarding … Continue reading Retracted coronavirus (COVID-19) papers
Authors are calling “no traveling” on Liver Research for changing their affiliation without permission. Editors at the publication changed the affiliation of a group of researchers from several institutions in Taiwan– including the Taipei Veterans General Hospital and the National Yang-Ming University School of Medicine, also in Taipei — to mainland China. The notice for … Continue reading A journal has its version of an NBA moment
The journal Magnetochemistry has retracted a 2019 article by a controversial researcher in New Zealand who argued that scientists are suppressing evidence that microwave radiation from smartphones and other devices cause harm to people. The paper was titled “Conflicts of interest and misleading statements in official reports about the health consequences of radiofrequency radiation and … Continue reading ‘No scientific contribution’: Journal pulls paper alleging radiation coverup
A former emeritus professor who has been called “one of the most unapologetic and raw ‘scientific’ racists operating today” has had one of his papers subjected to an expression of concern. Richard Lynn, who was stripped of his emeritus status at Ulster University last year after students there protested his views, published “Reflections on Sixty-Eight … Continue reading Prof who lost emeritus status for views on race and intelligence has paper flagged
Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured revelations about a Harvard lab being investigated by federal officials; … Continue reading Weekend reads: Ousted at MD Anderson; an “under-recognized variety of plagiarism;” a data thug rolls again
A group of researchers at Harbin Medical University in China has had a third paper retracted, making for a tale of three notices. The first retraction appeared in April 2017 as one of more than 100 from Tumor Biology for fake peer review. The second, for “Functions as a Tumor Suppressor in Osteosarcoma by Targeting … Continue reading Group in China up to three retractions, ostensibly for three different reasons
Same tea, different mug. Biomolecules, an MDPI journal, has retracted a 2018 paper by on the salubrious effects of tea because the authors had previously published the same article in a Chinese-language journal. The paper, “Evaluation of anti-obesity activity, acute toxicity, and subacute toxicity of probiotic dark tea,” came from researchers in China and one … Continue reading When a paper duplicates one in another language, how can editors spot it?