This could be an April Fools’ joke. But it isn’t. In what can only be described as an ironic twist, the Indian Journal of Dermatology is retracting a paper that presents guidelines on plagiarism for…wait for it… Plagiarism. Here’s the notice:
A paper on apoptosis in mice has been retracted by Infection and Immunity after a reader tipped them off that several figures were “not faithful representations of the original data.” When the journal, published by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), contacted the authors at Anhui Medical University in Hefei, China, they claimed they couldn’t provide the … Continue reading “Not faithful” figures kill apoptosis paper
This week at Retraction Watch featured retractions by a high-profile cancer researcher, and a loss in court for PubPeer. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
This week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of yet another spoof article, and the temporary shutdown of a journal. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
We’re pleased to introduce readers to Alice Dreger, a historian of science and medicine at the Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program in Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Her new book is “Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science,” out this week from Penguin Press. Read to the end for … Continue reading Yes, we are seeing more attacks on academic freedom: guest post by historian of science and medicine
An environmental journal has retracted a paper about pollution in China after it discovered the authors lifted the dataset from another group. The authors of the study — which chronicled the degree of heavy metal pollution on the banks of the Pearl River Delta — didn’t have permission to use the data. Environmental Monitoring and … Continue reading Chinese heavy metal contamination paper purged for data theft
PLoS ONE has just issued a 12-figure correction on a paper by Mario A. Saad, who sued the American Diabetes Association unsuccessfully in an attempt to prevent it from retracting four papers in its flagship journal Diabetes. The corrections include taking out Western blots copied from another Saad paper, as well as several figures where the bands … Continue reading PLoS ONE mega-correction, but no retraction, for researcher who sued diabetes journal
The American Heart Association’s journal Circulation has issued an expression of concern for a paper about the molecular underpinnings of arrhythmias that was co-authored by a biomedical engineer who committed fraud on a massive scale. According to an investigation by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), former Vanderbilt engineer Igor Dzhura faked nearly 70 images and drastically over-estimated … Continue reading Heart journal issues expression of concern after fraud report
A team of researchers whose work is under investigation by University College London has retracted a second paper. Three of the 11 authors of the 2005 Journal of Cell Science paper being retracted — David Latchman, Richard Knight, and Anastasis Stephanou — were authors of a Journal of Biological Chemistry paper retracted in January. Stephanou … Continue reading Prominent geneticist David Latchman’s group notches second retraction
The week at Retraction Watch featured Matlab miscoding and a look at how often a retracted paper was cited. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: