Planet Neuroscientists

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Attention not necessary for visual awareness, large study suggests

in The Transmitter on 2025-07-01 04:00:58 UTC.

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Genetic testing; LSD1 inhibitors; and more

in The Transmitter on 2025-07-01 04:00:18 UTC.

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INSAR takes ‘intentional break’ from annual summer webinar series

in The Transmitter on 2025-06-30 20:09:59 UTC.

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Summer Learning Loss Happens, but Kids Quickly Recover

During the summer, kids can forget some of what they learned during the school year. They recover quickly, but here are some tips to stem the slide

in Scientific American on 2025-06-30 19:30:00 UTC.

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Springer Nature book on machine learning is full of made-up citations

Would you pay $169 for an introductory ebook on machine learning with citations that appear to be made up?

If not, you might want to pass on purchasing Mastering Machine Learning: From Basics to Advanced, published by Springer Nature in April. 

Based on a tip from a reader, we checked 18 of the 46 citations in the book. Two-thirds of them either did not exist or had substantial errors. And three researchers cited in the book confirmed the works they supposedly authored were fake or the citation contained substantial errors.

“We wrote this paper and it was not formally published,” said Yehuda Dar, a computer scientist at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, whose work was cited in the book. “It is an arXiv preprint.” The citation incorrectly states the paper appeared in IEEE Signal Processing Magazine.

Aaron Courville, a professor of computer science at Université de Montréal and coauthor on the book Deep Learning, was correctly cited for the text itself, but for a section that “doesn’t seem to exist,” he said. “Certainly not at pages 194-201.” And Dimitris Kalles of Hellenic Open University in Greece also confirmed he did not write a cited work listing him as the author.

The researcher who emailed us, and asked to remain anonymous, had received an alert from Google Scholar about the book, which cited him. While his name appeared on multiple citations, the cited works do not exist.

Nonexistent and error-prone citations are a hallmark of text generated by large language models like ChatGPT. These models don’t search literature databases for published papers like a human author would. Instead, they generate content based on training data and prompts. So LLM-generated citations might look legitimate, but the content of the citations might be fabricated. 

The book’s author, Govindakumar Madhavan, asked for an additional “week or two” to fully respond to our request for comment. He did not answer our questions asking if he used an LLM to generate text for the book. However, he told us, “reliably determining whether content (or an issue) is AI generated remains a challenge, as even human-written text can appear ‘AI-like.’ This challenge is only expected to grow, as LLMs … continue to advance in fluency and sophistication.”

According to his bio in the book, Madhavan is the founder and CEO of SeaportAi and author of about 40 video courses and 10 books. The 257-page book includes a section on ChatGPT that states: “the technology raises important ethical questions about the use and misuse of AI-generated text.” 

Springer Nature provides policies and guidance about the use of AI to its authors, Felicitas Behrendt, senior communications manager for books at the publisher, told us by email. “Whilst we recognise that authors may use LLMs, we emphasise that any submission must be undertaken with full human oversight, and any AI use beyond basic copy editing must be declared.” 

Mastering Machine Learning contains no such declaration. When asked about the potential use of AI in the work, Behrendt told us: “We are aware of the text and are currently looking into it.” She did not comment on efforts taken during Springer Nature’s editorial process to ensure its AI policies are followed.

LLM-generated citations were at the center of controversies around Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” report and a CDC presentation on the vaccine preservative thimerosal. At Retraction Watch, our cofounders were once cited in a made-up reference in an Australian government report on research integrity.  We’ve seen fake citations fell research articles, and our list of papers with evidence of undisclosed ChatGPT use has grown long and almost certainly represents only a fraction of those that actually do. 

The same day Behrendt replied to our query, Springer Nature published a post on its blog titled, “Research integrity in books: Prevention by balancing human oversight and AI tools.” 

“All book manuscripts are initially assessed by an in-house editor who decides whether to forward the submission to further review,” Deidre Hudson Reuss, senior content marketing manager at the company, wrote. “The reviewers – subject matter experts – evaluate the manuscript’s quality and originality, to ensure its validity and that it meets the highest integrity and ethics standards.”

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on X or Bluesky, like us on Facebook, follow us on LinkedIn, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.

in Retraction watch on 2025-06-30 19:23:03 UTC.

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World’s Oldest Rocks Confirmed in Canada

In 2008 scientists reported that rocks in Canada were the world’s oldest. New data appear to confirm this contested claim

in Scientific American on 2025-06-30 17:00:00 UTC.

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This painless nanoneedle patch might one day replace certain biopsies

in Science News: Health & Medicine on 2025-06-30 15:00:00 UTC.

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See how the herpesvirus reshapes our cells’ DNA in just eight hours

in Science News: Health & Medicine on 2025-06-30 13:00:00 UTC.

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Transforming mouse modeling with motion capture

in OIST Japan on 2025-06-30 12:00:00 UTC.

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More than a Headache: Understanding Migraine in Women

in Women in Neuroscience UK on 2025-06-30 11:00:12 UTC.

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Cells Can ‘Hear’ Sounds—And Respond Genetically

Audible sound can affect gene activity in mouse cells, boosting the attachment of muscle precursors to surrounding tissue and decreasing fat accumulation

in Scientific American on 2025-06-30 10:45:00 UTC.

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Why Did the Company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline Sue Greenpeace?

Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, sued the nonprofit Greenpeace over alleged conspiracy—the host of Drilled explains why

in Scientific American on 2025-06-30 10:00:00 UTC.

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Bad Choices in Dresden IV

in For Better Science on 2025-06-30 05:00:00 UTC.

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Null and Noteworthy: Neurons tracking sequences don’t fire in order

in The Transmitter on 2025-06-30 04:00:51 UTC.

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How to teach this paper: ‘Neurotoxic reactive astrocytes are induced by activated microglia,’ by Liddelow et al. (2017)

in The Transmitter on 2025-06-30 04:00:19 UTC.

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Weekend reads: Trump cuts funding for Springer Nature pubs; another nonexistent study for HHS; what RFK Jr. got right about academic publishing

Dear RW readers, can you spare $25?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• COPE integrity officer loses 22-year-old paper for image concerns
• Slovak science academy ‘strictly condemns’ government official’s paper on mRNA vaccines
• Guest post: In defense of direct replication studies (if they even need defending)
• Swedish regulators drop investigations into Chalmers’ prosthetics lab
• Science issues correction on a paper after repeat experiments and misconduct finding

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 60,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers? What about The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List — or our list of nearly 100 papers with evidence they were written by ChatGPT?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

• Trump administration terminates “millions worth of funding for Springer Nature.”
• CDC presentation cites nonexistent study on vaccine preservative risks.
• “What RFK Jr. Got Right About Academic Publishing.”
• “Sluggishness and defensiveness helped enable an executive order on research integrity,” says Science editor-in-chief. 
• “The MAHA children’s health report mis-cited our research. That’s sloppy — and worrying.”
• “My famous father — the fraudulent, fantasist scientist.” A review of a new book by the daughter of Michael Briggs, who faked studies on oral contraceptives in the 1980s.
• “‘Paper mills’ are polluting the world of scientific literature with their false studies, researchers lament.”
• Professor who based his study on Francesca Gino’s “dishonest” work says he is “furious.”
• Researchers “reproduce 12 systematic reviews in two days.” Skeptics “urge caution.”
• Study backing “‘bone-strengthening’ exercise program should be retracted: experts.”
• ​​”Research Grants Increasingly Require Compliance With Trump’s Orders. Here’s How Colleges Are Responding.”
• James Heathers discusses the Medical Evidence Project, an initiative of our parent nonprofit, the Center for Scientific Integrity. 
• “Scientific whistleblower faces defamation conviction” in Switzerland. A link to our coverage of the case.
• Researchers “argue that research—though intended to improve health—can lead to patient harm through the proliferation of honest (though occasionally dishonest) yet unacceptable research practices.”
• New platform “Preprint Watch” is “looking for signs that a preprint may indicate the early stages of a conceptual shift.”
• The podcast (in Portuguese) for the São Paulo Research Foundation’s news magazine talks with Mariana Ribeiro, one of our sleuths in residence.
• Higher Education board member from Turkey defends his paper, which was one of many retracted from Sage journal.
• “What scientists need to know about sharing—and protecting—their published work.”
• Researchers “analyzed multi-decadal entries of life sciences in the Retraction Watch database since 1976 to understand the trends and drivers of retraction across time, countries and reasons.”
• “Will Gates and other funders save massive public health database at risk from Trump cuts?”
• University revokes former South Korean First Lady’s masters degree “over plagiarism.”
• Researchers find “author academic influence functions as a signal of a manuscript’s impact, thereby enhancing its likelihood of acceptance.”
• “AI-mediated translation presents two possible futures for academic publishing in a multilingual world.”
• “Authors correct image errors in Neuron paper that challenged microglia-to-neuron conversion.”
• Ethics professors “have changed our position” and now argue “[d]isclosing generative AI use for writing assistance should be voluntary.”
• “My paper was probably reviewed by AI – and that’s a serious problem.”
• “The Great Scottish Tea Swindle: How a band of brew-swilling detectives brought down Scotland’s ‘Mr. Tea.’”

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on X or Bluesky, like us on Facebook, follow us on LinkedIn, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.

in Retraction watch on 2025-06-28 10:00:00 UTC.

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Weather Forecasters Lose Crucial Hurricane Detection Microwave Satellite Data

Microwave satellite data are key to capturing major changes in a hurricane’s strength, such as when a storm undergoes rapid intensification. But a main source of those data is being abruptly shut off

in Scientific American on 2025-06-27 21:00:00 UTC.

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Science issues correction on a paper after repeat experiments and misconduct finding

Science has changed an expression of concern on a 2022 paper to an erratum after removing one of the coauthors — who was found to have committed misconduct — and allowing the researchers to repeat experiments.

The paper, “Structural basis for strychnine activation of human bitter taste receptor TAS2R46,” has been cited 68 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

Two months after publishing the article in September 2022, Science issued an editorial expression of concern, stating a post-publication analysis had found one figure with “potential discrepancies.”

The authors worked with “outside experts” to repeat aspects of the experiment, Meagan Phelan, communications director for Science, told us. They “repeated bioluminescence energy transfer experiments” that were the basis for two of the article’s figures, one of which was the focus of the 2022 expression of concern, the new 2025 notice states. 

“The new data did not provide strong functional support” for the previous work related to those figures, and the “conclusions on precoupling are weaker than in the original version,” the erratum states. However, “the editors remain confident in the key findings of the paper,” according to the notice. Both figures were removed from the corrected study. 

When we asked why Science did not retract the paper, Phelan told us instead of retracting “a study where conclusions still stand, we worked with the author team.”  Guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics “argue against a partial retraction and make the point that the main goal is correction of the literature rather than a mechanism to punish the authors,” she added. 

The erratum also says Xiaoling Cao was removed as an author. At the time the paper was published, Cao’s listed affiliation was with iHuman Institute, which is part of ShanghaiTech University in China. 

Phelan told us the authors discovered Cao had “committed misconduct” during the original study and was responsible for the removed aspects of the paper, so “no longer qualified for authorship.” She said Cao “has since left” ShanghaiTech. For further details Phelan referred us to the university, which has not responded to a request for comment.

Cao did not respond to our request for comment and is not listed as a researcher on the iHuman Institute’s website. The corresponding authors, Zhi-Jie Liu and Tian Hua, also did not respond to our request for comment.

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on X or Bluesky, like us on Facebook, follow us on LinkedIn, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.

in Retraction watch on 2025-06-27 20:05:45 UTC.

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Harmful heat doesn’t always come in waves

in Science News: Health & Medicine on 2025-06-27 20:02:38 UTC.

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Solar-Powered Slug Steals Chloroplasts and Stores Them for Emergency Food

A certain species of sea slug steals chloroplasts from algae and houses its contraband in special organelles that it can raid for food in times of need

in Scientific American on 2025-06-27 16:00:00 UTC.

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Meditation’s Benefits Stretch Beyond the Person Who Meditates

Often framed as a boon for personal wellness, meditation helps us connect with and support others, too

in Scientific American on 2025-06-27 13:00:00 UTC.

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New Proof Dramatically Compresses Space Needed for Computation

Surprising new work bucks 50 years of assumptions about the trade-offs between computation space and time

in Scientific American on 2025-06-27 11:00:00 UTC.

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Could the Solar System Lose a Planet to a Passing Star?

Close stellar encounters could change the structure of our planetary system, potentially dooming Earth or other worlds to oblivion

in Scientific American on 2025-06-27 10:45:00 UTC.

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Creating Bird Flu Vaccines for Humans at a Biosecure Laboratory

This San Antonio, Tex., lab takes biosecurity seriously. Suit up with its scientists and go behind the scenes of the science of vaccine creation.

in Scientific American on 2025-06-27 10:00:00 UTC.

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Schneider Shorts 27.06.2025 – Dig deeper into the credentials of those doing the critiquing

in For Better Science on 2025-06-27 05:00:00 UTC.

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Astrocytes sense neuromodulators to orchestrate neuronal activity and shape behavior

in The Transmitter on 2025-06-27 04:00:57 UTC.

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Does Using ChatGPT Really Change Your Brain Activity?

Scientists warn against reading too much into a small experiment about ChatGPT and brain activity that is receiving a lot of buzz

in Scientific American on 2025-06-26 20:45:00 UTC.

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Swedish regulators drop investigations into Chalmers’ prosthetics lab

Two Swedish agencies have closed their investigations into a high-profile research center at Chalmers University of Technology that was suspended last year for “shortcomings in the operations.” 

The Center for Bionics and Pain Research (CBPR), known for its work on restoring limb function, was scrutinized and ultimately shut down after a university investigation last April found scientists at the center conducted research without sufficient permits, had inadequate quality assurance processes and handled sensitive personal data poorly, and found “shortcomings” in legal agreements for the center’s operations. 

Now, subsequent investigations by the country’s Medical Products Agency, which regulates medical devices and clinical trials, and the Ethics Review Appeal Board have ended, with both agencies declining to pursue further action. 

“[Chalmers] found no punctual evidence of misdoing, but only what they conveniently thought could be wrong, but not factually wrong,” Max Ortiz-Catalán, the founder and former director of CBPR, wrote to Retraction Watch. “No research was conducted purposely wrong.” 

Ortiz-Catalán left the center in 2023 amid what a university representative described as “issues in his leadership.” In his email, he also criticized the university for failing to consult the researchers involved or provide an opportunity to respond during its internal review. 

But Chalmers’ senior leadership has “full confidence” in the work of the ethics committee that ran the review, and contends that the committee spoke to “a number of the researchers involved,” according to Anders Palmqvist, Chalmers’ vice president of research and sustainable development. 

Chalmers declined to comment on the Swedish agencies’ decisions and has closed its own investigation into CBPR. 

Chalmers’ initial review into the center examined 50 publications linked to Ortiz-Catalán, finding 30 ethical approvals. But the university had noted it was “generally a problem” to link the approvals to individual studies because the publications did not cite registration numbers. 

Whether the papers had appropriate ethical approval was the main focus of the subsequent investigation by the Swedish Ethics Review Appeal Board. The board brought in Kjell Asplund, a professor emeritus of medicine and a former scientific secretary of the body, to evaluate 15 publications Chalmers had reported as suspect, but in his view, hadn’t been “really scrutinized” until then, he told us in an email.

Of the nine studies that fell under Sweden’s Ethics Review Act – which requires prior approval for research that may physically or mentally affect human subjects – eight had obtained the necessary approval. But according to Asplund, the documentation of that approval was either “absent or very confusing.” In some cases, incorrect registration numbers were cited. “It seems likely that this contributed to the suspicion of fraud,” he said. 

Ortiz-Catalán said he and his colleagues published about 60 peer-reviewed articles with many ethical approvals involved. “It’s not surprising that such an amount of work can be confusing for an external person,” he told us. 

Asplund identified one “questionable” study for which no ethics approval had been obtained. Whether this was a violation of the ethics act would depend on whether the non-invasive device used in the research was intended to physically or mentally affect the participants. “I left that to the law experts,” he said. 

The Ethics Review Appeal Board ultimately concluded none of the studies in question violated ethics law. “Either the studies had ethical review approval, or such approval was not required,” the chairman, Anita Linder, told us in an email. Linder continued:

It should be noted that the Appeals Board only dealt with the issue of potential violations of the Ethical Review Act. Whether the research at the Centre violates other legislation or if there have been deviations from good research practices is not within the Appeals Board’s mandate to investigate.

Chalmers’ initial review had also located only one regulatory permit from the Swedish Medical Products Agency since CBPR was established, dated June 20, 2023. The review noted that Ortiz-Catalán and his colleagues had presented research results related to the device in question at a conference in Colombia on June 4-8, 2023 — suggesting a clinical trial had taken place ahead of the necessary approvals for the medical device. 

This became the subject of two separate investigations by the Swedish Medical Products Agency. In a decision last August, the agency found that the clinical trial had not yet begun, and the investigator in question – Ortiz-Catalán – had since left the institution. With no evidence that the trial had begun before approval, the agency chose not to investigate further. 

After that decision was made public, the agency then received more reports suggesting other potentially unauthorized clinical trials had taken place at CBPR. In a second review, the agency took a closer look at the conference presentation, ultimately finding that those results “appeared to be from another study.”

The Medical Products Agency also identified another six studies with ethical approval that had not been reported to the Medical Products Agency — despite their likely needing such review before commencing. Whether those studies had begun, or were ever completed, remained unclear, the Medical Products Agency stated. 

The Medical Products Agency ultimately wrote off the case, citing the fact CBPR had ceased operations and no new studies were under way. Representatives from the agency have not responded to requests for comment on the decision. This month, drug inspector Daniel Bjermo told a local Swedish paper the agency “was not justified to investigate the matter further as the desired effect had already been achieved.” 

When asked whether he felt the Medical Products Agency’s finding was a full vindication, Ortiz-Catalán told us: 

Again, no evidence has been ever presented that there were any violations to the law regarding medical devices. However, Chalmers and the media ran a story of systematic wrongdoing judging us before anything was proven, and not a single case was actually proven. The damage is done and those who caused it, including the media, know what they did. I need no vindication. Hundreds of people have benefited from my work… and that’s what matters to me and what I continue doing.

When we reported on this story last year, Ortiz-Catalán was working at a bionics institute in Australia. Now, he says he is doing humanitarian work in Ukraine and continues to be “engaged in research projects around the world.” 

He specifically took issue with our coverage last year because we reported on Chalmers’ findings, which he says have not been substantiated by external agencies. He said our article caused harm to his students and staff at CBPR. “Please consider the evidence instead of unsubstantiated rumors,” he wrote.

When asked, he did not explicitly deny there was any wrongdoing at the center, but said no research was conducted “purposely wrong” and that “no other academic research group in Sweden had done more to maintain compliance with the law” for medical devices. 

“Not a single case was proven so neither by Chalmers nor the national agencies who assessed the matter,” he said. “If violations have been happening systematically, there should be tons of evidence, right?”

The original investigation had also found that the center had no person in charge of compliance, and that personal data had been handled poorly. These points do not seem to have been addressed by either Swedish agency, and Ortiz-Catalán continues to maintain there’s “no evidence” for these points. 

Regarding the finding of shortcomings in legal agreements, “what are the ethical or legal violations here exactly?” he asked.  “More importantly, how does this relate to scientific misconduct? These are all empty and at best inconsequential allegations.” 

Palmqvist, Chalmers’ VP of research, told Retraction Watch the relevant agencies “have made their decisions,” and the university would not be reviewing or commenting on the decisions. Chalmers has closed its own investigation into CBPR and does not anticipate any further decisions from external authorities, he said. 

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on X or Bluesky, like us on Facebook, follow us on LinkedIn, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.

in Retraction watch on 2025-06-26 19:25:01 UTC.

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These Actions Could Make Vaccines Safer. But RFK, Jr., Isn’t Pursuing Them

Vaccines are safe, but they could always be safer—here’s what would make a difference

in Scientific American on 2025-06-26 19:00:00 UTC.

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REM sleep: what is it good for?

Could be everything, could be not much at all.

The post REM sleep: what is it good for? appeared first on Neurofrontiers.

in Neurofrontiers on 2025-06-26 18:09:39 UTC.

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A Gigantic Megacomet Is Erupting as It Zooms through the Solar System

Recent observations have revealed carbon monoxide venting from the largest comet ever seen, providing clues about its origins in the mysterious depths of the outer solar system

in Scientific American on 2025-06-26 16:15:00 UTC.

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Heat Domes Are Hotter and Lingering Longer—Because of the Arctic

A rapidly warming Arctic is driving long-lasting summer extremes, such as this month’s sweltering temperatures, new research suggests

in Scientific American on 2025-06-26 15:15:00 UTC.

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What They Don’t Tell You About Academia: Lessons from Women in Neuroscience - A Review of WiNUK Day: Minds Matter

in Women in Neuroscience UK on 2025-06-26 14:00:16 UTC.

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AI can measure our cultural history. But is it accurate?

in Science News: Psychology on 2025-06-26 13:00:00 UTC.

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Math Enthusiasts Unite to Have Rover Calculate Pi on the Moon

Later this year a tiny rover will carry out an unusual lunar task

in Scientific American on 2025-06-26 10:45:00 UTC.

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Authors correct image errors in Neuron paper that challenged microglia-to-neuron conversion

in The Transmitter on 2025-06-26 04:00:49 UTC.

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Building a climate neuroscience subfield: Q&A with Angie Michaiel

in The Transmitter on 2025-06-26 04:00:24 UTC.

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What Is Thimerosal? Why Most Vaccines Don’t Contain Mercury Anymore

Thimerosal, which contains an organic compound of mercury, has mostly been phased out as a preservative for vaccines. Here’s how we know it is safe and why we still use it in some vaccines given to adults

in Scientific American on 2025-06-25 21:30:00 UTC.

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Guest post: In defense of direct replication studies (if they even need defending)

Editor’s note: This guest post by Csaba Szabo is a response to a June 3 post by Mike Rossner on replication studies. We sent a draft to Rossner in advance; find his response below.

The recent guest post on Retraction Watch by Mike Rossner takes a peculiar view of reproducibility. Rossner sets the stage talking about the executive order on “restoring gold standard science” and a call from National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya for replication studies to determine “which NIH-funded research findings are reliable.” Then Dr. Rossner takes this position: “Conducting systematic replication studies of pre-clinical research is neither an effective nor an efficient strategy to achieve the objective of identifying reliable research.” 

If systematic in the above statement means “universal,” then, of course, that is impossible, considering the millions of preclinical papers published every year. If, however, systematic means choosing which studies to replicate and then replicating them, then, this is, indeed possible. And this is exactly what Bhattacharya’s statement calls for: “identification of key scientific claims” that require replication. As explained below, this approach can, indeed, work in an effective and efficient manner, especially if it primarily focuses on new manuscript submissions.

Let’s also remind ourselves: The reproducibility crisis is not a novel concept. In his famous “Roadmap” published in 2014, then-NIH Director Francis Collins laid it out plainly: 

Preclinical research, especially work that uses animal models, seems to be the area that is currently most susceptible to reproducibility issues. …. Some irreproducible reports are probably the result of coincidental findings that happen to reach statistical significance, coupled with publication bias. … Still, there remains a troubling frequency of published reports that claim a significant result, but fail to be reproducible.

Nature even reported that NIH officials were “considering a requirement that independent labs validate the results of important preclinical studies as a condition of receiving grant funding.” Thus, replication studies have been frequently discussed and advocated over the last decade. And there was always some pushback, as well. But this time, it feels different to me: today’s pushback may be less about the substance of the proposals and more about political dislike of those proposing them.

Dr. Rossner underestimates how serious the reproducibility problem truly is. He begins with a “folklore number” of 50% irreproducibility, jumps to Bayer and Amgen’s infamous reports claiming 66% and 89% irreproducibility, then circles back to 50% based on a more recent study. 

The Bayer number, however, isn’t 66%; it’s much worse. Researchers at the company found that in only 7% of replication studies were the main datasets reproducible, and in just 4% was some of the data reproducible. The article says that in “~20–25% of the projects were the relevant published data completely in line with our in-house findings.” 

Meanwhile, the Errington study Dr. Rossner cites found that for the “positive findings” in original papers, 60% of them could not be reproduced. A recently completed replication study in Brazil produced a 21% rate of replication. And yet, Dr. Rossner puts the word “crisis” in scare quotes — as though the problem might not be real — and suggests irreproducibility is just part of science being a “self-correcting” enterprise. That might have flown in the 1980s, but today, it sounds outdated.

In the next part of his essay, he outlines his arguments for why replication studies — especially NIH-funded ones — are not the answer to the replication crisis. 

Argument #1: It’s Not Feasible

Dr. Rossner points out that over a million scientific articles are published annually. But again, nobody is proposing to replicate all of them. The idea is to identify high-impact, influential claims and replicate those. 

Argument #2: Who Will Select What to Replicate? 

Dr. Rossner notes that “someone who does careless work is not likely to volunteer to have it replicated.” No kidding. But that is not an argument against replication studies. That would be like arguing we shouldn’t arrest criminals because they won’t cooperate with the prosecution. 

We know that many authors resist replication. Errington’s Reproducibility Project in cancer biology and the Brazilian replication project both showed how uncooperative the original authors can be. But that’s just another reason to advocate replication, not to abandon it. That’s why I’ve proposed in my book so-called “replication supplements”: a system where submitted manuscripts to top journals would include a key finding replicated independently, blinded and randomized, by a separate laboratory. The replication would be appended to the main article. 

Journals –– perhaps starting with the big ones, Nature, Science, Cell, PNAS –– could easily adopt this any day. But, once again, there is pushback. Here are some of the objections I’ve heard so far:

• “It would delay publication.” But not necessarily — replication can be built into the project timeline.
• “It would cost too much.” But not really. A flagship paper can easily cost $500,000–$1 million. Spending $40,000–60,000 for third-party validation of a selected key experiment is reasonable.
• “There is no incentive for the replicator group.” It depends. A replicator CRO would get paid, a replicator academic group could get authorship. 
• “All journals would have to do it together.” Why? One brave journal could start and lead. 

My suggestion is that such a supplement shouldn’t be mandatory, but incentivized with guaranteed peer review. With desk rejection rates north of 90% in top journals, that alone would flip the incentive structure.

Argument #3: What Counts as Replication? 

Dr. Rossner is concerned that replication must be defined carefully, and worries that replicators might lack the technical expertise. I agree that “rerunning every assay” or checking every paper is impossible. But we can focus on some key experiments and we can start to be proactive about replication. In my view, in 90% of the papers that describe lab-based preclinical studies, one can easily identify a single, clean, replication-worthy key experiment. In some specialized fields it might be challenging to find a replicator lab. Challenging, but not impossible. But in cell biology, or preclinical pharmacology, the key experiments have standard methods and could easily be set up and used for replication. And in cases where direct replication is impractical — say, in large clinical trials — one could try an independent statistical reanalysis of the data. 

Dr. Rossner’s article’s final section offers some well-trodden alternatives to direct replication: better training, more rigorous design, reagent authentication. These are all fine, and they’ve been discussed ad nauseam, in Collins’ Roadmap and before. But experience tells us they’re not enough. He also suggests catching bad papers through image forensics. Sure — but by that point, the damage is done. At best, forensic analysis filters out a fraction of bad submissions at the editorial stage and protects some journals –– those that are willing to dig into their profits and spend extra money on fraud detection. Also, in the end, those flawed papers will simply find another journal to publish them. 

Which is why I don’t see any alternative to finally putting direct replication studies on the table. What is the use of a literature where the majority of the published studies are irreproducible? Who does that serve? How can anyone build on it? It still boggles the mind that anyone in the scientific community would take the time to argue against replication. 

• In an ideal world, scientists, as a matter of routine, would design and conduct replication studies to verify their own findings. They should be adamant that some of the funding they have should be spent on checking and replicating their data –– well before writing up the findings for publication. 
• In an ideal world, institutions would treat reproducibility as essential to their reputation. Because how could they patent and translate findings that do not stand up to validation? And which investigator would be crazy enough to go and work in an institution that is known to churn out unreproducible papers? And what founding agency would give grants to an institution with a questionable reputation? (Remember, I am still talking about ideal world here.)
• Taxpayers demand validated, translatable science. So, yes, the NIH should start spending some of its money (to be exact, the American taxpayers’ money) to replication and validation. Either by paying grantees to do it, or by conducting some of the replication and validation work internally. There is actually an entire NIH institute, called NCATS (National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences), whose scope, in an ideal world, would include this type of activity.
• In a perfect world, scientific journals, should also be adamant about making sure that the material submitted to them is validated, real, and independently repeatable. Why not, then, invest a fraction of their significant profits –– for example, Elsevier’s current profit margin is 40% –– in experimentally vetting some of the work they publish? Either during the peer review process, or even after the paper is out. And –– if the key findings do not reproduce –– they should amend or even retract the paper.

In that sense, Dr. Rossner is half-right: it shouldn’t be the NIH who is paying for replication. Better said, it shouldn’t just be the NIH: institutions and journals should chip in, too. In an ideal world, they would do all of that, on their own, in their own interest, without any outside prodding. Of course, I’m aware that we don’t live in that ideal world. But we should not lose sight of the reason –– the only reason –– why we are all doing biomedical research in the first place. If with some reallocation of funding priorities, shifting of research focus and rethinking the publication process, we can create a scientific literature that is more trustworthy, by all means, we should give it a try. 

Csaba Szabo is a professor of pharmacology at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.

Response from Mike Rossner:

I appreciate Dr. Szabo’s careful reading of my guest post. It seems that he interpreted my post as “against replication,” which was not my intention. I agree with Dr. Szabo that reproducibility is a problem and that replication is part of the solution. I apologize if that was unclear. 

I do not, however, think that a systematic, post-publication, replication program is an effective or efficient way of doing replication studies, for the very practical reasons outlined in my original post. Politics had nothing to do with that opinion. I would have opposed such a proposal from any administration. 

I do not think that my use of the term “systematic” was unclear; I referred to a selection process several times in the post, and it was thus clear that I was not referring to a “universal” effort to replicate every study post-publication. Dr. Szabo refers to selection processes in his post, but it remains unclear who decides what a “high impact, influential claim” is, or what a “key finding” is, or what a “top journal” is? More importantly, any selection process limits the number of studies replicated, so that a large percentage of published studies remain irreproducible.

Dr. Szabo tries to debunk some of the practical reasons presented in my original post, but he does not address the most critical one—timing: “people will have already spent time figuring out for themselves whatever the findings of the replication initiative later reveal.” In other words, the “organic” post-publication replication system already works in some sense, in that the work that is deemed important enough to build on already gets tested quickly by people vested in the outcome.

In my original post, I stated that I believe researchers could be motivated by various stakeholders to replicate their own studies BEFORE publication. It seems that Dr. Szabo and I agree about the importance of pre-publication replication and the role of various stakeholders in making that happen. Dr. Szabo argues, however, that publishers make so much money that they should pay for replication studies. That’s just not going to happen at any significant scale. It took 20 years to get the large commercial publishers to begin to pay for image screening pre-publication, which has an obvious financial benefit to them of avoiding costly investigations if issues are raised post-publication. There is no obvious financial burden to a publisher if a study cannot be replicated post-publication, because that is not necessarily grounds for an investigation.

Once again, I appreciate Dr. Szabo’s attention to this important topic. There are a lot of issues to consider before taxpayers start spending billions of dollars on post-publication replication studies.

— Mike Rossner

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