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Researchers’ productivity hasn’t increased in a century, study suggests

Are individual scientists now more productive early in their careers than 100 years ago? No, according to a large analysis of publication records released by PLOS ONE today. Despite concerns of rising “salami slicing” in research papers in line with the “publish or perish” philosophy of academic publishing, the study found that individual early career researchers’ productivity has […]

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Why retraction shouldn’t always be the end of the story

When researchers raised concerns about a 2009 Science paper regarding a new way to screen for enzymatic activity, the lead author’s institution launched an investigation. The paper was ultimately retracted in 2010, citing “errors and omissions.” It would seem from this example that the publishing process worked, and science’s ability to self-correct cleaned up the record. […]

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“Evidence of data duplication” infects lung inflammation paper from Harvard and Yale

A team of Harvard and Yale biologists have retracted an Infection and Immunity paper due to data duplication. After the duplication came to light, the erroneous figures were corrected using original data, but the results affected “some of the manuscript’s conclusions.” An ethics panel subsequently recommended retraction, according to the journal, and the authors agreed. The paper, “NOD2 […]

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Pressure to publish not to blame for misconduct, says new study

A new study suggests that much of what we think about misconduct — including the idea that it is linked to the unrelenting pressure on scientists to publish high-profile papers — is incorrect. In a new paper out today in PLOS ONE [see update at end of post], Daniele Fanelli, Rodrigo Costas, and Vincent Larivière performed a retrospective analysis of […]

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Another “first author has accepted responsibility” retraction from immunity journal

Scientists have pulled their 2013 Infection and Immunity paper after a reader noticed duplicated data in three figures, and the first author was “unable to provide the original data used to construct the figures,” according to the journal’s editor-in-chief. According to the retraction note, “the first author has accepted responsibility for these anomalies” — similar to […]

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Poll: What to do when peer review feels inadequate?

How should scientists think about papers that have undergone what appears to be a cursory peer review? Perhaps the papers were reviewed in a day — or less — or simply green-lighted by an editor, without an outside look. That’s a question Dorothy Bishop, an Oxford University autism researcher, asked herself when she noticed some […]

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“Not faithful” figures kill apoptosis paper

A paper on apoptosis in mice has been retracted by Infection and Immunity after a reader tipped them off that several figures were “not faithful representations of the original data.” When the journal, published by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), contacted the authors at Anhui Medical University in Hefei, China, they claimed they couldn’t provide the […]

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Are retractions more frequent in stem cell research?

There are a number of fields that seem to punch above their weight on Retraction Watch: Anesthesiology, home to the world record holder (and runner-up), and psychology, home to Diederik Stapel and others. But the red-hot field of stem cell research is another that makes frequent appearances, last year’s STAP controversy being particularly prominent. There’s […]

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“Research misconduct accounts for a small percentage of total funding”: Study

How much money does scientific fraud waste? That’s an important question, with an answer that may help determine how much attention some people pay to research misconduct. But it’s one that hasn’t been rigorously addressed. Seeking some clarity, Andrew Stern, Arturo Casadevall, Grant Steen, and Ferric Fang looked at cases in which the Office of […]

“Barriers to retraction may impede correction of the literature:” New study

One of the complaints we often hear about the self-correcting nature of science is that authors and editors seem very reluctant to retract papers with obvious fatal flaws. Indeed, it seems fairly clear that the number of papers retracted is smaller than the number of those that should be. To try to get a sense […]

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