methodological problems | Reader

Caught Our Notice: Dear peer reviewer, please read the methods section. Sincerely, everyone

Title: Plasma contributes to the antimicrobial activity of whole blood against Mycobacterium tuberculosis What Caught Our Attention: A big peer review (and perhaps academic mentorship) fail. These researchers used the wrong anticoagulant for their blood samples, leading them to believe that certain blood components were fighting microbes. The authors counted the number of colonies to show […]

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Retract, replace, retract: Beleaguered food researcher pulls article from JAMA journal (again)

A high-profile food researcher who’s faced heavy criticism about his work has retracted the revised version of an article he’d already retracted last month. Yes, you read that right: Brian Wansink at Cornell University retracted the original article from JAMA Pediatrics in September, replacing it with a revised version. Now he’s retracting the revised version, citing […]

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Estimate: Nearly 33,000 papers include misidentified cell lines. Experts talk ways to combat growing problem

Although most researchers realize too many are using misidentified cell lines in their work, they may be shocked to see the scope of the problem: Approximately 32,755 articles report on research that relied on misidentified cells, according to a new report in PLoS ONE. And even though more people may be aware of the problem, it […]

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Prominent food researcher retracts paper from JAMA journal, replaces it with multiple fixes

Earlier this week, we reported that high-profile food researcher Brian Wansink — who’s faced months of criticisms about his research — had issued his second retraction. On Thursday, he issued his third. The retracted paper — a 2012 research letter in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, now JAMA Pediatrics — reported that children […]

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“The paper is extremely flawed:” Journal retracts article linked to vaccines

A journal has retracted a 2016 paper after receiving criticism from outside researchers who raised concerns about its methodology and data. The paper shares multiple authors with another paper that linked the vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV) to behavioral problems in mice. Last year, a journal removed the study; later that year, the authors published […]

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Researchers retract a paper when they realize they had sequenced the wrong snail’s genome

Researchers in China thought they had sequenced the genomes of two snails that help transmit diseases to other species — an important first step to stopping the spread. But their hopes were soon dashed after they realized they had misidentified one of the snails. The researchers published their findings earlier this year in the journal […]

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Newspaper series prompts CDC to correct paper on Legionnaire’s disease

Post-publication peer review isn’t just for scientists. Newspaper reporters can help correct the scientific record, too. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has corrected a journal article on Legionnaire’s disease after the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette revealed what seems to be efforts by the researchers to misrepresent their data. In a series of articles […]

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Are there foxes in Tasmania? Follow the poop

Stephen Sarre, based at the University of Canberra in Australia, has made a career out of collecting and analyzing poop. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. Part of his work is designed to answer a multi-million dollar question: Is Tasmania home to foxes, a pest that carries rabies and other diseases […]

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“Some experiments were not performed appropriately:” Florida researchers lose two papers

Two molecular biologists have withdrawn two 2015 papers published in the same journal, citing image duplication and manipulation, among other issues. One notice — published in June — explains that, after further investigation, the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) found certain experiments “were not performed appropriately.” The other notice cites “missing data” and notes that […]

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Instead of retracting a flawed study, a journal let authors re-do it. It got retracted anyway.

When a journal discovers elementary design flaws in a paper, what should it do? Should it retract immediately, or are there times when it makes sense to give the researchers time to perform a “do-over?” These are questions the editors at Scientific Reports recently faced with a somewhat controversial 2016 paper, which reported that microRNAs […]

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