The week at Retraction Watch featured health care fraud charges for a researcher who committed scientific fraud, and a first-ever government agency lawsuit against a scientific publisher for deceit. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A cluster of papers by different authors has been retracted for sharing text, even though some papers were submitted at the same time. How is that possible? A spokesperson for Springer told us that they have reason to believe a third-party company may have helped prepare the papers for publication, and in the process might have spread … Continue reading A retraction cluster? Two papers retracted for overlap with other retractions
The week at Retraction Watch featured a new member of our leaderboard and a discussion of what would happen if peer reviewers didn’t look at results. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A biology journal has blacklisted authors from publishing their work after finding their case report about a dementia patient with hypersexuality was plagiarized from a previously published report. The retraction notice, issued by Advances in Human Biology (AIHB) in June, recognizes the case as “scientific misconduct.” The journal launched an investigation after the plagiarism was … Continue reading Journal blacklists authors for plagiarizing case report about hypersexuality in dementia
We’ve been writing about retractions for six years, and things tend to fall into easily recognizable categories — plagiarism, fabricated data, rigged peer review, etc. So it’s always interesting to come across a notice sui generis, such as one that appeared in July in OncoTargets and Therapy, a Dove title, about a new way to detect … Continue reading Beg pardon? Researchers pull cancer paper because, well, um, you see …
Plagiarism and duplication can be deadly to a paper in any dose. In the case of a study on the toxicity of nanoparticles to plants, the publisher has presented the precise amount of plagiarism and duplications that ultimately felled the paper. Specifically, according to Nanomaterials, 56% of “Potential Impact of Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Exposure to the … Continue reading More than half of plant toxicity paper isn’t original, journal says
The week at Retraction Watch saw news of a settled lawsuit, and had us celebrating our sixth anniversary with the announcement of a new partnership. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A medical journal in Romania has issued a lifetime ban for a researcher after retracting four of his papers. Since April, the Romanian Journal of Internal Medicine (RJIM) retracted nine papers (eight for plagiarism, one for duplication); four of these were co-authored by Manole Cojocaru, a researcher at the Titu Maiorescu University (TMU) in Bucharest, Romania. Subsequently, … Continue reading Romanian journal bans author following 4 retractions
A biotechnology journal has retracted a 14-year-old review after an investigation concluded that the authors had plagiarized from numerous sources. The last author of the paper — which has been cited 289 times, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science — told us the authors took a few lines from other reviews, and unintentionally left off the … Continue reading Biotech journal pulls well-cited review that plagiarized from several sources
A journal has retracted a paper about augmented reality that it termed “problematic,” as it copied large sections from another paper. The International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR) is on librarian Jeffrey Beall’s list of “potential, possible, or probable predatory” scholarly journals — which rarely issue retractions, Beall told us. Contrary to the retraction guidelines published by the Committee … Continue reading Journal pulls paper — entirely (we can’t find it anymore)