Search Results for: nature

Weekend reads: How one scientist polluted the literature; a dog earns an authorship; poisoning in the lab

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured a retraction that took three years even after the university … Continue reading Weekend reads: How one scientist polluted the literature; a dog earns an authorship; poisoning in the lab

“Unusual aspects” of a figure — aka a cartoon of Trump’s face in baboon feces — disappear from a journal

“In the original version of this Article, there were unusual aspects to the ‘Extract fecal DNA’ illustration in figure 1. These features have been removed.” With those 25 words, “one of the greatest scientific Easter eggs in a long time” or an image that was “highly unethical,” depending on your point of view, disappeared from … Continue reading “Unusual aspects” of a figure — aka a cartoon of Trump’s face in baboon feces — disappear from a journal

Former Cedars-Sinai scientist committed misconduct in food preservatives-obesity paper

A former researcher at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has been sanctioned by a Federal watchdog for misconduct in a 2017 paper that claimed to link food preservatives and obesity. Uthra Rajamani, first author of the paper in Nature Communications, “engaged in research misconduct,” according to the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI), and agreed to have … Continue reading Former Cedars-Sinai scientist committed misconduct in food preservatives-obesity paper

Is it time for a new classification system for scientific misconduct?

Are current classification systems for research misconduct adequate? Toshio Kuroki — special advisor to the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo and Gifu University — thinks the answer is no. In a new paper in Accountability in Research, Kuroki — who has published on research misconduct before … Continue reading Is it time for a new classification system for scientific misconduct?

Is it game over for a cartoon of Trump’s face in baboon feces? A journal issues an editor’s note for “unusual aspects”

If you’ve been anywhere near Twitter this week, you have probably seen a paper from Scientific Reports that appears to contain a likeness of a certain U.S. president in a cartoon of baboon feces. It was “one of the greatest scientific Easter eggs in a long time,” according to Jonathan Eisen of the University of … Continue reading Is it game over for a cartoon of Trump’s face in baboon feces? A journal issues an editor’s note for “unusual aspects”

Weekend reads: Tenured professor in Illinois fired; should journals publish CRISPR babies paper?; retracted vaccine-autism paper reappears

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured a retraction for a prominent psychologist at Cornell, more … Continue reading Weekend reads: Tenured professor in Illinois fired; should journals publish CRISPR babies paper?; retracted vaccine-autism paper reappears

Weekend reads: Prominent doctors who don’t disclose conflicts, and the journals that enable them; a “nudge” study faces scrutiny

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured two new names on our leaderboard, vindication for The Joy … Continue reading Weekend reads: Prominent doctors who don’t disclose conflicts, and the journals that enable them; a “nudge” study faces scrutiny

Researchers retract PNAS paper when they realize they’d been victims of an antibiotic switcheroo

In March 2017, a group of researchers in Vancouver, along with a colleague in Philadelphia,  published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) concluding that a particular antibiotic might be useful for treating conditions in people with rare mutations. Then, this past July, while continuing the work, they had an … Continue reading Researchers retract PNAS paper when they realize they’d been victims of an antibiotic switcheroo

Weekend reads: Meet journals’ research integrity czars; Duke set to settle big grant fraud case; what a cannabis stock’s collapse can teach investors

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured some big numbers: 26 retractions for an engineer in Italy, … Continue reading Weekend reads: Meet journals’ research integrity czars; Duke set to settle big grant fraud case; what a cannabis stock’s collapse can teach investors

Legal threats, opacity, and deceptive research practices: A look at more than 100 retractions in business and management

What can studying retractions in business and management journals tell us? Earlier this year, Dennis Tourish, of the University of Sussex, and Russell Craig, of the University of Portsmouth, both in the UK, published a paper in the Journal of Management Inquiry that analyzed 131 such retractions. The duo — who were also two of … Continue reading Legal threats, opacity, and deceptive research practices: A look at more than 100 retractions in business and management