The University of Tokyo panel investigating the work of a former professor there, Shigeaki Kato, has recommended the retraction of 43 of his group’s articles, according to a report in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. If the papers are indeed retracted, Kato, who already has at least five articles subject to an expression of concern and … Continue reading Tokyo panel calls for retraction of 43 Kato papers
So how long do researchers have to keep records of experiments? We had that question while reading the retraction notice for a 2007 paper in the Journal of Clinical Investigation:
A trio of researchers from the United States and China are in, um, hot water for inappropriately reusing figures that had appeared in previous publications about liquids. The article, “Temporally resolved imaging on quenching and re-ignition of nanosecond underwater discharge,” appeared last year in AIP Advances, a title of the American Institute of Physics. The … Continue reading Physics journal retracts underwater discharge paper for figure reuse
The Journal of Neuroscience has retracted a 2012 paper by a group from Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet for what appears to be research misconduct. But more on that in a moment. The article, “The Existence of FGFR1-5-HT1A Receptor Heterocomplexes in Midbrain 5-HT Neurons of the Rat: Relevance for Neuroplasticity,” came from the lab of Kjell Fuxe, … Continue reading Journal of Neuroscience retracts plasticity paper for “substantial data misrepresentation”
A fraud investigation at a New York state research institution has led to two retractions of papers looking at genetic links to autism. The 2011 papers, which appeared in Genes, Brain and Behavior, involve work conducted at the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities’ (OPWDD’s) Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities, … Continue reading Autism genetics papers retracted after fraud inquiry at NY research agency
A Brazilian researcher whose legal threats helped lead to the shutdown of Science-Fraud.org and who has had two papers retracted has had to correct another paper. The fourth correction for Rui Curi — and we’d call it a mega-correction — is of a paper in PLOS ONE. Curi is the fourth out of 11 authors; … Continue reading A mega-correction for Rui Curi, whose lawyers threatened to sue Science-Fraud.org
Yesterday we reported that Cell was looking into problematic images in a recent paper on human embryonic stem cell cloning. We’ve now heard from the journal about the nature of the inquiry. Mary Beth O’Leary, a spokeswoman for Cell Press — an Elsevier title — tells us that: Based on our own initial in-house assessment … Continue reading Cell attributes image problems in cloning paper to “minor” errors; sees no impact on conclusions
Cell is looking into whether the authors of a widely hailed study published last week claiming to have turned human skin cells into embryonic stem cells manipulated images inappropriately, Retraction Watch has learned. The potential image problems came to light on PubPeer, a site designed to allow for post-publication peer review. A commenter, identified as … Continue reading Cell reviewing allegations of image reuse in human embryonic stem cell cloning paper
The journal Scoliosis has retracted a 2012 paper by a pair of German spine doctors over what the editors have called a less-than-fully declared conflict of interest involving one of the authors. That should be relatively straigtforward – but it’s not quite. Turns out the article does include a disclosure, although perhaps the information it … Continue reading Lack of conflict of interest disclosure undoes scoliosis study
A group of bacteria researchers in Spain and Germany has lost two papers in the Journal of Bacteriology after the journal found evidence that they had reused figures. The two notices, for “Heat Shock Proteome Analysis of Wild-Type Corynebacterium glutamicum ATCC 13032 and a Spontaneous Mutant Lacking GroEL1, a Dispensable Chaperone” and “Transcriptional Analysis of … Continue reading Two Journal of Bacteriology papers retracted for data duplication spanning five years