The week at Retraction Watch began with a case of a South Korean engineer who had to retract ten studies at once. Here’s what was happening elsewhere, along with an update on a story we covered a few days ago:
In June, we reported on a retraction in Current Biology that came after a number of PubPeer commenters suggested that the authors had engaged in figure manipulation, memorably comparing watching the published videos to playing the old-school arcade game “Space Invaders.” Now a second paper from the same team has been retracted from Biology Open after the authors “were unable … Continue reading Second retraction appears for arcade game-like image manipulation
Here’s another installment of PubPeer Selections:
A second retraction has been issued in a case of research misconduct at the chemistry department of chemical engineering at the University of Utah. The first retraction, in August of 2013, got a lot of attention for how poorly faked the figures were. At the time, an expression of concern was issued on the paper … Continue reading University of Utah investigation fingers chem engineering grad student for misconduct
Former University of Tokyo researcher Shigeaki Kato has notched his 26th, 27th, and 28th retractions, all in Nature Cell Biology. The three papers have been cited a total of 677 times. Here’s the notice for “DEAD-box RNA helicase subunits of the Drosha complex are required for processing of rRNA and a subset of microRNAs:”
The former director of the X-ray crystallography lab at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, faked findings in three papers, according to the Office of Research Integrity. Two of the three papers by Bijan Ahvazi were published in 2004, and later retracted in 2007, … Continue reading Former NIH lab director faked findings in three papers: ORI
A dentistry journal has retracted a paper after discovering the research was lifted from dissertation work by two people unrelated to the paper authors. Here’s the notice for “Treatment of mandibular angle fracture with a 2 mm, 3-dimensional rectangular grid compression miniplates: A prospective clinical study“:
A Portuguese group has retracted two papers in the Journal of Bacteriology after mislabeled computer files led to the wrong images being used. And, we’ve learned in a heartfelt email, the first author was devastated. Here’s the notice for “MtvR Is a Global Small Noncoding Regulatory RNA in Burkholderia cenocepacia”:
The week at Retraction Watch featured papers by a fake author with a brilliant if profane name, and the unmasking of fraudster Diederik Stapel as a sock puppet. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Phyllis Wise, the chancellor of the University of Illinois and an obstetrics researcher, has called for a massive correction of a 2006 paper in Neuroscience for work she appears to have tried to pass off as having been previously unpublished — but which wasn’t. The article, “Estrogen therapy: Does it help or hurt the adult … Continue reading U. Illinois chancellor earns mega-correction for duplicate publication