The Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) has asked a journal to retract two papers after revealing a former employee manipulated data. The report does not name the individual nor the journal, but notes that they work in a molecular field, and are currently employed by a university outside The Netherlands. According to a news release about … Continue reading Leiden requests two retractions over misconduct
The Open Science Framework (OSF) has pulled a dataset from 70,000 users of the online dating site OkCupid over copyright concerns, according to the study author. The release of the dataset generated concerns, by making personal information — including personality traits — publicly available. Emil Kirkegaard, a master’s student at Aarhus University in Denmark, told us that … Continue reading Publicly available data on thousands of OKCupid users pulled over copyright claim
The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a hoax article from a philosophy journal and an image in a paper that looked familiar because it was from a catalog. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A cancer researcher who recently retired from MD Anderson Cancer Center — and also recently lost seven papers from one journal following a multi-year investigation — is one of the world’s top scientists, according to a new ranking. In Thomson Reuters Web of Science’s 2015 list of The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds, Bharat Aggarwal’s name tops the section … Continue reading Author with seven retractions makes Thomson Reuters list of top scientists — plus another twist
A Swedish ethical review board has censured two biologists and their employer, Uppsala University, for events related to “extensive image manipulations” in five papers published between 2010 and 2014. The case has led to criticism from an outside expert — who brought the allegations to Uppsala — over the current system in Sweden for handling … Continue reading Four retractions follow Swedish government findings of negligence, dishonesty
This morning, our thoughts are with the people of Paris. The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a paper claiming dramatically higher rates of sexual trauma among men in the military, and a look at whether gender plays a role in peer review. Also: We’re hiring. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
This week’s Weekend Reads, which appears below, was preempted yesterday by the news that the Office of Research Integrity had issued a finding of misconduct in the long-running case of Anil Potti. The week also featured news about a child psychiatry trial halted for unexplained reasons, and saw the launch of our new weekly column … Continue reading Weekend reads: Elsevier mutiny; babies as co-authors; what to do after rejection
The head of a department at WHU — Otto Beisheim School of Management has been charged with “severe scientific misconduct” for not spotting many of the data irregularities of his co-author Ulrich Lichtenthaler, which have ultimately led to 16 retractions. According to a news release describing a WHU investigation (which we had translated using One Hour Translation), … Continue reading German dep’t head reprimanded for not catching mistakes of co-author Lichtenthaler
Clinical studies that eventually get retracted are originally published with significantly more errors than non-retracted trials from the same journal, according to a new study in BMJ. The authors actually called the errors “discrepancies” — for example, mathematical mistakes such as incorrect percentages of patients in a subgroup, contradictory results, or statistical errors. The study doesn’t predict … Continue reading Can you spot the signs of retraction? Just count the errors, says a new study
Last month, the community was shaken when a major study on gay marriage in Science was retracted following questions on its funding, data, and methodology. The senior author, Donald Green, made it clear he was not privy to many details of the paper — which raised some questions for C. K. Gunsalus, director of the National … Continue reading “If you think it’s rude to ask to look at your co-authors’ data, you’re not doing science”: Guest post