The week at Retraction Watch featured a lawsuit threat following criticism of a popular education program, and the new editor of PLOS ONE’s explanation of why submissions are down. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
The week at Retraction Watch featured three new ways companies are trying to scam authors, and a look at why one journal is publishing a running tally of their retractions. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Last week, we wrote about a somewhat remarkable retraction, of a 15-year-old paper by a current Illinois senator who used to be a mathematician. At the time, we were a bit perplexed by the language of the notice, which the senator — who helpfully took our call — couldn’t answer, since he wasn’t involved in … Continue reading “False” results in retracted paper by senator are inaccurate, not fraudulent, say editors
A researcher has lost his position as a Chief Scientific Officer at a DNA sequencing company after he reportedly confessed to fabricating data in a 2015 paper, now retracted by the Journal of Cell Biology. According to the CEO of Karmagenes, when the company learned about the retraction, the staff “immediately” conferred and decided the researcher … Continue reading Researcher loses biotech post after reportedly confessing to fraud
A researcher in Switzerland has retracted her 2015 paper in the Journal of Cell Biology, saying the first author — her former postdoc — admitted to fabricating multiple aspects of the paper. After Sophie Martin of the University of Lausanne couldn’t reproduce the data from another manuscript she was preparing to submit, she contacted her former student, … Continue reading Former postdoc admitted to fraud in cell bio paper, lead author says
Researchers have retracted a biology paper that included an image mismatch — despite the fact that, as they claim, another image in the same paper confirms the original findings. The authors say they plan to resubmit the paper with the corrected figure panel. The second to last author — Carlo Croce, chair of the department of … Continue reading Journal retracts paper due to image mismatch; one co-author alleges fraud
A physicist formerly based at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for faking data. According to the United States Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of California, after receiving millions in government funding between 2008 and 2012, Sean Darin Kinion submitted faked data and reports to … Continue reading U.S. gov’t physicist sentenced to 18 months in prison for fraud
Two remaining charges against a Parkinson’s researcher recently convicted of fraud have been dropped by an Australian court. In October, Caroline Barwood, formerly at the University of Queensland (UQ) in Brisbane, was found guilty of five out of seven charges. Subsequently, Barwood was handed two suspended sentences: one for two years, and another for 15 months, both … Continue reading Remaining fraud charges withdrawn for Parkinson’s researcher
When it comes to detecting image manipulation, the more tools you have at your disposal, the better. In a recent issue of Science and Engineering Ethics, Lars Koppers at TU Dortmund University in Germany and his colleagues present a new way to scan images. Specifically, they created an open-source software that compares pixels within or … Continue reading Sleuthing out scientific fraud, pixel by pixel
In March, 2013, a graduate student joined the lab of a prominent researcher in Australia, investigating new therapies for Parkinson’s. A few months later, everything fell apart. In September 2013, the University of Queensland (UQ) announced it was retracting one of the lab’s papers, returning the money used to fund the research and launching a … Continue reading A grad student was caught in the crossfire of fraud — and fought back