Search Results for: press release

Japanese university recommends five retractions after investigating botany researcher

Kyoto University is recommending retraction for five papers by a former botany researcher there after an institutional inquiry turned up evidence of fraud.  The investigation of Lianwei Peng, who left the school in May 2011, found 11 images had been manipulated in the papers, according to a press release. The corresponding author on all five … Continue reading Japanese university recommends five retractions after investigating botany researcher

The Lancet more than doubles its impact factor, eclipsing NEJM for the first time ever

The Lancet has overtaken the New England Journal of Medicine as the medical journal with the highest impact factor, according to Clarivate’s 2022 update to its Journal Citation Reports. And the jump wasn’t subtle: The Lancet’s impact factor – a controversial measure of how often a journal’s papers are cited on average – more than … Continue reading The Lancet more than doubles its impact factor, eclipsing NEJM for the first time ever

NASA researchers retract Nature paper on climate change and evapotranspiration

The authors of a 2021 Nature paper on how climate change might affect the amount of evaporation from the earth’s land surface have retracted the article after learning of a crucial error in their analysis.  The crux of the paper, titled “A 10 per cent increase in global land evapotranspiration from 2003 to 2019,”  was … Continue reading NASA researchers retract Nature paper on climate change and evapotranspiration

Will the real hottest month on record please stand up?

As anyone who follows the climate news is aware, July 2021 was the hottest month on record for our torrid little orb, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with a combined temperature 1.67 degrees F higher than the 20th century average of 60.4 F. NOAA noted in a Friday press release that … Continue reading Will the real hottest month on record please stand up?

Two meditation papers retracted for failures to report primary outcomes

A pair of psychology journals have retracted two related papers on the health benefits of a popular form of meditation after a reader pointed out that the authors failed to report the primary outcome of the study underpinning the articles. The now-retracted articles describe the putatively salubrious effects of sahaj samadhi meditation, a form of … Continue reading Two meditation papers retracted for failures to report primary outcomes

Paper linking frequency of Google search terms to violence against women retracted

The findings were, to say the least, shocking: A researcher in New Zealand claimed that Google searches about violence against women soared during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic — raising the prospect that quarantines were leading to a surge in intimate partner violence and similar crimes.  Shocking, yes, but now retracted because the … Continue reading Paper linking frequency of Google search terms to violence against women retracted

Researcher loses medical degree for using paper mill to write his dissertation

A university in China has revoked the medical degree of a researcher found guilty of having produced his dissertation with the help of a prodigious paper mill.  As Elisabeth Bik noted last year in a post on PubPeer, the thesis by Bin Chen, a lung specialist at Soochow University, was one of 121 articles produced … Continue reading Researcher loses medical degree for using paper mill to write his dissertation

‘Preprints are works in progress’: The tale of a disappearing COVID-19 paper

When a Twitter user tipped us off last week to the mysterious disappearance of a preprint of a paper on a potential new therapy to treat Covid-19, we were curious. Was it a hidden retraction, or something else?  The article, titled “Effectiveness of ZYESAMI™ (Aviptadil) in Accelerating Recovery and Shortening Hospitalization in Critically-Ill Patients with … Continue reading ‘Preprints are works in progress’: The tale of a disappearing COVID-19 paper

Clinical trial paper that made anemia drug look safer than it is will be retracted

A study that a pharmaceutical company admitted last month included manipulated data will be retracted, Retraction Watch has learned. The paper, “Pooled Analysis of Roxadustat for Anemia in Patients With Kidney Failure Incident to Dialysis,” was published in Kidney International Reports in December 2020. The study analyzed data from a clinical trial for roxadustat, a … Continue reading Clinical trial paper that made anemia drug look safer than it is will be retracted

Paper partly funded by controversial stem cell company retracted

The timestamps always get you in the end.  A widely touted 2017 paper linked to a controversial company promoting regenerative medicine has been retracted after the journal came to doubt the validity of the data thanks to some strange anachronisms and a digital breadcrumb.  “Intra-articular injection in the knee of adipose derived stromal cells (stromal … Continue reading Paper partly funded by controversial stem cell company retracted