Category Archives: rsc publishing
Hundreds of dead rats, sloppy file names: The anatomy of a retraction
It all started – as more and more retractions do – with a post on PubPeer, this one in November 2021. The comment was about a paper titled “Efficient in vivo wound healing using noble metal nanoclusters” that had appeared in Nanoscale in March of that year: Figure 5: There is an overlap between two … Continue reading Hundreds of dead rats, sloppy file names: The anatomy of a retraction
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“[N]o intention to make any scientific fraud” as researchers lose four papers
Researchers in India have lost four papers in journals belonging to the Royal Society of Chemistry over concerns that the images in the articles appear to have been doctored. The senior author on the articles is Pralay Maiti, of the School of Material Science & Technology at Banaras Hindu University, in Varanasi. “Polycaprolactone composites with … Continue reading “[N]o intention to make any scientific fraud” as researchers lose four papers
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Okinawa researcher suspended for faking data denies committing misconduct
Ye Zhang, who as we reported yesterday is serving a six-month suspension from her post at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), in Japan, says she did not commit misconduct, as the school contends. In response to a query from Retraction Watch, Zhang, a materials scientist, said she did not agree with … Continue reading Okinawa researcher suspended for faking data denies committing misconduct
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Publisher retracting 68 articles suspected of being paper mill products
It appears to be Paper Mill Sweeps Week here at Retraction Watch. On Tuesday, we reported on an editor who believes one such operation was responsible for the withdrawals of at least two articles in her journal. Now, the Royal Society of Chemistry is retracting 68 articles, across three of its titles, after an investigation … Continue reading Publisher retracting 68 articles suspected of being paper mill products
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Authors aren’t happy to lose four more papers in chemistry journals
A pair of researchers in India with a history of stealing a paper from other authors during the peer review process have lost four more articles, this time for questionable data. The papers, by Priyadarshi Roy Chowdhury and Krishna G. Bhattacharyya, of Gauhati University in Jalukbari, appeared in journals published by the UK’s Royal Society … Continue reading Authors aren’t happy to lose four more papers in chemistry journals
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‘Miracle’ on ice as chemists pull nanocatalyst paper that fizzled
God giveth miracles … and it seems she taketh them away as well. A group of chemists in China has lost a 2018 paper which described a “miraculous” discovery that wasn’t. The paper was titled “A miraculous chiral Ir–Rh bimetallic nanocatalyst for asymmetric hydrogenation of activated ketones,” and it appeared in Organic Chemistry Frontiers, a … Continue reading ‘Miracle’ on ice as chemists pull nanocatalyst paper that fizzled
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Chem journal yanks paper because authors had stolen it as peer reviewers
The UK’s Royal Society of Chemistry has retracted a 2017 paper in one of its journals after learning that the authors stole the article from other researchers during peer review. The offending article, “Typical and interstratified arrangements in Zn/Al layered double hydroxides: an experimental and theoretical approach,” appeared in CrystalEngComm, and was written by Priyadarshi … Continue reading Chem journal yanks paper because authors had stolen it as peer reviewers
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Pair of nanotech researchers up to at least two dozen retractions
A pair of researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines) has had a total of nine more papers retracted, pushing their totals to 24 and 26, respectively. The totals put the two researchers — Rashmi Madhuri, with 24 retractions, and Prashant Sharma, with 26 — on our leaderboard of the 30 … Continue reading Pair of nanotech researchers up to at least two dozen retractions
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That study reporting worrisome levels of zinc in tuna? It’s being retracted
Recently, a rash of news outlets posted concerns that canned tuna and other products may contain potentially dangerous levels of zinc. They were all wrong. News outlets such as The Daily Mail and The Sun reported findings from a recent study, which showed that canned foods such as tuna may contain 100 times the daily limit … Continue reading That study reporting worrisome levels of zinc in tuna? It’s being retracted
Journal investigating earlier work by author of discredited fish-microplastics paper
A biology journal is investigating concerns about a 2014 paper by a marine biologist who was found guilty of misconduct last year. In December, Uppsala University concluded that Oona Lönnstedt had “fabricated the results” of a controversial 2016 Science paper (now retracted), which examined the harms of human pollution on fish. (Lönnstedt’s supervisor Peter Eklöv … Continue reading Journal investigating earlier work by author of discredited fish-microplastics paper