Planet Neuroscientists

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Einstein’s gravity endures despite a dark energy puzzle 

in Science News on 2024-11-20 01:00:00 UTC.

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Vaccines, fluoride, raw milk: How RFK Jr.’s views may shape public health

in Science News on 2024-11-19 18:00:00 UTC.

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Nature’s first fiber optics could light the way to internet innovation

in Science News on 2024-11-19 16:00:00 UTC.

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You Can Now Buy Lab-Grown Foie Gras

in WIRED Science on 2024-11-19 14:30:00 UTC.

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Youth tobacco use has gone down, but the work isn’t over

in Science News on 2024-11-19 14:00:00 UTC.

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Cancer specialist faked data in at least ten papers, VA and UCLA find

A multiple myeloma specialist “recklessly“ falsified data in at least 10 published articles, according to a joint investigation by the University of California, Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. 

The institutions found Alan Lichtenstein, a former staff physician at the VA, committed research misconduct by reusing images “to falsely represent the results” related to 26 pairs of experiments, according to a notice published in the Federal Register. 

At least one of the sets of images in each of the pairs “is inaccurate,” the notice stated. The institutions found Lichtenstein had falsified data in “at least ten” of the 13 articles in which the images appeared, perhaps because the investigators could not determine which images, if any, were original. 

Lichtenstein has received more than $10 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health, and was also previously a professor of medicine in residence at UCLA Medical School, according to an online biosketch. He did not respond to our request for comment sent to his VA email address, which did not bounce. 

The VA banned Lichtenstein from conducting research for the department for at least two years, and called for notifying the journals where the tainted articles appeared of the misconduct findings. 

Lichtenstein did not appeal the findings or corrective actions, according to the Federal Register notice. 

The reused images appeared in the following 13 published papers dating back to 2003, three of which have been retracted:

• “Cytotoxic properties of a DEPTOR-mTOR inhibitor in multiple myeloma cells,”Cancer Research, 2016 (20 citations, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science)
• “DEPTOR is linked to a TORC1-p21 survival proliferation pathway in multiple myeloma,” Genes & Cancer, 2014 (not indexed in Web of Science)
• “Interleukin-6 activates phosphoinositol-3 kinase in multiple myeloma tumor cells by signaling through RAS-dependent and, separately, through p85-dependent pathways,” Oncogene, 2004 (46 citations)
• “MNK1-induced eIF-4E phosphorylation in myeloma cells: a pathway mediating IL-6-induced expansion and expression of genes involved in metabolic and proteotoxic responses,” PLoS One, 2014 (10 citations; none after the 2023 retraction)
• “Mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitors activate the AKT kinase in multiple myeloma cells by up-regulating the insulin-like growth factor receptor/insulin receptor substrate-1/phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase cascade,” Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, 2005 (287 citations)
• “Inhibition of SAPK2/p38 enhances sensitivity to mTORC1 inhibition by blocking IRES-mediated translation initiation in glioblastoma,” Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, 2011 (18 citations)
• “Specific blockade of Rictor-mTOR association inhibits mTORC2 activity and is cytotoxic in glioblastoma,” PLoS One, 2017 (63 citations; 54 after a 2019 correction, 8 after a 2023 retraction) 
• “MNK kinases facilitate c-myc IRES activity in rapamycin-treated multiple myeloma,” Oncogene, 2013 (21 citations; 2 after the 2023 expression of concern) 
• “The PP242 mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitor activates extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) in multiple myeloma cells via a target of rapamycin complex 1 (TORC1)/eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E (eIF-4E)/RAF pathway and activation is a mechanism of resistance,” Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2012 (66 citations)
• “Therapeutic potential of targeting IRES-dependent c-myc translation in multiple myeloma cells during ER stress,” Oncogene, 2016 (58 citations; three after the 2023 retraction) 
• “SGK kinase activity in multiple myeloma cells protects against ER stress apoptosis via a SEK-dependent mechanism,” Molecular Cancer Research, 2016 (10 citations)
• “A novel therapeutic induces DEPTOR degradation in multiple myeloma cells with resulting tumor cytotoxicity,” Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, 2019 (7 citations)
• “Downstream effectors of oncogenic ras in multiple myeloma cells,” Blood, 2003 (116 citations)

PubPeer users posted comments identifying similarities between images in a few of Lichtenstein’s papers beginning in April 2020. 

Three years later, in April of 2023, scientific sleuth Kevin Patrick found similarities in images in another paper, which he reported on PubPeer, as well as to the journal, the VA, and UCLA.  He went on to identify many more similarities in additional papers. 

Given the scale of the findings, “if the only penalty was a 2 year suspension, this does not sound severe enough to serve as a deterrent for people considering bad research practices,“ Patrick said. 

Three papers have been retracted so far, but Patrick thinks other concerns that he flagged are ”hard to explain as an accident” and ”should probably lead the journals to retract the paper.” As an example, he cited the 2012 Journal of Biological Chemistry paper in the VA’s findings. 

The pair of retractions in PLOS ONE both appeared on Sept. 8, 2023, and list image similarities identified on PubPeer. The authors could not provide original data for either article, the notices state, so the editors decided to retract the articles. Lichtenstein was one of the authors who “either did not respond directly or could not be reached,” the notices stated, despite being the corresponding author of one of the papers. 

The retraction notice to the 2016 Oncogene article, dated Aug. 31, 2023, lists all the concerns called out on PubPeer a few months prior, even using some of the same language. The authors were unable to provide raw data, according to the notice, and the journal’s editors “no longer have confidence in the integrity of the data in this article.” Lichtenstein did not respond to correspondence about the retraction, the notice stated.

A press release from UCLA on the publication of the 2016 Oncogene article claimed the scientists had discovered a “first-of-its-kind experimental treatment” for multiple myeloma. The release quoted Lichtenstein: “Though this research is only in the preliminary phases, we hope that it will eventually lead to human clinical trials and the development of new treatments for this devastating disease.”

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, 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 2024-11-19 13:00:00 UTC.

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An ensemble learning algorithm for optimization of spark ignition engine performance fuelled with methane/hydrogen blends

On this week's Journal Club session, Mohammad Tayaraninajaran will talk about his paper "An ensemble learning algorithm for optimization of spark ignition engine performance fuelled with methane/hydrogen blends".

The increasing global demand for sustainable and cleaner transportation has led to extensive research on alternative fuels for Internal Combustion (IC) engines. One promising option is the utilization of methane/hydrogen blends in Spark-Ignition (SI) engines due to their potential to reduce Green House Gas (GHG) emissions and improve engine performance. However, the optimal operation of such an engine is challenging due to the interdependence of multiple conflicting objectives, including Brake Mean Effective Pressure (BMEP), Brake Specific Fuel Consumption (BSFC), and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions. This paper proposes an evolutionary optimization algorithm that employs a surrogate model as a fitness function to optimize methane/hydrogen SI engine performance and emissions. To create the surrogate model, we propose a novel ensemble learning algorithm that consists of several base learners. This paper employs ten different learning algorithms diversified via the Wagging method to create a pool of base-learner algorithms. This paper proposes a combinatorial evolutionary pruning algorithm to select an optimal subset of learning algorithms from a pool of base learners for the final ensemble algorithm. Once the base learners are designed, they are incorporated into an ensemble, where their outputs are aggregated using a weighted voting scheme. The weights of these base learners are optimized through a gradient descent algorithm. However, when optimizing a problem using surrogate models, the fitness function is subject to approximation uncertainty. To address this issue, this paper introduces an uncertainty reduction algorithm that performs averaging within a sphere around each solution. Experiments are performed to compare the proposed ensemble learning algorithm to the classical learning algorithms and state-of-the-art ensemble algorithms. Also, the proposed smoothing algorithm is compared with the state-of-the-art evolutionary algorithms. Experimental studies suggest that the proposed algorithms outperform the existing algorithms.

Papers:

• M. Tayarani-N., A. Paykani, "An ensemble learning algorithm for optimization of spark ignition engine performance fuelled with methane/hydrogen blends", 2024, Applied Soft Computing, 112468

Date: 2024/11/22
Time: 14:00
Location: SP4024A & online

in UH Biocomputation group on 2024-11-19 12:41:37 UTC.

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Egyptian Toxicology Mortal Combat

in For Better Science on 2024-11-19 06:00:00 UTC.

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Keeping weight off may be stymied by fat cells’ ‘memory’ of obesity

in Science News on 2024-11-18 16:00:00 UTC.

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Some people don’t have a mind’s eye. Scientists want to know why

in Science News on 2024-11-18 14:00:00 UTC.

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Wiley corrects retraction notices for ‘inaccurate’ description of why articles were pulled

The Journal of Biochemical and Molecular Toxicology, a Wiley title, has corrected a pair of retraction notices in which “the reasons for the retraction were described inaccurately,” according to the corrections. The original notices also did not include “the authors’ disapproval of the retraction.” 

The retracted articles, “The cardioprotective effects of a combination of quercetin and α-tocopherol on isoproterenol-induced myocardial infarcted rats,” and “Protective effects of caffeic acid on lactate dehydrogenase isoenzymes, electrocardiogram, adenosine triphosphatases, and hematology on isoproterenol-induced myocardial infarcted rats,” both appeared in the same journal in 2011, but in different issues. They have been cited 35 times, collectively, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

In 2020, Elisabeth Bik posted about the papers on PubPeer, pointing out figures in the articles, which have the same corresponding author, were “unexpectedly similar” to each other. “Note that the lanes represent very different experiments,” she wrote. 

The authors do not appear to have responded to Bik on PubPeer. The corresponding author, P. Stanely Mainzen Prince of Annamalai University in India, has not responded to our request for comment. 

The journal published nearly identical retraction notices in September, and corrections a month later. The corrections stated: 

In the previously published retraction note, the reasons for the retraction were described inaccurately, and the authors’ disapproval of the retraction was not reflected. This has now been addressed and corrected below.

The retraction has been agreed following an investigation into concerns raised by a third party, which revealed that some of the bands presented in the agarose gel electrophoresis in Figure 2 have been published in another article by one of the same authors. The gels in the two articles represent different experiments. The authors did not provide a satisfactory explanation or their original data. The editors consider the results and conclusion reported in this article unreliable. The authors disagree with the retraction.

We apologize for this error.

An anonymous user on PubPeer recorded the text of the original notice, which called the images in the offending figures Western blots. The captions of the figures described the images as depicting agarose gel electrophoresis, a step in making a Western blot. 

Hari K. Bhat, the journal’s editor in chief, referred our questions to Wiley staffers. We received the following response from a spokesperson for the publisher: 

We regret that we made an error in the retraction statement when referencing a gel electrophoresis, which we quickly corrected. As is our standard procedure, we provided the authors with advanced notice of the retraction statement, but did not receive a response until after the retraction was published.

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, 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 2024-11-18 13:00:00 UTC.

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Next Open NeuroFedora meeting: 02 December 1300 UTC

Photo by William White on Unsplash.

Please join us at the next regular Open NeuroFedora team meeting on Monday 02 December at 1300 UTC. The meeting is a public meeting, and open for everyone to attend. You can join us in the Fedora meeting channel on chat.fedoraproject.org (our Matrix instance). Note that you can also access this channel from other Matrix home severs, so you do not have to create a Fedora account just to attend the meeting.

You can use this link to convert the meeting time to your local time. Or, you can also use this command in the terminal:

$ date -d 'Monday, December 02, 2024 13:00 UTC'

The meeting will be chaired by @ankursinha. The agenda for the meeting is:

• New introductions and roll call.
• Tasks from last meeting.
• Open Pagure tickets.
• Package health check.
• Open package reviews check.
• CompNeuro lab compose status check for Fedora 41/rawhide.
• Neuroscience query of the week
• Next meeting day, and chair.
• Open floor.

We hope to see you there!

in NeuroFedora blog on 2024-11-18 09:56:35 UTC.

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Next Open NeuroFedora meeting: 18 November 1300 UTC

Photo by William White on Unsplash.

Please join us at the next regular Open NeuroFedora team meeting on Monday 18 November at 1300 UTC. The meeting is a public meeting, and open for everyone to attend. You can join us in the Fedora meeting channel on chat.fedoraproject.org (our Matrix instance). Note that you can also access this channel from other Matrix home severs, so you do not have to create a Fedora account just to attend the meeting.

You can use this link to convert the meeting time to your local time. Or, you can also use this command in the terminal:

$ date -d 'Monday, November 18, 2024 13:00 UTC'

The meeting will be chaired by @ankursinha. The agenda for the meeting is:

• New introductions and roll call.
• Tasks from last meeting.
• Open Pagure tickets.
• Package health check.
• Open package reviews check.
• CompNeuro lab compose status check for Fedora 41/rawhide.
• Neuroscience query of the week
• Next meeting day, and chair.
• Open floor.

We hope to see you there!

in NeuroFedora blog on 2024-11-18 09:54:44 UTC.

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Scientists Establish the Best Algorithm for Traversing a Map

in WIRED Science on 2024-11-17 12:00:00 UTC.

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These Rats Learned to Drive—and They Love It

in WIRED Science on 2024-11-16 13:00:00 UTC.

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Readers ask about self-correcting quantum computers, oobleck’s experimental value

in Science News on 2024-11-16 12:00:00 UTC.

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50 years on, Lucy still sparks our curiosity

in Science News on 2024-11-16 12:00:00 UTC.

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Weekend reads: RFK Jr’s 2011 retraction; ‘the great AI witch hunt’; scientific misconduct in Switzerland

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• ‘All the red flags’: Scientific Reports retracts paper sleuths called out in open letter
• Retraction Watch is hiring! Two journalism jobs available
• eLife won’t get an impact factor, says Clarivate
• Engineering publisher pulled 57 papers in a day for peer review ‘irregularities’

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 50,000 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):

• When Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. appeared on Retraction Watch back in 2011.
• “The great AI witch hunt: Reviewers’ perception and (Mis)conception of generative AI in research writing.”
• As “Switzerland establishes center for scientific integrity,” their research is “not immune to the growing phenomenon of withdrawals of scientific articles.”
• Australian “Medical council’s oversight of grant funds ‘inadequate.’”
• “Green Open Access – Free for Authors But at a Cost for Readers.”
• “Can AI review the scientific literature — and figure out what it all means?”
• “Diversity in academic publishing: we still have a lot to do.”
• “Scholarly Publishing World Slow to Embrace Generative AI.”
• “You could say that I am an accidental infrastructure provider.” More about Anita Bandrowski.
• “Public prosecutor files charges in Dresden research affair” after allegations of fraud. 
• Withdrawn “Preprint on Alzheimer’s drug deaths ignites dispute among authors” who say data “don’t support the paper’s claims.”
• “Science communication will benefit from research integrity standards.”
• “Embed ethics in research publications, editors say.”
• “When claims about science become edutainment, science loses.”
• University “investigates alleged plagiarism involving history lecturers.”
• University revokes “Professor’s PhD Over Plagiarism Allegations, Sparking Accusations of Bias.”
• “Students file lawsuit against Polish ‘diploma mill’ university,” Collegium Humanum.
• The analogy of “Bad science as genre fiction”: a blog post from Andrew Gelman. 
• “How to Use Generative AI Responsibly in Scientific Research” from NAS president.
• “The research literature is an unsafe workplace,” researchers say.
• Should acts of research misconduct be labeled “felonies” and questionable research practices “misdemeanours?”
• “Perceptions of Research Misconduct Among Lecturers and Students in Vietnam.”
• “The end of an era for science article metrics?”
• “Is global scientific production overheating, at risk of no longer being sustainable?”
• “Will Chinese scientists make or break the uprising in academic peer-review publishing?”
• “Two scholarly publishing cultures? Open access drives a divergence in European academic publishing practices.”
• “Scholarly Metadata as Trust Signals: Opportunities for Journal Editors.”
• Swiss funder says banning animal testing would “massively restrict basic biological and environmental research.”
• “Justice delayed is justice denied for early career plagiarism victims,” says university professor.
• “University committee flags plagiarism in selection process” for college principal. 
• A key paper in the Eliezer Masliah saga, used to support drug development, has now been retracted.
• “Preprints at a crossroads – Are we compromising openness for credibility?”
• “But what happens when those niche journals cannibalize each other and fight for prominence—when one journal emerges as the de facto flagship journal, and your research community begins to see the others as second string?”

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, 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 2024-11-16 10:59:02 UTC.

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Engineering publisher pulled 57 papers in a day for peer review ‘irregularities’

The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers retracted 57 articles on October 1 for inadequate peer review, according to the publisher. 

The papers appeared in the journal IEEE Access between July and September of 2020. The journal is open-access, with a current article processing charge of $1,995. It appears to have published more than 10,000 articles so far this year. 

The notices retracting each article were identical, and stated: 

After careful and considered review by a duly constituted expert committee, this article was retracted owing to irregularities in the peer review process, including acceptance for publication without the minimum number of independent reviews required by IEEE.

The authors were contacted about the retraction and did not dispute it.

Guillaume Cabanac, a computer scientist and sleuth, has raised concerns for years about questionable articles in the journal flagged with his Problematic Paper Screener. In 2022, he tweeted about 51 flagged papers in the journal, which became 72 in 2023 and 117 last month.  He also posted on PubPeer about the findings, including references to retracted or questionable articles and the use of tortured phrases such as “profound learning” for “deep learning.” 

We asked the journal how the problems with the articles came to light, if any more retractions were in the works, and if it had made any changes to its processes. Monika M. Stickel, spokesperson for the institute, responded: 

IEEE is committed to taking all necessary measures to ensure the integrity of the scholarly record and is dedicated to publishing the highest quality technical results. We believe our preventive measures and efforts identify almost all papers submitted to us that do not meet our standards. We act accordingly when we become aware of possible issues with content, take the appropriate level of care and time in our review, and, if necessary, retract nonconforming publications.  IEEE consistently looks to improve our processes based on industry best practices, and we use tools that we know improve quality and integrity.  These tools become part of our processes as appropriate.  

IEEE Access has also issued about 40 corrections this month removing retracted articles from papers’ reference lists. 

In other journals, IEEE publishes conference proceedings Cabanac and other sleuths have said may have “systemic issues” with peer review. In previous waves of mass retractions, the publisher has pulled more than 7,000 conference abstracts over a decade, 400 papers from a conference in China, and dozens more from another journal and conference. ‘

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, 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 2024-11-15 19:57:20 UTC.

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Standing Desks Are Better for Your Health—but Still Not Enough

in WIRED Science on 2024-11-15 19:29:07 UTC.

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What Lee Zeldin’s Nomination Means for the EPA

in WIRED Science on 2024-11-15 19:05:33 UTC.

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The world’s largest coral was discovered in the South Pacific

in Science News on 2024-11-15 16:00:00 UTC.

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50 years ago, U.S. drinking water sparked health and safety concerns

in Science News on 2024-11-15 14:00:00 UTC.

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How to Design a Real-Life Hot Wheels Loop

in WIRED Science on 2024-11-15 11:30:00 UTC.

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The First Crispr Treatment Is Making Its Way to Patients

in WIRED Science on 2024-11-15 10:30:00 UTC.

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A first look at rocks from the lunar farside create a volcanic mystery

in Science News on 2024-11-15 10:00:00 UTC.

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Schneider Shorts 15.11.2024 – Not a clinical research article with new data

in For Better Science on 2024-11-15 06:00:00 UTC.

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Episode 298 - Claudo Punzo, PhD

On November 14, 2024 we spoke with Claudio Punzo on the metabolic interdependence of the retinal pigment epithelium and the photoreceptors of the retina, and its implications for the degenerative process in macular degeneration

Guest:

Claudio Punzo, Associate Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School

Participating:

Erika Tatiana Camacho, Departments of Mathematics and Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

in Neuroscientists talk shop on 2024-11-14 23:00:00 UTC.

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22 pesticides show links to prostate cancer

in Science News on 2024-11-14 16:00:00 UTC.

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Stray DNA is all around us. It could revolutionize conservation

in Science News on 2024-11-14 14:00:00 UTC.

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Scientists Have Pushed the Schrödinger’s Cat Paradox to New Limits

in WIRED Science on 2024-11-13 21:42:06 UTC.

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eLife won’t get an impact factor, says Clarivate

Clarivate, the data company for scholarly publications, has decided to continue indexing some content from eLife in Web of Science, after reevaluating the open-access biology journal’s unusual practice of publishing articles without accepting or rejecting them. The journal will not receive an Impact Factor.

Last month, Clarivate paused indexing new content from eLife, citing a policy on “Coverage of journals/platforms in which publication is decoupled from validation by peer review.”  

eLife last year adopted a new model in which it publishes every manuscript its editors send out for review, along with the text of the reviews and an editor’s assessment of the significance of the findings in the paper and the strength of the evidence presented. The editorial assessments of the paper can be “exceptional,” “compelling,” “convincing,” “solid,” “incomplete,” or “inadequate.” 

As a spokesperson for Clarivate previously told Retraction Watch for our story about the reevaluation: 

Continuing cover-to-cover indexing of eLife would mean indexing content that is ‘Incomplete’ or ‘Inadequate’ and risks allowing untrustworthy actors to benefit from publishing poor quality content, and conflicts with our standard policy to reject/remove journals that fail to put effective measures in place to prevent the publication of compromised content. 

The spokesperson at the time suggested Clarivate might index some eLife papers but not others, which is what the company has now said it will do. 

If eLife provides a feed of articles that excludes any deemed “incomplete” or “inadequate,” Clarivate will continue indexing the rest, a spokesperson for the data company told us. The spokesperson said: 

We have found the cohort of content considered to have been ‘validated by peer review’ passes our 24 quality criteria. Therefore, we can continue to cover eLife in the Web of Science Core Collection. As per our policy, eLife will be partially indexed in ESCI, subject to the provision of the appropriate feed.  

As partially indexed journals are not eligible to receive a JIF [Journal Impact Factor] or any other journal-level citation metric, eLife will not receive a JIF in next year’s JCR release.  

A spokesperson for eLife told us the journal  learned of Clarivate’s decision Tuesday and had not yet responded to the company’s letter. 

In a statement about the reevaluation posted to its website last month, eLife said it “never wanted” an Impact Factor, which “says little about the quality of any individual research article.”

However, Damian Pattinson, eLife’s executive director, previously told us the journal understands the value of indexing and its importance for authors. eLife had been discussing its model with Clarivate for a while, he said at the time of the reevaluation, and would talk with its partners and funders about how to move forward.

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, 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 2024-11-13 20:26:30 UTC.

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Researchers seek, and find, a magical illusion for the ears

in Science News on 2024-11-13 19:27:21 UTC.

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Lizard spit can help detect a rare pancreatic tumor

in Science News on 2024-11-13 18:00:00 UTC.

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Fossil teeth hint at a surprisingly early start to humans’ long childhoods

in Science News on 2024-11-13 16:00:00 UTC.

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Researchers Give Animal Cells the Ability to Photosynthesize for the First Time

in WIRED Science on 2024-11-13 14:45:40 UTC.

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How does a fossil become a superstar? Just ask Lucy.

in Science News on 2024-11-13 14:00:00 UTC.

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Bone Marrow Donors Can Be Hard to Find. One Company Is Turning to Cadavers

in WIRED Science on 2024-11-13 11:30:00 UTC.

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Jan and Ricky, two blind mouse ophthalmologists

in For Better Science on 2024-11-13 06:00:00 UTC.

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Retraction Watch is hiring! Two journalism jobs available

Thanks to generous support from the WoodNext Foundation and ongoing support from individual donors, as well as revenue from journalism partnerships and speaking fees, Retraction Watch is hiring for two roles: managing editor and staff reporter. If you’re interested in accountability science journalism with impact that drives the conversation around scientific integrity and is frequently picked up by local, national and international news outlets, these roles are for you.

The managing editor will:

• write one to two stories per week
• assign and edit stories by the staff reporter and freelancers
• post stories to our WordPress platform
• pitch, report and write stories for partner news outlets

Salary: $75,000-$90,000 per year, depending on experience

The staff reporter will:

• write two to three stories per week
• pitch, report and write stories for partner news outlets
• be responsible for the RW Daily and the Retraction Watch Weekly

Salary: $55,000-$65,000 per year, depending on experience

Retraction Watch is a fully remote workplace, and both of these roles can be based anywhere in the world, as long as successful candidates can commit to at least four hours per day of overlap with US East Coast working hours. Both employees will work closely with editorial director Adam Marcus and executive director Ivan Oransky, as well as collaborate with research director Alison Abritis.

We do not offer health insurance but U.S. employees are eligible for a 401(k) with a generous match. We also offer paid vacation time and unlimited sick time. These are two-year positions, with the intention to renew based on budget availability.

Interested? Please send a cover letter, resume and select clips to team@retractionwatch.com.

in Retraction watch on 2024-11-12 21:32:52 UTC.

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The virus behind an outbreak in Brazil can spread from mother to fetus

in Science News on 2024-11-12 18:00:52 UTC.

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Accelerated muons bring next-gen particle colliders closer to reality

in Science News on 2024-11-12 16:00:00 UTC.

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A twisted protein sheds light on chronic wasting disease in deer

in Science News on 2024-11-12 14:00:00 UTC.

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The Real Problem With Banning Masks at Protests

in WIRED Science on 2024-11-12 11:00:00 UTC.

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‘All the red flags’: Scientific Reports retracts paper sleuths called out in open letter

Scientific Reports, a Springer Nature title, has retracted an article a group of sleuths described as “a kind of case study of all the red flags for fraud that we look for” in an open letter to the publisher’s head of research integrity. 

The article, “Hybrid CNN-LSTM model with efficient hyperparameter tuning for prediction of Parkinson’s disease,” appeared in September 2023. It has been cited 11 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.  

In December 2023, a PubPeer user commented on 13 tortured phrases the Problematic Paper Screener had flagged in the article, such as the use of “Parkinson’s illness,” “Parkinson’s infection,” and “Parkinson’s sickness” rather than Parkinson’s disease. 

“These typically result from an attempt to avoid plagiarism detection using a paraphrasing software,” the commenter wrote about the phases. “How come these incorrect wordings survived proofreading by the coauthors, editors, referees, copy editors, and typesetters?” 

An “author correction” to the article appeared the following April, stating “several non-standard terms” had been “replaced with established scientific terminology,” including all of the incorrect references to “Parkinson’s disease.” The correction listed eight sections with updated wording for other phrases. 

The original article also incorrectly identified the software the authors used in their analysis as python rather than SPSS, according to the correction, and five sentences were updated. 

In an August comment on the correction, the original PubPeer commenter wrote: 

Astonished that these tortured phrases and other issues got through peer review. Astonished that a correction was accepted. Astonished that some tortured phrases are still there, e.g., 10-overlay instead of 10-fold.

The correction was “outrageous,” Guillaume Cabanac, a computer scientist and sleuth who developed the Problematic Paper Screener, posted on X October 9: 

That same day, the journal added an editor’s note to the article, which stated it was under investigation, stating: “Appropriate editorial action will be taken once the investigation has concluded.” 

Meanwhile, multiple sleuths added comments to the PubPeer pages for the article and its correction, pointing out more issues. 

On October 16, sleuth Dorothy Bishop posted “An open letter regarding Scientific Reports” on her blog, addressed to Chris Graf, Springer Nature’s director of research integrity. In it, she and 22 other “sleuths and forensic meta-scientists” wrote they were “concerned that Springer Nature is failing in its duty to protect the scientific literature from fraudulent and low quality work” due to problems with Scientific Reports. 

The corrected article was “a striking example” of the sometimes “inadequate” response of the journal editor or integrity team to concerns the sleuths have raised, they wrote: 

As is evident from comments on PubPeer, it turned out to be a kind of case study of all the red flags for fraud that we look for. As well as (still uncorrected) tortured phrases, it contained irrelevant content, irrelevant citations, meaningless gibberish, a nonsensical figure, and material recycled from other publications.

This is perhaps the most flagrant example, but we argue that it indicates problems with your editorial processes that are not going to be fixed by AI. 

The sleuths concluded with their recommendations for addressing the issues they raised, including “an urgent audit of all editors” for Scientific Reports. 

On November 7, the editors retracted the offending article “due to concerns regarding the validity and veracity of the work presented,” with a list of six issues sleuths had posted on PubPeer. The authors “have not responded to correspondence from the Editors about this retraction,” according to the notice. Corresponding author Pugazhenthan Thangaraju of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Raipur, did not respond to our request for comment. 

Rafal Marszalek, chief editor of Scientific Reports, told Retraction Watch in a statement: 

The paper was already under investigation prior to the publication of the letter. After carefully considering the facts of the matter, we concluded that retracting the paper was the appropriate editorial action to take.

Three Springer Nature journals, Soft Computing, Optical and Quantum Electronics, and Environmental Science and Pollution Research, have been retracting articles en masse beginning last year, approaching 900 combined. 

As we reported previously, the publisher listed paper mills as a significant threat to its business in paperwork for its October initial public offering. The company identified “a significant number” of articles published in its journals that came from paper mills, and stated: 

These investigations continue and could result in many retractions, which could negatively impact our reputation.

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, 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 2024-11-11 21:03:49 UTC.

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COP29 Begins With Climate Finance, Absent Leaders, and Trump Looming Large

in WIRED Science on 2024-11-11 20:03:33 UTC.

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The US Has a Cloned Sheep Contraband Problem

in WIRED Science on 2024-11-11 12:00:00 UTC.

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The Pestilence of Pestell

in For Better Science on 2024-11-11 06:00:00 UTC.

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Microplastics Could Be Making the Weather Worse

in WIRED Science on 2024-11-10 13:00:00 UTC.

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The Incredible Power of Quantum Memory

in WIRED Science on 2024-11-10 12:00:00 UTC.