Planet Neuroscientists

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Not a single molecule

in For Better Science on 2025-11-03 06:00:22 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Neuroscience needs engineers—for more reasons than you think

in The Transmitter on 2025-11-03 05:00:27 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Orcas Repeatedly Attack Young Great White Sharks, Drone Footage Reveals

An orca pod has been spotted for the first time repeatedly targeting and flipping young great white sharks onto their backs to paralyze and dismember them

in Scientific American on 2025-11-03 04:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Former Australian science agency ecology researcher loses two papers

A molecular ecology researcher has lost two papers and received an expression of concern for a third after coauthors flagged data issues with the papers. 

All three papers appeared in Molecular Ecology Resources and describe the use of DNA methylation as an epigenetic clock to predict the age of different animals. The journal retracted two of the studies in July. The first, published in June 2021, estimated ages for three threatened fish species. The second appeared in April 2022 and proposes a clock for predicting the age of sea turtles. The articles have been cited 41 and 32 times, respectively, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

The lead author on those two studies was Benjamin Mayne, formerly a researcher at Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), based in Canberra. 

Ben Creagh, an executive manager at CSIRO, told us Mayne is no longer with the organization. CSIRO “is aware of potential issues relating to certain epigenetic aging technologies and is undertaking further inquiries into this matter,” Creagh added.

According to both retraction notices, coauthor Simon Jarman, a researcher at Curtin University in Perth, alerted the journal to results in a figure which “are inaccurate and do not represent a real relationship between age and DNA methylation.” Mayne agreed to both retractions, the notices say. 

A third paper in Molecular Ecology Resources with Mayne as a coauthor received an expression of concern on October 16. The July 2024 study, which has been cited three times, describes a technique for estimating the age of seabirds. 

The notice says lead author Lauren Roman raised concerns “regarding potential inaccuracies in the data presented in the article” which “suggest the study may not be reproducible.” Roman is an affiliate of CSIRO and is a fellow at the University of Tasmania in Hobart. She acknowledged our email but declined to comment further. 

The notice also says the “institution is currently investigating the matter,” but Wiley, which publishes the journal, did not confirm which institution the notice refers to. 

Creagh of CSIRO did not confirm whether the “further inquiries” included the expression of concern. 

In July 2024 on LinkedIn and X, the South Australian Genomics Centre in Adelaide announced Mayne as the senior genomics research coordinator at its Flinders University center. Sen Wang, a manager at the center, told us Mayne left his position in January of this year. We have not been able to confirm his current affiliation. An email we sent to Mayne’s CSIRO email address bounced back. 

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 2025-11-02 23:37:21 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Can AI Music Ever Feel Human? The Answer Goes beyond the Sound

A personal experiment with the artificial intelligence music platform Suno’s latest model echoes a new preprint study. Most listeners can’t tell AI music from the real thing, but emotional resonance still demands a human story

in Scientific American on 2025-11-02 10:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

COVID During Pregnancy May Raise Autism Risk, Study Suggests

A new study adds to the evidence that viral infections during pregnancy might contribute to a child’s likelihood of having autism

in Scientific American on 2025-11-01 14:35:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

The End of the International Space Station Will Begin a New Era of Commercial Outposts

Humans have been in space onboard the ISS continuously for 25 years. As the station nears its end, new commercial habitats are lining up to take its place

in Scientific American on 2025-11-01 12:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

How Childhood Relationships Affect Your Adult Attachment Style, according to Large New Study

A large new study reveals how early relationships with parents and friends influence how we relate to those closest to us in adulthood

in Scientific American on 2025-11-01 11:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Weekend reads: Another CDC journal in trouble; Web of Science company endorses Iraq awards; on the scarcity of peer reviewers

Dear RW readers, can you spare $25?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Embattled journal Cureus delisted from Web of Science, loses impact factor
• ‘A new low’: Researchers at Iraqi university must cite colleagues, school journals in papers
• Challenge accepted: A reader wrote a program to find fake references in books
• Widespread image reuse, manipulation uncovered in animal studies of brain injury
• Exclusive: Web of Science company involved in dubious awards in Iraq

Did you know that Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are  projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity?  Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.   

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

• The future of the CDC journal Preventing Chronic Disease “in limbo” after most of the staff is let go. 
• “When Reviewer Scarcity Becomes a Reason for Rejection, Scientific Integrity Is at Risk.”
• “Academic journals have a fraud problem”: A conversation with Elisabeth Bik.
• “Justice Department unexpectedly drops fraud case against Alzheimer’s scientist.”
• “A Journal Promised to Retract a Flawed Autism Study. It’s Still Online.”
• The latest retraction for neurology researcher brings his total to nine. Read our 2023 story about him.
• A researcher who tried to get a case of microRNA annotation corrected in 2022 makes the case for “rigorous” standards.
• “First Pan-African neuroscience journal gets ready to launch.”
• “Fraud is no longer a series of isolated ethical lapses but a business model that exploits vulnerable points in the research economy.” A response to a study of widespread research fraud; the authors respond.
• “Who should control open access, the markets or the commons?”
• “A review of annual statements on research integrity from UK institutions in 2023-4, with a focus on research fraud.”
• “What is it about humans that leads to the urge to censor and punish and silence people for their opinions?” Steven Pinker on academic ‘cancel culture.’
• “How the Proliferation of Fraudulent Scientific Papers Is Threatening the Integrity of Cancer Research.”
• “Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Concerns From JAMA Network Peer Reviewers.”
• “China’s Historic Rise to the Top of the Scientific Ladder”— “How did we get here?”
• “Google Scholar tool gives extra credit to first and last authors.”
• “Problems with eLife’s new article type: Replication studies.”
• “Why I no longer engage with Nature publishing group”: Researcher responds after being asked to review a manuscript. 
• “A Difference of Opinion Editors: Interrogating the ethics of self-plagiarism in academia.”
• “The Unseen Co-Author: How Generative AI Is Reshaping Academic Integrity And Supervision In Pakistan.”
• New offers from “big five” publishers “‘still too costly’ for UK universities.”
• Nearly all surveyed medical and Ph.D. students in Ukraine used AI for academic purposes, some for academic dishonesty, study found.
• “AI hallucinates because it’s trained to fake answers it doesn’t know.”
• “Open Reviews is a good first step. Pseudo-Anonymous Reviews can take it further”: An opinion piece and its peer reviews.
• “The long wait: unpacking the causes behind peer review delays.”
• “Academic Publishing Keeps Getting More Expensive. Some Harvard Scholars Want to Make It Free.”
• “How Fanfiction Can Help Us Reimagine Scholarly Publishing.”

Upcoming talks

• “What to do next?” with our Ivan Oransky (November 18, International Research Integrity Conference, Sydney)
• “Retractions: On the Rise, But Not Enough” with our Ivan Oransky (November 19, Association for Interdisciplinary Meta-research and Open Science 2025 Conference, University of Sydney)

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 2025-11-01 10:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

A new AI technique may aid violent crime forensics

in Science News: AI on 2025-10-31 16:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Attention Authors: Updated Practice for Review Articles and Position Papers in arXiv CS Category

arXiv’s computer science (CS) category has updated its moderation practice with respect to review (or survey) articles and position papers. Before being considered for submission to arXiv’s CS category, review articles and position papers must now be accepted at a journal or a conference and complete successful peer review. When submitting review articles or position papers, authors must include documentation of successful peer review to receive full consideration. Review/survey articles or position papers submitted to arXiv without this documentation will be likely to be rejected and not appear on arXiv.

This change is being implemented due to the unmanageable influx of review articles and position papers to arXiv CS.

Is this a policy change?

Technically, no! If you take a look at arXiv’s policies for specific content types you’ll notice that review articles and position papers are not (and have never been) listed as part of the accepted content types. Review articles and position papers have, in the past, only been accepted at moderator discretion, because the few we received were of high quality and of interest to arXiv readers and the scientific community at large.

Why is the arXiv CS category making this change?

In the past few years, arXiv has been flooded with papers. Generative AI / large language models have added to this flood by making papers – especially papers not introducing new research results – fast and easy to write. While categories across arXiv have all seen a major increase in submissions, it’s particularly pronounced in arXiv’s CS category.

The goal of this change of practice is to:

• Help arXiv readers more easily find valuable review articles and position papers written by subject matter experts
• Free up moderators to focus on the content types officially accepted by arXiv, reduce submission hold times, and keep the pace of scientific discovery going!

Above all, the core purpose of arXiv is to share research papers and facilitate scientific discovery quickly and freely. We are making this change in support of that mission. 

In the past, arXiv CS received a relatively small amount of review or survey articles, and those we did receive were of extremely high quality, written by senior researchers at the request of publications like Annual Reviews, Proceedings of the IEEE, and Computing Surveys. Position paper submissions to arXiv were similarly rare, and usually produced by scientific societies or government study groups (for example,the Computing Research Association of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine).  While, as now, these papers were not content types officially accepted by arXiv, the arXiv moderators accepted them because of their scholarly value to the research community.

Fast forward to present day – submissions to arXiv in general have risen dramatically, and we now receive hundreds of review articles every month. The advent of large language models have made this type of content relatively easy to churn out on demand, and the majority of the review articles we receive are little more than annotated bibliographies, with no substantial discussion of open research issues. 

arXiv believes that there are position papers and review articles that are of value to the scientific community, and we would like to be able to share them on arXiv. However, our team of volunteer moderators do not have the time or bandwidth to review the hundreds of these articles we receive without taking time away from our core purpose, which is to share research articles.

Reasonable and trusted outside refereed venues already exist (conferences and journals) which solicit position papers and review articles on subjects of concern or interest to our readers (such as concerns over privacy, ethics, safety, and security of recent CS technologies, particularly applications of artificial intelligence) and as part of that process, they conduct in-depth review to assure quality, evidential support of opinions, and scholarly value. Since arXiv does not have the resources to conduct this quality-control in-house for content types that we do not officially accept, this change of practice is allowing us to rely on these refereed venues to do so for us so that we can still share position papers and review articles of value on arXiv.

How do I submit my review article or position paper to arXiv? Before submission to arXiv, have your review article or position paper accepted to a refereed venue with peer review like a journal or a conference. Review articles or position papers must be accepted to a journal or conference before being submitted to arXiv and you must have documentation of complete and successful peer review.

Please note: the review conducted at conference workshops generally does not meet the same standard of rigor of traditional peer review and is not enough to have your review article or position paper accepted to arXiv.

How do I show my review article or position paper has successfully completed peer review? When you submit to arXiv, please include the peer reviewed journal reference and DOI metadata. If you do not provide this, your review article or position paper will likely be rejected.

Can I resubmit my position paper or review article after being rejected? If your position paper or review article was rejected because it did not complete a successful peer review process, you can submit an appeal request to resubmit if your article has since completed a successful peer review process. Do not resubmit your position paper or review article without an accepted appeal. Here are the instructions for how to appeal.

I have a scientific paper studying the impact of science and technology in society. Can I submit this to arXiv without peer review? Yes, arXiv has always released these types of scientific papers, for example in cs.CY or physics.soc-ph. These are scientific research papers and are not subject to this moderation practice change.

Will other categories on arXiv also change their practice re: review articles and position papers? Each category of arXiv has different moderators, who are subject matter experts with a terminal degree in their particular subject, to best serve the scholarly pursuits, goals, and standards of their category. While all moderators adhere to arXiv policy, the only policy arXiv has in place with regard to review articles and position papers is that they are not a generally accepted content type. The goal of the moderators of each category is to make sure the work being submitted is actually science, and that it is of potential interest to the scientific community. If other categories see a similar rise in LLM-written review articles and position papers, they may choose to change their moderation practices in a similar manner to better serve arXiv authors and readers. We will make these updates public if and when they do occur.

in arXiv.org blog on 2025-10-31 14:41:09 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Cancer treatments may get a boost from mRNA COVID vaccines

in Science News: Health & Medicine on 2025-10-31 14:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

OIST and ATR sign Memorandum of Understanding to promote cooperation in deep tech research and innovation

in OIST Japan on 2025-10-31 12:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

How Composers Make Horror Movie Music Sound Terrifying

Horror movie composers use musical tricks to hijack your nervous system and put you on edge

in Scientific American on 2025-10-31 12:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

The Interplanetary Race to Study Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS

Astronomers are hustling to use interplanetary spacecraft to study the interstellar comet dubbed 3I/ATLAS while the sun is hiding it from Earth

in Scientific American on 2025-10-31 11:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

How Supermassive Black Holes Can Become Cosmic Nightmares

Huge eruptions from the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole in the distant past may have sterilized much of the inner galaxy

in Scientific American on 2025-10-31 10:45:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

How One Mom Used Vibe Coding to Build an AI Tutor for Her Dyslexic Son

Faced with her son’s struggle with dyslexia, one mom built an AI platform to help kids learn their own way

in Scientific American on 2025-10-31 10:30:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Why Some Treats Are Trickier for Your Gut Microbiome

This Halloween discover how your candy choices can trick—or treat—the microbes in your gut.

in Scientific American on 2025-10-31 10:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Schneider Shorts 31.10.2025 – Who hasn’t had a biopsy?

in For Better Science on 2025-10-31 06:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Exclusive: Web of Science company involved in dubious awards in Iraq

In the string of prestigious awards Qusay Hassan, a mechanical engineer at the University of Diyala in Iraq, had received from the hands of his country’s minister for higher education and scientific research, the last two stood out: Each trophy carried the name and logo of the global analytics company Clarivate, a name seen widely as a key scholarly imprimatur.

The British-American firm runs the influential Web of Science Master Journal List, which it curates based on several quality criteria, and also calculates journal impact factors. The company says it takes retractions into account when calculating its highly coveted researcher designations. 

But Hassan, who has had 21 papers retracted, was one of several Iraqi scientists and institutions winning accolades at the ministry’s high-profile Iraq Education Conference 2025 in Baghdad earlier this month. At the award ceremony on October 11, a deputy minister said a Clarivate team helped develop the selection criteria for the awards, which were based on Web of Science data. Like the other winners, Hassan received his two trophies from the minister, Naeem Abd Yaser Al-Aboudi, after a Clarivate representative announced his name from the stage. 

In Iraq, where science has been struggling for many years and corruption is widespread, international praise carries extra weight. Many awardees were quick to trumpet their achievement online. As the University of Technology – Iraq, which won the “Distinguished University Award” among public institutions, stated on its website, “Clarivate is a reputable research institution that grants high credibility to research and academic efforts.”

But a deeper look reveals several award winners have tarnished publication records or are known to engage in unethical practices. The University of Technology, for instance, forces students to cite the school’s own journals if they wish to graduate, as we reported earlier this month, and asked them to cite the works of faculty members several years ago, according to a 2020 document posted on Facebook. The institution has the fifth-highest self-citation rate among the 1,500 most-published universities in the world, an analysis using Clarivate’s own data shows. (Topping that list is the University of Mosul, also in Iraq.) 

Hassan, who won a “Distinguished Researcher Award” and a “Distinguished Research Award,” has earned 21 retractions since last year. Many were due to unauthorized authorship changes after a manuscript was accepted, a hallmark of paper mill involvement, and some articles had content that was clearly stolen.

In 2024, Hassan was directly linked to a paper mill operation in an in-depth investigation by the scientific sleuth Nick Wise, who is now a research integrity manager at the U.K. publisher Taylor & Francis. The article that earned Hassan the “Distinguished Research Award” – “The renewable energy role in the global energy Transformations,” published in Elsevier’s Renewable Energy Focus and cited more than 800 times, according to the website – itself was likely the product of a paper mill. A day after it was accepted, but before publication, a “Dr. Ali Khudhair” mentioned the work in a chat in a paper mill group on WhatsApp that Wise has posted online. “Congratulation [sic] my co-authors,” Khudhair wrote, adding, “Kindly, prepare for payment.”

Several academics told us they were taken aback by Clarivate’s involvement in the awards.

“This is mind-boggling to me,” said Lokman Meho, a university librarian and professor at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, who has developed an index to flag potential research-integrity problems at universities across the world. Clarivate is “partnering in academic crime.”

An Iraqi scientist, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said: “This is a complete failure of due diligence by Clarivate.”

The firm announced in July it had entered into a “landmark agreement” with Iraq’s Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, which has worked for years to combat predatory journals and boost the rankings of its universities and scientific journals. “The objective is to improve the authenticity, credibility, and global visibility of research produced in Iraq, aligning with the country’s national priorities for innovation, development, and academic excellence,” Clarivate wrote on LinkedIn. Several Arab-speaking company representatives participated in the Baghdad conference and gave talks.

In an emailed statement, the company distanced itself from the Iraqi accolades. “The awards presented at the Iraq Education Conference 2025 by the Ministry of Higher Education were informed by data from the Web of Science, though they were not formally accredited by Clarivate,” a spokesperson told us.

During a presentation by Deputy Minister Hayder A. Dhahad at the trophy ceremony on October 11, a video of which was posted on Facebook, a slide in Arabic claimed “accreditation” of the awards by Clarivate “for the first time in the history of Iraqi higher education.” Dhahad explained the company had worked with the ministry to develop a model to select the award winners. Then Sharif Ali Al-Shami, described as a vice president at Clarivate, read out the names of the winners as they or their representatives walked onstage to receive a trophy bearing the company’s name and logo.

In a news release about the awards, the president of the University of Technology was quoted as saying what made them so special was that they had been “accredited by the international Clarivate Foundation for the first time in Iraq’s history.”

Clarivate would not say whether it had approved the use of its name on the trophies, nor answer questions about how much its contract with the Iraqi government was worth. Neither the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research nor the University of Technology replied to requests for comment.

“When awards carry the name or endorsement of a global organization like Clarivate, they carry an implicit promise of credibility and trust,” said Maryam Sayab, director of communications at the Asian Council of Science Editors in Dubai and co-chair of the Peer Review Week Committee.

“In that context, recognizing individuals or institutions with documented integrity concerns is troubling, not only for the local academic community but also for the credibility of the award itself,” Sayab added, noting that she spoke in her personal capacity.

Hassan asked us to “refrain from publishing any article or photograph involving me,” as his “university may terminate my position and I may lose any chance of future employment in Iraq.” Although he is seen receiving two awards in the video from the ceremony and is pictured holding a Clarivate-engraved trophy on the ministry’s website, Hassan denied getting “any awards from the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research that were presented in cooperation with Clarivate, such as the Science Day Award or the Iraqi Flag Day Award.”

Hassan has received at least three previous awards for his research. Each time, Al-Aboudi presented the trophy.

“In my opinion, metric-based recognition without integrity screening can inadvertently legitimize problematic practices,” Sayab told us. ”That risk is particularly acute in environments where publication is tied to career progression but where research funding, infrastructure, and oversight remain weak. These conditions can – and often do – fuel paper mills, coercive citation policies, and other unethical behaviors.”

Iraq’s research output has been soaring under pressure from both government and university officials eager to see their institutions climb the rankings. Steep publication requirements are standard for both faculty members and students. But with just 0.04% of Iraq’s gross domestic product, or around US$84 million, going toward research and development, insiders say it’s difficult to do the work needed for bona fide publications.

“The real damage came from mixing universities with politics, it created failed leaders chasing fake achievements through fraud and fabrication,” said the Iraqi scientist who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The ministry keeps raising publication requirements for evaluations and promotions, but provides zero funding for research,” the scientist added. ”Most MSc and PhD students end up doing their work outside their universities because there’s literally nothing inside: no infrastructure, no funding, no labs, nothing. Many resort to offices with shady deals to get their work done.”

Over the past two months, we have written about high-placed academics in Iraq – a university dean, Yasser Fakri Mustafa, and Dhahad, the deputy minister, who is also a university professor – who lost several articles with signs of paper mill involvement. We have also covered widespread coercive citation at Iraqi institutions and a massive publishing scam that defrauded budding researchers of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A researcher at an Iraqi university told us the country’s recent publishing craze, combined with the lack of funding and infrastructure, has fostered a bustling underground economy, often to the benefit of senior academics.

“It’s like a cake they are dividing,” said the academic, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

Academic power brokers may host conferences offering paying participants a chance to publish, for example, or, worse, be at the center of authorship-for-sale networks.

“Now we have many offices for paper mills in Iraq,” said the academic, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. “Many of these offices are actually established and started by people who are decision-makers – certain profs, certain deans, certain heads of departments. Now it’s become like a trade.”

The unethical publishing practices are reflected in the Research Integrity Risk Index developed by Meho, the university librarian in Beirut: Among 18 Iraqi institutions, 12 are red-flagged for “extreme anomalies” and “systemic integrity risks.” Al-Mustaqbal University in Hilla, which won the “Distinguished University Award” among private institutions at the Baghdad conference, has the third-highest retraction rate of the world’s 1,500 most-published universities, for example. The institution did not reply to requests for comment.

“I feel sorry for the Iraqi people,” said Meho. “They are being misled” by their government, their universities and Clarivate.

But Meho was quick to note bad research practices are common elsewhere, too. “Several countries are doing this, and they are harming themselves.”

To move forward, observers say Iraq has to put the horse back before the cart and work on research infrastructure and integrity instead of focusing blindly on publication metrics and rankings.

”Real progress comes when transparency is combined with credible integrity checks, disqualification mechanisms, and structural reforms that address the root causes driving unethical publishing,” said Sayab.

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 2025-10-31 05:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Nonhuman primate research to lose federal funding at major European facility

in The Transmitter on 2025-10-30 19:14:02 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

How Are Annual Flu Vaccines Made?

Immunologist Zachary Rubin explains how the World Health Organization decides which strains of influenza end up in annual flu vaccines.

in Scientific American on 2025-10-30 18:45:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Image integrity issues create new headache for subarachnoid hemorrhage research

in The Transmitter on 2025-10-30 18:00:38 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Chimpanzee Metacognition Allows Humanlike Belief Revision

Are we the only rational thinkers? New research on our primate cousins suggests otherwise

in Scientific American on 2025-10-30 18:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Widespread image reuse, manipulation uncovered in animal studies of brain injury 

More than 200 papers on ways to prevent brain injury after a stroke contain problematic images, according to an analysis published today in PLOS Biology. Researchers found dozens of duplicated Western blots and reused images of tissues and cells purportedly showing different experimental conditions — both within a single paper and across separate publications.

As we reported last year, René Aquarius and Kim Wever, of the Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands, first noticed these patterns in 2023 when they started working on a systematic review of animal studies in the field. They had wanted to identify promising interventions for preventing early brain injury following hemorrhagic stroke. Instead, their efforts turned into an audit of suspicious papers in their field. 

Of the 608 studies they analyzed, more than 240, or 40 percent, contained problematic images. So far, 19 of those articles have been retracted and 55 corrected, mostly from the researchers’ efforts to alert journals and publishers about the issues. Almost 90 percent of the problematic papers had a corresponding author based in China, and many appeared in major journals such as Stroke, Brain Research and Molecular Neurobiology. 

When Aquarius and Wever first saw how many animal studies existed on early brain injury, they were encouraged, and thought “it’s great that there’s so much evidence,” Wever recalls. But they noticed nearly every intervention had only been tested once, which was unusual since promising results usually lead to follow-up studies. When they looked at the studies more closely, “strange” patterns emerged among the images, Aquarius said, including manipulated protein bands and images of brain tissue reused in other papers. The problems were so pervasive they abandoned their review and instead began investigating how widespread image duplication was in their field. 

At first, the pair tried to check the images manually, but the work was too slow. So they turned to ImageTwin, which cross-checks uploaded images against a database, making the process “more efficient and accurate,” Wever said. 

The results showed a sprawling network of images that not only appeared in articles on early brain injury, but also showed up labeled under different experiment conditions across studies on Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy and lung cancer, and other unrelated fields. Among those papers, a Chinese investigation found one had plagiarized pictures, another paper didn’t have the ethics approval for the experiments, and another where authors blamed outsourcing for the issues. In one case, authors described an image as vessels in a human brain, but the same image also appears in an animal study. It was “like an oil spill,” said Wever. 

In total, their analysis found 37 of these papers in research fields other than early brain injury. Overall, 133 of the 608 articles contained an image that also appeared in another publication, a pattern typical of paper mills or image reuse among an author group, Aquarius said. 

Paper mills might be behind the rapid increase in published articles after 2014, because they can publish several hundred studies in the time it takes to do one legitimate study, the researchers said. In 2013, there were only 18 papers on the preclinical interventions published, compared with 64 in 2017. Paper mills aren’t uncommon in the field; as we reported last year, an Indian paper mill iTrilon was linked to several papers published in Life Neuroscience. 

Aquarius and Wever’s findings have already led to an institutional review on the work of a stroke researcher. As reported in The Transmitter, Loma Linda University is reviewing the work of John H. Zhang after Aquarius and Wever found possibly duplicated Western blots and microscopy images in nearly 100 of his papers, which were published in 38 journals over two decades. 

In their new publication, the researchers took a conservative approach to identifying image reuse, so Aquarius called the 40 percent estimate a “best-case scenario.” Many of the papers might also contain other problems, he added, such as questionable citations or tortured phrases.

Occasionally, Aquarius and Wever changed their mind about a problematic paper. In one case, an author contested Aquarius’ comment on PubPeer about duplicated parts of an image because the figure had been altered by the publisher and not the author. In older papers, editors sometimes replaced labels on figures by cutting and pasting parts of the image — a now uncommon practice known as corner cloning. “Back then it was considered no big deal,” Aquarius said. 

Almost 90 percent of the problematic papers Aquarius and Wever identified had corresponding authors affiliated with Chinese institutes. One reason could be a country-wide initiative that pressures researchers to publish to improve a university’s ranking, Aquarius and Wever said in their analysis. Cash-based incentives to publish were also only banned in 2020. Other analyses have identified similarly widespread issues among Chinese institutions. One found retractions in neurology were most common among authors affiliated to Chinese institutions, and more than half of residents across 17 hospitals in southwest China said they had committed research misconduct, according to a survey. 

The largest share of problematic papers appeared in journals published by Elsevier, which accounted for 65 of those flagged, followed by Springer Nature with 44. The single journal containing the most problematic studies was Molecular Neurobiology, a Springer Nature title, containing 13 flagged out of the 23 the journal published on the topic. Brain Research, an Elsevier publication, and Stroke, a Lippincott Williams & Wilkins publication, followed with 10 papers flagged each. 

An Elsevier spokesperson told us journals do use tools to check images against datasets, and “the investigation is still ongoing regarding these particular papers,” they said.

Tim Kersjes, head of research integrity, resolutions, at Springer Nature, told us, “We are aware of concerns with a number of these papers and have already been investigating the matter carefully, following an established process and in line with COPE best practice,” he said. “For journals where we identify a number of problematic papers, we work with the editors to ensure that they have access to appropriate training and resources so that issues do not recur going forward.”

The journals have varied widely in how they handled the flagged papers, the researchers said. Some acted quickly to issue corrections or retractions, while others were slow to respond or didn’t reply at all. The researchers singled out Stroke, one of the field’s most prominent journals, as sporadic in engaging with the problematic papers. “It was very, very difficult to get any contact with them,” Aquarius said. 

A media representative of the American Heart Association, which publishes Stroke, said “The editors and staff balance the need for timely responses with the need for thorough, detailed work following COPE guidelines.” She said their journals have dedicated editors who use image assessment tools to check images before publication, but “no system will be perfect.” Stroke has issued expressions of concern for the articles linked to the Loma Linda review, and is awaiting the results. 

In some cases, journals made stealth corrections by replacing figures without issuing any formal notice of the change. The lack of consistency between papers and publishers was frustrating, Wever said. Among three articles using the same image, one could be retracted, one corrected, and one left untouched, she said. “There were so many discrepancies that were not really helpful.” 

Even after journals issued corrections, problems still persisted. Out of the 55 corrections, one in six still contained image issues. This could happen when editors accept replacement images from authors without verifying them, Aquarius speculated. Or they were detected after ImageTwin added more images to its database. Rather than pointing fingers, Aquarius said the important thing is “the scientific record is still not correct.” 

Aquarius and Wever say their role is to document the issues that they see, but not to decide what happens next. “[We] both have our opinions on what should happen with these papers, but we are not the ones that are going to do it,” Aquarius said. “It’s up to the authors, institutes, journals and funding agencies to make some decisions.” 

Update, Oct. 30, 2025: This story was updated to add comment from Springer Nature.

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 2025-10-30 18:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Seismometers Picked Up Hurricane Melissa’s Historic Power Like an Earthquake

Seismometers picked up the ferocious winds and waves of Hurricane Melissa, showing how the tools can be used to better understand storms today and those from the past

in Scientific American on 2025-10-30 17:08:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Trump’s Baffling Call for Resuming U.S. Nuclear Tests

“The only countries that will really learn more if [U.S. nuclear] testing resumes are Russia and, to a much greater extent, China,” says Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on the geopolitics of nuclear weaponry

in Scientific American on 2025-10-30 16:45:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Nanotyrannus Isn’t a Juvenile T-Rex—It’s a Separate Dinosaur

An analysis suggests Nanotyrannus is a separate, smaller dinosaur that lived alongside T. rex, settling a 30-year debate

in Scientific American on 2025-10-30 16:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

FDA Is Investigating the Abortion Pill Mifepristone despite Decades of Studies Showing It’s Safe

Some scientists are concerned that the Trump administration will use “junk science” when reviewing mifepristone’s safety record

in Scientific American on 2025-10-30 15:30:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Highlights from the UK Stem Cell Network Inaugural Meeting, Manchester

in Women in Neuroscience UK on 2025-10-30 15:00:30 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

How an Error in Cult Classic Game Doom Sparked New Appreciation for Pi

What would the world look like if we changed the value of pi? Whether in the real world or a game environment, the answer is complex

in Scientific American on 2025-10-30 12:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Glowing Sperm Reveals How Female Mosquitos Control Sex

Female Aedes mosquitoes signal that copulation can proceed by subtly extending their genitalia

in Scientific American on 2025-10-30 11:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Ramping up cortical activity in early life sparks autism-like behaviors in mice

in The Transmitter on 2025-10-30 04:00:27 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Does Hurricane Melissa Show It’s Time for a Category 6 Designation?

Hurricane Melissa’s powerful winds and drenching rains devastated Jamaica. But is its wrath a sign that we need a new designation for monster storms?

in Scientific American on 2025-10-29 20:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Spider Web Patterns May Help Arachnids Sense Vibrations from Prey

Researchers simulated the effects that different web decorations had on vibrations, adding fresh insight to a decades-old debate about the function of these structures

in Scientific American on 2025-10-29 18:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Russia’s Burevestnik Nuclear-Powered Missile Is a Very Bad Idea

Russian leader Vladimir Putin claimed his nation conducted a successful flight of a nuclear-powered cruise missile. Here’s how that missile might work

in Scientific American on 2025-10-29 17:45:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

The Neuroscience behind the ‘Parenting Paradox’ of Happiness

Separate brain processes cope with moment-to-moment versus big-picture experiences, which helps explain how parenting both increases and decreases aspects of well-being

in Scientific American on 2025-10-29 14:30:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

H9N2 Bird Flu Virus Could Pose Human Pandemic Risk, Experts Warn

Experiments suggests H9N2 has adapted to human cells, but cases of person-to-person transmission haven’t been reported yet

in Scientific American on 2025-10-29 12:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

What TikTok’s U.S. Spin-off Means for Its Algorithm and Content Moderation

TikTok’s U.S. spin-off could reshape its algorithm and the way culture is curated online.

in Scientific American on 2025-10-29 10:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Psychedelics muddy fMRI results: Q&A with Adam Bauer and Jonah Padawer-Curry

in The Transmitter on 2025-10-29 04:00:24 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Challenge accepted: A reader wrote a program to find fake references in books

Following our coverage this summer of a book with citations that did not exist, we asked you to send us examples of other books with similar issues. One reader took the request as an assignment to find problematic texts.

Michał Wójcik, a Ph.D. student at the Free University of Berlin, saw a link to our article about the book on LinkedIn. “I started thinking that it shouldn’t be that hard to check those references automatically,” he said. “I decided to just spend some time on it, and I had a prototype in a few hours.” 

The Python script he wrote searches through books to verify the existence of each citation by checking if the DOI existed in Crossref. He told us he manually checked citations the script couldn’t identify by looking in other databases and searching on Google Scholar, which takes him between an afternoon and a whole day. 

To pick the books, he said he searched for books published in 2025. “To various degrees of certainty, I checked 22 books,” he said. The two he sent to us “were particularly bad, I would say.”

The first of the two texts is about urban planning for sustainable smart cities. It includes citations with substantial errors or to works that do not exist. The second, on energy storage, describes different technologies and their applications for electrical grids, and was translated, citations and all, into English by artificial intelligence. Both were published by Springer Nature, which also published the book we previously wrote about. 

As we described in our coverage earlier this year, large language models like ChatGPT often generate nonexistent and error-prone citations. Publisher guidelines often forbid wholesale generation of text by AI. However, AI may be used in other aspects of academic book publishing, like copyediting or translation, sometimes with disclosure requirements.

While Springer Nature started using AI to translate books experimentally in 2023, it is not the only publisher pursuing AI translations. In March, the publisher Taylor and Francis announced plans to start using AI to translate books into English. 

The publisher has retracted individual chapters and entire books for references that could not be verified. In total, the Retraction Watch Database contains over 240 books with one or more chapters retracted for a variety of reasons by their publishers.

Wójcik’s script identified 40 references missing DOIs in the urban planning book, Urban Morphology and Sustainable Smart Cities. We looked into the book ourselves by checking the first 32 citations and were unable to verify 11 of them. Four of these cite documents from the Indian government that have since been taken offline. We contacted the listed authors of the remaining seven works, four of whom responded and confirmed they did not write them or there were substantial errors in the citation. 

“I am not sure if this is a fake citation of mine or another author,” Bogdan Ibanescu, a researcher at the Centre for European Studies, told us. Ana Lavalle, an author listed in another citation, confirmed she did not write the paper she was credited with. 

Similarly, Manolya Kavakli-Thorne, a professor at Aston University in England, confirmed she did not write an article matching the one cited with her name. She told us one of the listed coauthors is her former Ph.D. student with whom she published multiple papers. “The names involved as authors are from one of those publications,” she said. “I believe this is an example of hallucinations of deep learning.”

Other citations had unusual errors. One citation correctly included an article’s title and journal, but added two extra authors. “That article was written by me only. Not sure why other authors were listed,” Jack Ahern, a professor emeritus at University of Massachusetts Amherst, told us.

One of the authors of this urban planning book, Gouri Sankar Bhunia, is an expert in remote sensing and Geographical Information Systems, according to the book’s preface.

“The citations in question may have arisen due to inadvertent oversight during the compilation and cross-referencing of multiple sources, particularly while integrating notes from various drafts,” Bhunia told us by email.

When asked if generative AI was involved in the writing process, Bhunia said, “we have made very limited use of an LLM tool (such as ChatGPT) in this book, and only for minor purposes such as checking grammatical consistency and verifying citation formats. The use was strictly confined to copyediting support and did not involve generating substantive content.” 

Such use is permitted within Springer Nature’s AI policies, although the company states: “in all cases, there must be human accountability for the final version of the text and agreement from the authors that the edits reflect their original work.”

Bhunia said all the citations in the book “were prepared and verified by academic professional[s]” and not generated by AI. “While I am aware that citation inconsistencies can sometimes appear in manuscripts, I can assure you that any such errors, if present, are unintentional and purely human in nature.”

The spokesperson for Springer Nature told us the publisher was already investigating both books before we contacted them, “with the majority of enquiries having been completed at the end of August.” For the urban planning book, “a correction is being issued alongside the retraction of three chapters,” the spokesperson said.

The second book, Electrical Energy Storage Technologies and Applications, was published in Chinese in 2020 and translated into English this year. The preface of the book states, “the translation was done using artificial intelligence. A subsequent revision was performed by the author(s) to further refine the work and to ensure that the translation is appropriate concerning content and scientific correctness.”

The citations are in English despite primarily referencing Chinese-language sources. Many do not include DOIs or functioning hyperlinks to the original sources. We were unable to find many of the original works from the references listed in the English-language version of the book. “I think the point of scientific references should be assuring that the reader can get to the resources if desired,” Wójcik said. “That is usually not possible if one translates the titles, especially since many of the references do not provide a (working) link or DOI.”

The first author of this book, Xisheng Tang, did not respond to our requests for comment. All three authors are affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to the book’s preface. 

The publisher will issue a correction for the citations in this book, the Springer Nature spokesperson said. 

Errors in book citations “are rare and experienced by all publishers,” the spokesperson for Springer Nature told us. “They are typically identified through a combination of editorial review, peer feedback, and post-publication scrutiny. While some issues may appear straightforward externally, they can be complex to detect — particularly when they involve a number of nuances.”

Wójcik told us he has continued to work on his script to detect sham references. He started using it on papers as well as books, and has checked around 100,000 to date. His script flagged about 1 in every 300 papers, though he has only had time to manually verify 150 of them so far. “Some have small issues like unresolved DOI or DOI entered with a dot at the end, but most have nonsensical references,” he said. “I think such a problem should not exist in scientific literature, especially since links to Google Scholar are provided in the online version, and they are just useless.”

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 2025-10-28 19:13:50 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Hurricane Melissa Images and Videos Show the Horrifying Power of Third Strongest Atlantic Storm Ever

These images of Hurricane Melissa show the Category 5 storm in all its power

in Scientific American on 2025-10-28 18:45:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

The AI model OpenFold3 takes a crucial step in making protein predictions

in Science News: AI on 2025-10-28 18:30:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

The Science of How Hurricane Melissa Became So Extreme

A nearly perfect alignment of factors has enabled Hurricane Melissa to become one of the most intense Atlantic storms ever recorded

in Scientific American on 2025-10-28 17:19:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Two tiny genetic shifts helped early humans walk upright

in Science News: Health & Medicine on 2025-10-28 15:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

China’s Chang’e 6 Mission Found Rare Meteorite Fragments on Moon

These rare samples, uncovered on the moon by China’s Chang’e 6 mission, might help to reveal secrets of how the solar system evolved

in Scientific American on 2025-10-28 13:45:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Did Astronomers Photograph UFOs Orbiting Earth in the 1950s?

New peer-reviewed research reporting strange lights in the pre-space-age sky is sparking curiosity and controversy

in Scientific American on 2025-10-28 13:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Crystal-free mechanoluminescence illuminates new possibilities for next-generation materials

in OIST Japan on 2025-10-28 12:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

Did Dark Matter Help Supersize the Universe?

Theorists have found that a “warm” version of cosmic inflation is consistent with known physics, linking it to the hunt for dark matter

in Scientific American on 2025-10-28 12:00:00 UTC.

- Wallabag.it! - Save to Instapaper - Save to Pocket -

What’s Behind This Luxury ‘Cat Poo’ Coffee’s Unique Flavor

Civets enrich coffee beans they eat and excrete with two fatty acids often used in dairy products, study finds

in Scientific American on 2025-10-28 11:00:00 UTC.