Nanotech researchers cleared of fraud but failed to supervise cheating grad student: University

An institutional investigation of a group of nanotechnology researchers in Japan has concluded that a former graduate student in the lab began his cheating ways “on a daily basis from a very early stage” after joining the team in 2015.

According to a Google translation of the report, Yuuta Yano – whom the document identifies as “former graduate student A” and with other oblique references, committed sweeping fabrication of data and other misdeeds: 

over a period of four years or more, the number of forged data is extremely large, and even concealment work is performed, so it is evaluated that the maliciousness of the act is high. … The impact is great. In addition, it was published in a wide range of academic journals and has a large social impact. 

Yano also was found to have thrown away lab notebooks in order to hide his culpability. 

Continue reading Nanotech researchers cleared of fraud but failed to supervise cheating grad student: University

Murder by Theory: Tales from the Ivory Tower’s Dark Side

Retraction Watch readers may recall Eve Armstrong’s April Fool’s preprints modeling a potential prom date and proving that it was, indeed, Colonel Mustard with a candlestick. We’re pleased — no fooling, and a few weeks early — to present an excerpt from Armstrong’s new work of fiction, Murder by Theory: Two Tales from the Ivory Tower’s Dark Side.

FACULTY MEETING MINUTES

Department of Physics

Arlington University

Date: 2023 September 5, Tuesday

Time: 11:00 am

Location: 329 Hieronymus B. Cottonfield Hall of Physical Sciences, 4th-floor conference room

Present:

  • Ezekiel Gold (Zeek): distinguished professor and department chair
  • Simone Amiri: tenured associate professor (19 minutes late)
  • Hakim Abargil: associate professor, soon to be tenured if he doesn’t torpedo his own review (17 minutes late)
  • Harvey Gadsby: distinguished professor but you’d never know based on appearance (25 minutes late)
  • Leon Scharf: postdoctoral fellow who’s not supposed to attend faculty meetings
  • Alice Jackson: new assistant professor (25 minutes late)
  • Louis Janvier: assistant professor.

Absent:

Agenda:

Determine whether instructors for Physics 109 should agree to normalize the choice of textbook across all sections taught, beginning in the spring semester.

Summary:

I, Louis Janvier (pronounced jan vyé with the stress placed on the second syllable), first-year assistant professor, will record the faculty meeting minutes in the Department of Physics this semester. I am happy to do it. In fact, I volunteered to do it, in order to receive the one credit of teaching release that accompanies the position. Further, my expansive vocabulary, nimble and dexterous fingers, and outstanding aptitude for creative writing instills in me a sense of responsibility to perform the role, as these skills render me more fit for it than any of my colleagues. To be clear, nobody forced me to take this on. Taking these  minutes was entirely  my choice, as I do not take orders and am not a trained monkey. My colleagues respect me. I have been making unique and creative contributions to this department for nearly one full year.

Continue reading Murder by Theory: Tales from the Ivory Tower’s Dark Side

Award-winning Berkeley postdoc faked data, says federal watchdog

Shuo Chen

A former University of California, Berkeley postdoc in physics “engaged in research misconduct in research reported in a grant application” submitted to the NIH, according to the U.S. Office of Research Integrity.

The postdoc, Shuo Chen, “reused an image of visual cortex neurons to represent fluorescence calcium imaging of hippocampal neurons,” the ORI said. Chen, who was awarded the 2019 Science & PINS Prize for Neuromodulation for this essay published in Science, also used data from a 2018 Nature Neuroscience paper he co-authored while at the RIKEN Institute in Japan “to represent several sessions of two-photon hippocampal calcium imaging of progressive place fields, obtained from multiple mice running on a treadmill in a head-fixed VR set up.”

Continue reading Award-winning Berkeley postdoc faked data, says federal watchdog

Psych journal in revolt as it publishes paper saying masturbation and gay sex are harmful

Several psychiatry researchers have been unsuccessfully seeking distance from a dodgy journal with which they’re affiliated – and which has now published an article claiming homosexuality and masturbation deserve to be considered (or reconsidered, as the case may be) mental illnesses. 

The 2021 paper, “Review of Removing Homosexuality and Masturbation from the List of Sexual Dysfunctions in DSM,” was written by Sayed Ali Marashi, of the Department of Psychology at Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, in Iran It appeared in Clinical Schizophrenia & Related Psychoses.

Oddly, the header text on the paper reads “Metallurgical Investigation of Tie Rod used for lifting Ferro-Alloy during Steel Making: A Safety Issues.”

According to the article: 

Continue reading Psych journal in revolt as it publishes paper saying masturbation and gay sex are harmful

Study of cryotherapy for COVID-19 anosmia fails the sniff test

via Cryotera

The authors of a study suggesting that a deep freeze might help reverse one of the curious complications of COVID-19 have put their paper on ice after determining that they lacked adequate ethics approval for the research.

“Whole-Body Cryotherapy as an Innovative Treatment for COVID 19-Induced Anosmia-Hyposmia: A Feasibility Study,” was written by a group in France led by Fabien D. Legrand, of the University of Reims. The article appeared online this January in the Journal of Integrative and Complementary Medicine.

The randomized study looked at the effect of cryotherapy in 45 people whose sense of smell had been disrupted by COVID. Two-thirds received either high- or low-dose cryotherapy – which Legrand’s team defined as exposure to “extremely low temperatures (−60°C to −110°C) in a double Cryoair chamber (MECOTEC, Pforzheim, Germany) for 3 min” – while a third were assigned to a control group. 

According to the investigators, whose affiliations included the French Society of Whole-Body Cryotherapy — and who nonetheless registered their protocol in the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials: 

Continue reading Study of cryotherapy for COVID-19 anosmia fails the sniff test

Weekend reads: Journals’ Russia bans; a chronic fatigue syndrome retraction; a Twitter retraction notice feature?

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 214. There are now more than 32,000 retractions in our database — which now powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Journals’ Russia bans; a chronic fatigue syndrome retraction; a Twitter retraction notice feature?

Authors request retraction of study in Nature journal and look into four more papers

Wenbin Lin

A group of researchers at the University of Chicago has asked a Nature journal to retract a paper after PubPeer commenters pointed out numerous duplicated images in the article.

The paper, “Synergistic checkpoint-blockade and radiotherapy–radiodynamic therapy via an immunomodulatory nanoscale metal–organic framework,” was published last month in Nature Biomedical Engineering. According to its senior author, Wenbin Lin, the technology is already in a human trial.

After five different comments on PubPeer, Lin at first said he and his colleagues would correct the paper:

Continue reading Authors request retraction of study in Nature journal and look into four more papers

Study on teen pot use goes up in smoke, then reappears

photo by Torbin Bjorn Hansen via Flickr

A JAMA journal has retracted and replaced a widely circulated 2021 paper which purported to find that pot use among adolescents drops when states make the drug legal. 

The article, “Association of Marijuana Legalization With Marijuana Use Among US High School Students, 1993-2019,” appeared in JAMA Network Open and received a bale of attention in mainstream and social media. As GreenEntrepreneur reported: 

A September 2021 study of high school use between 1993 and 2019 used the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) to determine that adult-use laws did not increase teen use. After two years, states with adult-use laws saw decreases in usage.

But as readers soon pointed out, the findings were schwag. According to the notice:

Continue reading Study on teen pot use goes up in smoke, then reappears

UNC-Chapel Hill vice chancellor resigns post after admitting to plagiarism

Terry Magnuson

Terry Magnuson, the vice chancellor for research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s medical school, has resigned from that post two days after the U.S. Office of Research Integrity said that he had admitted to plagiarizing text in an NIH grant application.

As we reported March 8, Magnuson

“engaged in research misconduct by intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly plagiarizing text” from two guides, material from a company that makes sequencing kits, and a review article, according to the U.S. Office of Research Integrity.

Magnuson did not respond to our requests for comment earlier this week about whether the finding would have any effect on his positions at UNC. But in a letter today to the “Carolina Community,” chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz and provost and chief academic officer J. Christopher Clemens wrote:

Continue reading UNC-Chapel Hill vice chancellor resigns post after admitting to plagiarism

Lancet journal retracts, replaces paper on treatment for pancreatic cancer

A Lancet journal has retracted and replaced a 2021 paper on the treatment of pancreatic cancer over an error that prompted an institutional investigation.

The article, “Stereotactic body radiotherapy plus pembrolizumab and trametinib versus stereotactic body radiotherapy plus gemcitabine for locally recurrent pancreatic cancer after surgical resection: an open-label, randomised, controlled, phase 2 trial,” appeared last July in Lancet Oncology and received a significant amount of attention on social media. It has already been cited seven times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.  

According to the journal, after publication readers notified the editors about potential problems with the data – in particular, apparent issues with the survival curves in study. In October 2021, the journal published a letter to the editor by a group in Japan detailing the concerns and stating that: 

Continue reading Lancet journal retracts, replaces paper on treatment for pancreatic cancer