Science has published an expression of concern for a recent article on a receptor for bitter taste while the authors’ institution investigates “potential discrepancies” with a figure.
The article, “Structural basis for strychnine activation of human bitter taste receptor TAS2R46,” was published in September of this year.
According to the abstract:
Continue reading Science paper on sense of taste gets expression of concern as university investigates
A scientist who lost 11 papers for fake peer review and other reasons went to court to pin the misconduct on a coauthor – and received a favorable judgment.
The retractions for Aram Mokarizadeh, a biomedical researcher previously affiliated with the Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences in Iran, were part of a batch of 58 papers in seven journals that Springer and BioMed Central pulled in 2016 after an investigation found “evidence of plagiarism, peer review and authorship manipulation, suggestive of attempts to subvert the peer review and publication system to inappropriately obtain or allocate authorship.”
After our story on the case appeared, Mokarizadeh told us that a coauthor was “responsible for all problems associated with retraction,” and that he had brought a case to court in Iran to prove it.
Continue reading Scientist goes to court to clear his name after fake peer review retractions
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The week at Retraction Watch featured:
Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 270. There are more than 36,000 retractions in our database — which 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: ‘Illegal practices in palaeontology’; ‘a fake badge of integrity’; researcher jailed
A mathematician has requested the retraction of two recently published articles “claiming proofs of big results in number theory,” as one observer put it.
After publication, the author said he “found some subtle inaccuracies” in the work.
The editor-in-chief of the mathematics journal Studia Logica, where the papers were published, posted a notice to the publication’s website weeks ago stating that it had retracted the two articles.
But the online versions of the papers still show no signs of having been retracted, as the editors wait on their publisher, Springer Nature, to process the retractions.
Continue reading Mathematician requests two retractions for “subtle inaccuracies”Nearly a year after marking a paper on the elusive “Majorana” particle with an expression of concern, and almost three years after publishing a critique of its reproducibility, Science has retracted the article due to “serious irregularities and discrepancies” in the data.
A few papers about Majorana particles, which would be useful in quantum computing if scientists could indeed produce and detect them, have been retracted, flagged with expressions of concern, or otherwise proven difficult to reproduce.
The latest article to be retracted, “Chiral Majorana fermion modes in a quantum anomalous Hall insula- tor–superconductor structure,” has been cited more than 400 times since it was published in 2017, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. About 10 percent of those citations have come since Science’s editors published their expression of concern last December.
The retraction notice states:
Continue reading Another ‘Majorana’ particle paper retracted, this time from Science
Weeks after the British Medical Journal corrected a press release about nine retractions and dozens of expressions of concern to mark articles by a prominent concussion expert, a spokesperson for the journal told us it’s still “an ongoing effort” to identify all the articles on which the expert is the sole author.
The concussion researcher, Paul McCrory, was editor in chief of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, published by the BMJ, from 2001-2008, and published many editorials on which he was the only listed author. McCrory also chaired the influential Concussion in Sport Group, was involved in drafting consensus statements on concussion in sports, and consulted with leagues.
Ten of those articles, however, have been retracted this year for plagiarism, recycling his own work, and misrepresenting a reference.
In comments to us, his only public statements to date about the matter, McCrory acknowledged some of the plagiarism as unintentional “errors,” and offered “my sincere and humble apologies.” He no longer chairs the Concussion in Sport Group, and the Australian Football League has critically reviewed his work for the league, the Guardian Australia reported.
Continue reading BMJ says it’s “an ongoing effort” to find articles by plagiarizing concussion researcher Paul McCrory
Retraction Watch readers are likely familiar with Clarivate’s Highly Cited Researcher (HCR) designation, awarded to “who have demonstrated a disproportionate level of significant and broad influence in their field or fields of research.” And they might also recall that researchers whose work has come under significant scrutiny — or even retracted — can sometimes show up on that list.
As of this year, that is less likely to happen, thanks to a change Clarivate announced today along with the list of nearly 7,000 HCRs:
This year Clarivate partnered with Retraction Watch and extended the qualitative analysis of the Highly Cited Researchers list, addressing increasing concerns over potential misconduct (such as plagiarism, image manipulation, fake peer review). With the assistance of Retraction Watch and its unparalleled database of retractions, Clarivate analysts searched for evidence of misconduct in all publications of those on the preliminary list of Highly Cited Researchers. Researchers found to have committed scientific misconduct in formal proceedings conducted by a researcher’s institution, a government agency, a funder or a publisher are excluded from the list of Highly Cited Researchers.
We asked Gali Halevi, director of the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate, to answer a few questions about the change.
What prompted Clarivate to add a check for potential misconduct among Highly Cited Researchers this year?
Continue reading Why misconduct could keep scientists from earning Highly Cited Researcher designations, and how our database plays a part
A psychiatrist studying the development of psychosis faked data from studies of brain imaging in a grant application to the National Institutes of Health, a U.S, government watchdog has found.
The federal Office of Research Integrity (ORI) announced sanctions against Romina Mizrahi, associate chair of research in McGill University’s department of psychiatry in Montreal, Canada, for “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly falsifying data” in a grant application to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Mizrahi submitted the grant application in question, R01 MH118495-01, “Imaging nociceptin receptors in clinical high risk and first episode psychosis,” in February 2018; it does not appear to have been funded.
According to ORI, Mizrahi:
Continue reading Psychiatrist in Canada faked brain imaging data in grant application, U.S. federal watchdog says
The editor in chief of the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT) has resigned with more than a year left of his term, according to an email announcing his move to colleagues.
In the email, first reproduced in Steve Kirsch’s Substack newsletter, the editor, Jose L. Domingo, cited “deep discrepancies” with the journal’s direction under publisher Elsevier as the reason for his early resignation. He shared the email with us when we reached out for comment.
Domingo, a professor of toxicology and environmental Health at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Spain, listed three main points of contention: an agreement for the journal to publish documents for the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials, which Domingo believed to be a “drag” on the journal’s impact factor; FCT’s recent designation as the official journal of the Chinese Society of Toxicology; and a February editorial he wrote requesting submissions “on the potential toxic effects of COVID-19 vaccines.”
He wrote:
Continue reading Journal editor in chief who published controversial Covid papers resignsWould 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 268. There are more than 36,000 retractions in our database — which 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: A whistleblower finds possible misconduct — again; embracing failure; radical transparency for journals