Weekend reads: Unscientific peer review; impact factor revolt; men love to cite themselves
The week at Retraction Watch featured a puzzle, and the retraction of a controversial study on fracking. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Search Results for: fraud
1st retraction for biologist who doctored 40+ images, received funding ban
The Journal of Biological Chemistry has retracted a paper that was one of eight flagged in a recent investigation by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI). The investigation — which concluded that a biologist had falsified or fabricated more than 40 images — resulted in a five-year funding ban. In May, the ORI announced that John Pastorino, an erstwhile cell … Continue reading 1st retraction for biologist who doctored 40+ images, received funding ban
Publishing needs more science, fewer stories: Q&A with founders of ScienceMatters
Ever wish you could just publish an exciting result, without having to wait for the entire string of data that follows in order to tell an entire story, which then gets held up for months by peer review at traditional journals? So do a lot of other researchers, who are working on ways to sidestep … Continue reading Publishing needs more science, fewer stories: Q&A with founders of ScienceMatters
Trump vs. trump: Does the candidate affect the use of trump cards in Bridge?
Did that headline make sense? It isn’t really supposed to – it’s a sum-up of a recent satirical paper by Columbia statistician Andrew Gelman and Jonathan Falk of NERA Economic Consulting, entitled “NO TRUMP!: A statistical exercise in priming.” The paper – which they are presenting today during the International Conference on Machine Learning in New York City – estimates … Continue reading Trump vs. trump: Does the candidate affect the use of trump cards in Bridge?
JAMA: No plan to pull elephant-cancer risk paper after PETA protest
JAMA has decided not to retract an article about cancer risk in elephants after receiving a request to do so from an animal rights group. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) recently protested the 2015 paper, which found that higher levels of a tumor suppressor gene could explain why elephants have a lower risk … Continue reading JAMA: No plan to pull elephant-cancer risk paper after PETA protest
Weekend reads: Naughty journals; whistleblowers’ frustration; new misconduct definition?
The week at Retraction Watch featured revelations of fraud in more than $100 million in government research, and swift findings in a much-discussed case. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Leiden requests two retractions over misconduct
The Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) has asked a journal to retract two papers after revealing a former employee manipulated data. The report does not name the individual nor the journal, but notes that they work in a molecular field, and are currently employed by a university outside The Netherlands. According to a news release about … Continue reading Leiden requests two retractions over misconduct
Fake email for corresponding author forces neuro journal to retract paper
A chair of a neurobiology department in China has requested the retraction of a paper on which he was unwittingly listed as the lead and corresponding author. How could a corresponding author — you know, the person with whom the journal corresponds about the paper — be added without their consent? It seems that a fraudulent email account was involved in … Continue reading Fake email for corresponding author forces neuro journal to retract paper
Weekend reads: Idiotic reviews; wrong metrics in China; questions about preprints
The week at Retraction Watch featured the corrections of papers claiming that conservative beliefs were linked to psychotic traits, and a new member of our leaderboard, from philosophy. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Author denies accusations of blatant duplication
Twitter is abuzz today over allegations that a recent paper in Scientific Reports contains a blatant example of duplication. According to the allegations, a group of researchers in Malaysia have used the same four images to represent some 30 cells at different stages of cell death. One researcher has even suggested the allegedly doctored images appear in three … Continue reading Author denies accusations of blatant duplication