Two researchers found to have faked data by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) have lost a paper that they co-authored. According to the ORI report issued on May 25, Ricky Malhotra, one of the researchers in question, admitted to fabricating 74 experiments, and falsifying well over 100 Western blots while at the Universities of Michigan (UM) … Continue reading Second retraction for researcher who faked 70+ experiments
After a prominent researcher was dismissed due to multiple instances of misconduct in his studies, how are journals responding? When an investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found multiple issues with the work of psychiatry researcher Alexander Neumeister, New York University (NYU) Langone Medical Center shut down eight of his studies. (Disclosure: The author … Continue reading A prominent psychiatry researcher is dismissed. What’s happening to his papers?
The week at Retraction Watch featured a puzzle, and the retraction of a controversial study on fracking. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
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
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
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 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
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:
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
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