Kenji Okajima retraction count grows to five

We’ve been following the case of Kenji Okajima, a professor at Nagoya City University in Japan who was suspended for six months following an investigation into work in his lab. Bits of the story — including at least one other university investigation, and scrutiny of Okajima’s colleagues, one of whom was fired — have been … Continue reading Kenji Okajima retraction count grows to five

Hefty correction in JBC for GMO researchers in image tampering case

Last November we wrote about the case of Alejandra Bravo and Mario Soberón, a wife-husband team of microbiologists studying genetically modified crops, who had been disciplined by the National Autonomous University of Mexico for having manipulated images in 11 papers. The tinkering did not rise to the level of fraud, according to the university — … Continue reading Hefty correction in JBC for GMO researchers in image tampering case

“Considerable overlap” leads to retraction of medical imaging paper

We have poked fun at Pattern Recognition Letters before for failing to catch blatant plagiarism. We probably should have held off on those jokes for this post. A group of IT researchers from India has suffered the retraction of a paper in PRL for heavily basing the piece on at least four previous papers written … Continue reading “Considerable overlap” leads to retraction of medical imaging paper

Paper with “missing or placed wrongly” controls retracted because there’s “no editorial mechanism to review the errors”

Two researchers from Singapore are retracting a paper that included errors in three figures because there’s apparently no way to fix the mistakes and have the new work reviewed. Here’s the notice for “Host-dependent effects of the 3′ untranslated region of turnip crinkle virus RNA on accumulation in Hibiscus and Arabidopsis,” by Weimin Li and … Continue reading Paper with “missing or placed wrongly” controls retracted because there’s “no editorial mechanism to review the errors”

Another win for transparency: JBC takes a step forward, adding details to some retraction notices

Retraction Watch readers may recall that we have been frequent critics of the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) — published by the American Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (ASBMB) — for their opaque retraction notices. Such notices often read simply “This article has been withdrawn by the authors.” But we are — despite what … Continue reading Another win for transparency: JBC takes a step forward, adding details to some retraction notices

Wash U psych researcher cited in ORI probe, faces multiple retractions

The Office of Research Integrity says Adam Savine, a former post-doc graduate student in psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, committed misconduct in work that tainted three papers and six abstracts he submitted to conferences. One of Savine’s studies that drew some media attention involved Diederik Stapel-esque research showing which brain region lights up … Continue reading Wash U psych researcher cited in ORI probe, faces multiple retractions

Scientist whose work is “not fully supported by the available laboratory records” to retract 8 more papers

Yesterday, we reported that Sunil Kumar Manna, the head of immunology at India’s Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, had retracted two papers for image problems. Turns out Manna will be retracting eight more, he told us today. Here they are:

Two retractions for scientist whose work is “not fully supported by the available laboratory records”

The head of immunology at India’s Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Sunil Kumar Manna, has retracted two papers for image problems. Here’s the notice from Cell Death and Differentiation for “Inhibition of RelA phosphorylation sensitizes apoptosis in constitutive NF-kappaB-expressing and chemoresistant cells:”

Author whose lawyers threatened Science Fraud corrects another paper

Rui Curi, the Brazilian scientist whose lawyers’ threats helped force the shutdown of Science-Fraud.org, has corrected another paper criticized by the site. Here’s the correction for “Effects of moderate electrical stimulation on reactive species production by primary rat skeletal muscle cells: Cross-talk between superoxide and nitric oxide production,” in the Journal of Cellular Physiology:

WordPress removes Anil Potti posts from Retraction Watch in error after false DMCA copyright claim

If you went looking for ten of our posts about Anil Potti today, you would have seen error messages instead. That’s because someone claiming to be from a news site in India alleged we violated their copyright with those ten posts about the former Duke University cancer researcher who has had 19 papers retracted, corrected, … Continue reading WordPress removes Anil Potti posts from Retraction Watch in error after false DMCA copyright claim