Planet Neuroscientists

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The minor infractions by Diana and Fathey

in For Better Science on 2026-01-27 06:00:00 UTC.

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Viral remnant in chimpanzees silences brain gene humans still use

in The Transmitter on 2026-01-27 05:00:53 UTC.

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FDA website no longer warns against bogus autism therapies, and more

in The Transmitter on 2026-01-27 05:00:26 UTC.

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Study is stolen, sold, published. Now the victim is accused of plagiarism

The year 2026 did not start off kindly for Vijayalakshmi S, an economics researcher at RV University in Bengaluru, India. She received a rejection letter from a journal noting that a paper of hers was highly similar to another published study by other researchers. 

S couldn’t understand why that was — until she realised someone had somehow gotten hold of her study and published it as their own. She took to LinkedIn, expressing her concerns and tagging the authors responsible. The post attracted a comment from another individual, also based in India, with inside knowledge of how paper mills work. Using keywords from S’s study, he found reasons to believe authorship slots on the stolen paper had been sold on Telegram for less than $200 each. 

After S’s LinkedIn post went live, she heard from someone apologizing on behalf of a researcher who had allegedly mistakenly published her paper as a coauthor. That person was now offering her a different study on a related topic that she could publish under her name. 

“I was shocked to my core,” S told Retraction Watch. “He is telling me that he will give me a paper in exchange.” S disclosed the emails in a separate LinkedIn post. 

Two years earlier, in January 2024, S had submitted the study to Discover Energy, which ultimately rejected her paper during peer review, suggesting revisions. She also later presented it at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay’s (IIT Bombay) Young Scholar Initiative Conference. 

“I don’t know where this paper was leaked,” S said. She had decided against posting the paper as a preprint due to concerns that “blinded” peer reviewers who might later referee her manuscript at a journal could find out her identity. 

We contacted IIT Bombay for a comment but have received no response. Tim Kersjes, research integrity manager at Springer Nature, which publishes Discover Energy, said the publisher is investigating the concerns S raised.

In April 2024 – three months after S had submitted her paper to the Springer Nature journal – someone submitted the study to EnPress Publisher’s Journal of Infrastructure, Policy and Development (JIPD). It was published in September 2024, listing authors based at institutions in Oman, India, and Saudi Arabia. As Retraction Watch and others have reported, unlikely co-authorship networks can indicate the activity of  paper mills, which churn out subpar or plagiarized studies, sell authorship slots, and artificially inflate citations. 

In January 2025, Scopus stopped indexing JIPD. Some observers have suggested that may be because the journal has recently had a sudden surge in the number of papers it is publishing — often seen as a sign of lowering standards for publication.

S didn’t know that the JIPD paper presenting her work had gone live until she resubmitted her paper to a different journal. The editor there rejected it, noting that it had too many similarities to the JIPD paper. 

After being pointed to the publication, S went through the whole article line by line and realised that every single data point she had used, all the literature she referenced, and the citations she included were the same. “This is not their paper at all,” she said. “This is my paper, which I have written without anybody’s help.”

S is now calling for the JIPD paper to be retracted. We reached out to one of JIPD’s associate editors, Jun Xie, who is the president of the Asian Digital Development Bank and president of the Asia-Pacific Investment Development Bank, for a comment but didn’t hear back. 

Mohammed Ahmar Uddin of Dhofar University in Salalah, Oman, who is listed as the first author on the JIPD paper, told us the study was checked for plagiarism before publication. 

“The data used in the research were publicly available from government sources,” Uddin said. “Furthermore, several published research studies are already available related to this topic and our research was aimed at providing additional insights. Upon receiving the complaint I have also written to the journal and [am] awaiting their reply.” 

In an interview with us, Uddin denied that he bought an authorship slot on the paper or being in touch with any paper mill. Uddin said he doesn’t know any of the listed coauthors and was introduced to them via a mutual researcher contact. 

“On my part, I assure you that I am capable enough and would never consider publishing a paper by dubious means,” he added. 

The man who discovered that S’s paper was probably sold on Telegram knew about paper mills because he had had personal experience with one. Ashutosh Tiwari, who runs the counseling firm Mindglass WellBeing, told us that after he saw S’s post about her study having been stolen, he searched keywords from the JIPD paper on Telegram and found a matching advertisement dated December 29. Authorship slots had been sold for 15,000 Indian rupees (INR; around $165) for first author, 15,000 INR ($110) for second author, and 5,000 INR ($55) for the remaining slots, Tiwari said. 

Tiwari knew about the inner workings of paper mills because he had previously himself used the services of such a shady service without realising it was unethical. Although the paper Tiwari ultimately published was his own, he paid 10,000 INR with the hope of receiving help in publishing quickly in a journal indexed by Scopus.

“I was not guided in the family, in my friend circle, [on] how to write, [or] how to submit,” he said. Tiwari ultimately retracted that study and republished it after revisions in a different journal. “That was a fast process because I requested them that it is a matter of my Ph.D.,” he said.

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

in Retraction watch on 2026-01-26 21:35:16 UTC.

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The science of why video evidence can mess with our brain

Why can people watch the same video footage and see different things? Neuroscience can help explain

in Scientific American on 2026-01-26 19:00:00 UTC.

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Call for Entries: 2026 Einstein Foundation Award for Promoting Quality in Research

Note: PLOS is pleased to once again partner with the Einstein Foundation Berlin for this awards program. Below is the Einstein Foundation’s announcement calling for entries.

The annual €350,000 Einstein Foundation Award for Promoting Quality in Research in cooperation with the QUEST Center for Responsible Research at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) is inviting applications and nominations again.

The international award is open to any researcher, or group of researchers, institution and organization around the globe whose work helps to fundamentally advance the quality, transparency, and reproducibility of science and research in all disciplines.

→ Submit online

The deadline for entries is April 30, 2026 (10:00 pm UTC). The awardees will be announced by the end of 2026.

The award recognizes successful candidates in the following three categories:

Individual Award (€150,000): Individuals or small teams making a profound impact on research quality are eligible for self-nomination or nomination by others.

Institutional Award (€100,000): Organizations, large collaborative networks, or other entities that make an exceptional contribution to advancing research quality may apply or be nominated.

Early Career Award (€100,000): Early career researchers and small teams are encouraged to apply with bold, innovative projects that advance transparency, robustness, and integrity in research.

In 2025, personality psychologist Simine Vazire, Professor of Psychology Ethics and Wellbeing at the University of Melbourne, won the Individual Award for advancing methodological rigor, reproducibility, and collaborative research in psychology, and for shaping initiatives such as the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS) and the journal Collabra. The Institutional Award went to the Brazilian Reproducibility Initiative, a nationwide effort to systematically evaluate research results in laboratory biology and the largest coordinated replication effort in the field worldwide, showcasing the transformative potential of country-level research improvement efforts. The Early Career Award was won by Maximilian Sprang for his project Erring Rigorously, which improves reproducibility in functional genomics by distinguishing true biological signals from technical errors in high-throughput sequencing.

Learn more about all past winners and finalists here.

Selection

An international, interdisciplinary, and diverse panel of researchers and research quality activists will evaluate submissions and select awardees. Meet the jury here.

For questions, please contact Einstein Foundation Award Coordinator Dr. Ulrike Pannasch: award@einsteinfoundation.de

The award is bestowed jointly with the QUEST Center for Responsible Research at the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. The individual and institutional awards are funded by the Wübben Stiftung Wissenschaft, while the BIH QUEST Center for Responsible Research supports the Early Career Award. Additional resources are made available by the State of Berlin. The publisher Nature Portfolio, the Public Library of Science (PLOS), the National Academy of Sciences, the Berlin University Alliance, the Max Planck Society and the Max Planck Foundation support the Einstein Foundation Berlin and the BIH QUEST Center in promoting and implementing the award. 

About

The Einstein Foundation Berlin is an independent, not-for-profit, science-led funding organization established as a foundation under civil law in 2009. Since then, its task has been to promote cutting-edge international science and research across disciplines and institutions in and for Berlin. To date, it has funded eight Einstein Centers, over 70 pro­jects, and more than 240 researchers, including three Nobel laureates.

The BIH QUEST Center for Responsible Research at Charité was founded in 2017 as part of the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité. QUEST develops and implements new approaches to support that biomedical research is conducted in a trustworthy manner, provides useful results, and meets ethical standards. The focus is on Open Science, Indicators & Incentives, Quality Assurance, Patient & Stakeholder Engagement, Education & Training and Meta Research.

Wübben Stiftung Wissenschaft is a private grant-making foundation based in Berlin. It aims to help strengthen Germany as an excellent, internationally visible, and competitive science and research hub. In addition to the Einstein Foundation Award, the Wübben Stiftung Wissenschaft supports the Einstein Foundation’s ‘Einstein Strategic Professorships’ funding programme.

The post Call for Entries: 2026 Einstein Foundation Award for Promoting Quality in Research appeared first on The Official PLOS Blog.

in The Official PLOS Blog on 2026-01-26 18:04:59 UTC.

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Why freezing rain can be so much more dangerous than snow

Freezing rain can cause ice to accumulate on tree branches and power lines and thus poses a greater risk than snow

in Scientific American on 2026-01-26 17:26:00 UTC.

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Smallpox eradication champion William Foege dies at age 89

A leader in the global fight against smallpox and a champion of vaccine science, William Foege died last Saturday

in Scientific American on 2026-01-26 16:45:00 UTC.

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JWST unveils most intricate map yet of cosmic dark matter

Astronomers puzzled out minuscule distortions in images of faraway galaxies taken by JWST in order to chart the invisible

in Scientific American on 2026-01-26 16:10:00 UTC.

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How Income Inequality Shapes Children’s Brains

in Women in Neuroscience UK on 2026-01-26 15:00:31 UTC.

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Why does orange juice taste bad after you brush your teeth?

There’s a scientific reason your OJ tastes funny after you brush your teeth

in Scientific American on 2026-01-26 12:00:00 UTC.

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NASA readies for Artemis II mission, AI-powered speech gives stroke patients hope, and researchers discover oldest cave art ever

What’s on the road to the launch of NASA’s Artemis II, how scientists are using artificial intelligence to help stroke patients speak, and what an Indonesian cave art discovery says about early human migration

in Scientific American on 2026-01-26 11:00:00 UTC.

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Why emotion research is stuck—and how to move it forward

in The Transmitter on 2026-01-26 05:00:56 UTC.

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Babies who attend daycare share 'good' germs, too

Socializing at a young age helps to develop greater diversity in children’s microbiomes, according to an analysis of baby-to-baby transmission of gut bacteria

in Scientific American on 2026-01-25 13:00:00 UTC.

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Quantum physicists just supersized Schrödinger’s cat

A record-breaking experiment shows that a cluster of thousands of atoms can act like a wave as well as a particle

in Scientific American on 2026-01-25 12:00:00 UTC.

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Want to live longer? The tiniest of lifestyle changes can dramatically boost longevity

New research suggests that getting even just a few more minutes of sleep and exercise and eating an extra cup of vegetables every day can significantly boost longevity

in Scientific American on 2026-01-25 11:00:00 UTC.

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Back from the dead, a black hole is erupting after a 100-million-year hiatus

Radio images captured this “cosmic volcano” being reborn at the heart of the galaxy J1007+3540

in Scientific American on 2026-01-24 13:00:00 UTC.

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How digital forensics could prove what’s real in the age of deepfakes

As deepfakes blur the line between truth and fiction, we’ll need a new class of forensic experts to determine what’s real, what’s fake and what can be proved in court

in Scientific American on 2026-01-24 12:30:00 UTC.

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How math can reveal lottery fraud

In one day, 433 people won the Philippine lottery jackpot. What were the chances?

in Scientific American on 2026-01-24 12:00:00 UTC.

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Weekend reads: Why 500 retractions per month matter; another EOC for former Stanford president; and an argument for ‘slow science’

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Corrections, biases, and humility in science: Q&A with Tuan V. Nguyen
• Up in smoke: Publisher pulls vaping paper nearly two years after complaint
• Fed up, author issues her own retraction after journal ghosts her
• Lawsuit fails to block retraction of paper claiming to link heart-related deaths to COVID-19 vaccines
• ‘Kicking the can down the road’: Science flags insect meta-analysis based on allegedly buggy database
• Fabricated allegations of image manipulation baffle expert

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 400 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 63,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up over 640, and our mass resignations list has 50 entries. We keep tabs on all this and more. If you value this work, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

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

• “Science journals retract 500 papers a month. This is why it matters,” by our Ivan Oransky and Alice Dreger. 
• Another expression of concern for former Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Four of his papers have been retracted.
• “I’m going to halve my publication output. You should consider slow science, too.”
• “When science discourages correction: How publishers profit from mistakes.”
• A ‘bizarre’ linguistics paper claiming the ancient Greeks forbade reference to water as ‘H₂O’ has been retracted by a Springer Nature journal.
• “Lithium mining study is retracted despite authors’ protests.”
• AI conference “accepted research papers with 100+ AI-hallucinated citations, new report claims.”
• Study on women’s soccer retracted after ex-coach’s doctorate was revoked for research misconduct and a thesis leader was asked to withdraw the work.
• Researchers find “over 50% of previously detected hijacked journals are active.”
• “Researchers admit to questionable research practices that they do not perceive to be serious.”
• “How chasing a high-impact publication nearly broke me.”
• “Contaminating the evidence: the reproducibility crisis and fraud in infectious disease research.”
• “Three major research universities opt out of new Elsevier deal.”
• “To Combat Academic Fraud, Scholars Confront Hallowed Tradition.”
• “Why scholarly publishing needs a neutral governance body for the AI age.”
• “Six steps to protect researchers’ digital security.”
• “Scientists should be celebrated for more than just flashy findings, argues a philosopher.”
• “From model collapse to citation collapse: risks of over-reliance on AI in the academy.”
• “Trump Administration Orders USDA Employees to Investigate Foreign Researchers They Work With.”
• Researchers analyze “the concept of independence in psychedelic research” to manage potential bias.
• “Nearly one-third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry, preprint claims.”
• Romanian university “to examine plagiarism complaints” of justice minister’s doctoral thesis.
• “Qualitative researchers’ AI rejection is based on identity, not reason,” says CEO of AI platform. 
• In an interview with former Hindawi CEO Paul Peters, Wiley’s Liz Ferguson describes the Hindawi acquisition and cleanup from the publisher’s perspective.
• “Behind new dietary guidelines: Industry-funded studies, opaque science, crushing deadline pressure.”
• “Why 500 Publications in One Year Actually Matters for the Cases You See Today” in veterinary research. 
• “AI research should always be verified, especially in court.”
• “LLMs in Peer Review—How Publishing Policies Must Advance”: A response to “Invisible Text Injection and Peer Review by AI Models.”
• Institute knew its women in STEM initiative had released a poster series of its “supporters” sourced almost entirely from free stock photo websites “And Said Nothing.”
• “Biomedical and life science articles by female researchers spend longer under review,” say researchers.
• “While the forests are burning, are we watering our own trees?”
• “Revenge of the Fish”: More on the nonexistent fish species appearing in the literature. 

Upcoming Talks

• “Maintaining Integrity in Peer-Reviewed Publications,” Jefferson Anesthesia Conference 2026, featuring our Adam Marcus (February 2, Big Sky, Montana)
• “Responding to Research Misconduct Allegations,” an AAAS EurekAlert! webinar featuring our Ivan Oransky (February 3, virtual)
• “Scientific Integrity Challenged by New Editorial Practices,” featuring our Ivan Oransky (February 12, virtual) 

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 2026-01-24 11:00:00 UTC.

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How zoos are preparing animals for this weekend’s massive winter storm

This weekend’s freezing temperatures and snow won’t just affect humans—zoo animals need to get ready for the coming storm, too

in Scientific American on 2026-01-23 21:55:00 UTC.

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After NINDS director ouster, 40 neuroscience organizations press U.S. Congress for oversight over hiring process

in The Transmitter on 2026-01-23 21:24:23 UTC.

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Weaker radiation limits will not help nuclear energy

Relaxing radiation safety standards could place women and children at higher risks of health issues

in Scientific American on 2026-01-23 20:00:00 UTC.

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Why Apple and OpenAI are reportedly betting on AI hardware in 2026

Tech giants are betting that we are finally ready to invite a persistent digital device into our lives

in Scientific American on 2026-01-23 19:45:00 UTC.

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Why are winter storm forecasts all over the place?

A major winter storm will bring frigid cold and to tens of millions this weekend, but why is it so hard to pin down who will get snow, ice or rain?

in Scientific American on 2026-01-23 17:51:00 UTC.

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It masquerades as malignant. But this bone-covered tumor is benign

in Science News: Health & Medicine on 2026-01-23 16:00:00 UTC.

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Why mining Greenland’s minerals is so challenging

Greenland’s mineral resources hold massive economic potential, but accessing them isn’t easy

in Scientific American on 2026-01-23 15:17:00 UTC.

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Scientists create exotic new forms of ice never before seen on Earth

Ice has many forms beyond the mundane stuff produced in a standard freezer

in Scientific American on 2026-01-23 15:15:00 UTC.

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Dolphins with more close friends age more slowly

A study of dolphins’ epigenetic ages found that animals with more high-quality friendships were biologically younger than their lonely peers

in Scientific American on 2026-01-23 14:00:00 UTC.

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Fabricated allegations of image manipulation baffle expert

Mike Rossner had never seen anything like it. At first, the anonymous comment on PubPeer, which claimed a lane of a western blot in a research paper had been duplicated, seemed nothing out of the ordinary to Rossner, who specializes in detecting image manipulation in biomedical research. The surprise came when he looked closer at the magnified images the commenter had provided to support their allegation.

While the two enlarged lanes in the anonymous comment were indeed identical to each other, close inspection of the original image from the paper, which the comment included, clearly showed two different lanes. It wasn’t hard to see how the fakery had been achieved: A single lane had been copied and pasted on top of an adjacent lane.

“I have looked at thousands of PubPeer allegations, and this is the first time I have come across what appear to be fabricated allegations,” Rossner told us.

Intrigued, Rossner searched for other posts by the same person, who had commented under the pseudonym Ecionemia acervus. He found several. In two of them, the commenter again appeared to have fabricated the supporting evidence, as Rossner described in a short report detailing his analysis.

The three fake comments all targeted papers by the same senior researcher, Byung-Hyun Park, a professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology in Daejeon, South Korea. Park is a corresponding author or coauthor on 16 articles that have been flagged on PubPeer.

Park told us he was aware of the comments but had “no knowledge of who made these allegations and no interest in their identity.”

“The National Research Foundation of Korea has reviewed the original uncropped Western blot data for the papers in question and found no evidence of data manipulation,” Park said. “We have also recently received an inquiry from [the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology], and our university has initiated an official investigation into this matter and all related PubPeer comments. We will fully cooperate with this process.” One of the fabricated comments was directed against a paper in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, which has also been flagged by another commenter..

Park added that, “for the papers for which I am responsible, I am able to provide clarification and respond to most of the concerns raised. I will determine whether retraction is warranted based on the findings of the ongoing investigation.”

All of the allegations Rossner traced to the anonymous commenter were directed toward papers by either Park or Han-Jung Chae, a professor and dean at Jeonbuk National University in Jeonju, where Park worked until 2023. Chae, who has had nearly three dozen papers flagged on PubPeer, did not reply to a request for comment.

While some researchers have worried about sleuthing being “weaponized,” Rossner said he wasn’t certain what to make of the fake claims he found.

“This case is particularly strange, because there are numerous allegations by this person (under the same pseudonym and other pseudonyms) that appear to be legitimate,” he wrote in an email. “Why would this person make up just a few allegations when there are already many allegations made against this author that appear to be legitimate?”

PubPeer deleted the cooked-up allegations after we contacted them for this story. (Disclosure: Retraction Watch’s cofounder Ivan Oransky sits on PubPeer’s board of directors but is not involved in the site’s operations.)

“The images in the comments appear to be quite carefully designed to mislead our moderators,” a PubPeer spokesperson who wishes to remain anonymous told us. “The true images were sufficiently small and low-resolution such that the moderators did not notice the difference. Such misleading comments are, naturally, forbidden on PubPeer and we have disabled them.”

“Although such bad-faith comments are very rare,” the spokesperson added, “our moderators try to be alert to the possibility when checking comments before they appear and will react very promptly when alerted to potential problems in posts already made public.”

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 2026-01-23 13:00:00 UTC.

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This is the most complete skeleton yet of our ancestor Homo habilis

A partial skeleton dating back more than two million years is the most complete yet of Homo habilis, one of the earliest known species in our genus

in Scientific American on 2026-01-23 12:00:00 UTC.

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What’s the biggest explosion in the universe?

From planet-scorching stellar outbursts to cataclysms so powerful they shiver the very fabric of spacetime, these are some of the biggest blasts our cosmos has to offer

in Scientific American on 2026-01-23 11:45:00 UTC.

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Forensic science meets ancient art—inside the quest for Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA

Researchers are using cutting‑edge DNA techniques to hunt for genetic evidence in centuries‑old artworks in an effort to better understand the genius of Leonardo da Vinci

in Scientific American on 2026-01-23 11:00:00 UTC.

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Retraction data are still useless – almost

Retractions of scholarly articles are a rare event, affecting only about 0.02-0.04% of articles in total (but yearly rates are going up dramatically). This means that data about retractions are not even close to being representative of the scholarly literature at large. In particular, when the non-retracted literature contains anything from 40% to over 80% of unreliable work, even today’s retraction rates of around 0.2% or so seem totally negligible, in the grand scheme of things. After all, what is worse: a literature where 0.04% of articles are clearly marked as unreliable, or one where 40-80% of articles are equally unreliable, but completely unmarked?

Then again, one the one hand, some retractions can be high-profile and draw public attention to a science scandal, and on the other hand, despite their tiny numbers, retraction data have been analyzed and it was found that, e.g., articles from higher ranking journals and those with male corresponding authors tend to be marred by higher than average retraction rates.

It is understandable why such findings catch attention, despite the statistically negligible retraction rates. In addition to the tiny numbers, another aspect that makes retraction data so useless is that it is exceedingly difficult to tease apart if high retraction rates are due to increased scrutiny (i.e., detection) or overall lower quality. It is no surprise, therefore, that both high-ranking journals and male authors defended themselves by exclaiming (without evidence) that their publications were scrutinized more, hence the increased retractions.

Mirroring previous discussions where the evidence suggested that increased retraction rates at more prestigious journals was likely not due to more scrutiny, but due to lower quality work being published there, new evidence also points to the science published by women being held to a higher standard and hence receiving fewer retractions for quality reasons.

Two arguments have recently been published, supporting the notion that female authors publish higher quality work than male authors. The first is more like an anecdote from a single journal: Nature magazine finds that they reject more work from female authors, suggesting they hold them to a higher standard than men. This year, in a proper study of the biomedical literature, it was found that:

By analyzing all articles indexed in the PubMed database (>36.5 million articles published in >36,000 biomedical and life sciences journals), we show that the median amount of time spent under review is 7.4%–14.6% longer for female-authored articles than for male-authored articles.

So now we have two areas where it seems that increased retraction rates are likely not due to increased scrutiny of published articles, but, rather, due to lower quality publications. I would still not bet that these data will help sway any of the “increased scrutiny” proponents.

in Björn Brembs on 2026-01-23 08:38:20 UTC.

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Schneider Shorts 23.01.2026 – Marginalised and isolated in academic publishing activities

in For Better Science on 2026-01-23 06:00:00 UTC.

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BRAIN Initiative researchers ‘dream big’ amid shifts in leadership, funding

in The Transmitter on 2026-01-23 05:00:44 UTC.

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Colon cancer is killing more young people in the U.S. than any other cancer

Fewer people under age 50 are dying from cancer in the U.S., but colorectal cancer mortality rates continue to surge

in Scientific American on 2026-01-22 21:45:00 UTC.

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Neuroscience, BRAIN Initiative gain budget in ‘bad’ NIH funding bill

in The Transmitter on 2026-01-22 20:40:11 UTC.

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NIH ends fetal tissue research

The National Institutes of Health’s move to end support for research using fetal human tissue is “clearly a political decision, not a scientific one,” one expert says

in Scientific American on 2026-01-22 20:00:00 UTC.

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Is the flu shot linked to dysphonia? Here’s what the science says

The U.S. secretary of health and human services told USA Today that he believed the flu jab was a “potential culprit” for his spasmodic dysphonia that he could not “rule out”

in Scientific American on 2026-01-22 19:35:00 UTC.

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Ancient bacterium’s genome could rewrite the history of syphilis

Treponema pallidum, a microorganism that can cause a deadly sexually transmitted disease in humans, may have a far more ancient lineage than scientists once thought

in Scientific American on 2026-01-22 19:00:00 UTC.

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Sonic booms can protect Earth from dangerous space junk

Scientists are using technology developed to study earthquakes to address an out-of-this-world risk

in Scientific American on 2026-01-22 19:00:00 UTC.

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‘Kicking the can down the road’: Science flags insect meta-analysis based on allegedly buggy database

Science has issued a permanent expression of concern for a paper reporting a meta-analysis of a database including studies critics have said were “experimentally manipulated.” 

The notice, published today, applies to a 2020 meta-analysis measuring population patterns of freshwater and terrestrial insects and predicting what might drive changes in population numbers. According to the notice, the move comes after critics raised concerns about a database, called InsectChange, on which the meta-analysis was based. The database itself was published in 2021 in Ecology, a journal of the Ecological Society of America. 

The Science article has been cited 820 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. The Ecology paper has been cited 23 times. 

Roel van Klink, a researcher with the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research in Leipzig, was the lead and corresponding author for the Ecology paper on InsectChange. He does not agree with the expression of concern and told us in a written statement he did not agree with critics’ assessments. He said the dispute was largely over inclusion criteria – for example, whether it was appropriate to include studies in which researchers manipulated the environments or studies of environments that had been recently changed by invasive species.

“What is also unclear til this day is whether different choices of inclusion criteria would have led to different outcomes” in the meta-analysis, he said. “I would have loved to see a counter analysis based on a different data selection, but that has also not happened during these 5+ years.” 

Researchers Laurence Gaume and Marion Desquilbet, along with eight others, critiqued the meta-analysis in a comment published in Science in December 2020, eight months after the publication of the paper. “No attempt was made to weight studies according to their representativeness in terms of geographic location, anthropogenic impact (including farming methods and pesticide use), protected status, or insect assemblages,” they wrote.  

Gaume, a researcher at the University of Montpellier in France, told us this week that the submitted comment had “prompted a minimalist erratum” of the Science report, published in October 2020. She and Desquilbet, an economics researcher at the Toulouse School of Economics in France, wrote a much more extensive critique in Peer Community Journal about the post-corrected version. That piece was published in 2024.

The “vast majority of problems we presented require a complete restructuring of the database of the meta-analysis,” Gaume said. She told us the statement she emailed Retraction Watch was cosigned by Desquilbet.

Desquilbet and Gaume wrote in their critique that “in more than half of the original studies, the factors investigated were experimentally manipulated or were strong — often not natural — disturbances.” 

The two pointed to errors in insect count and sampling bias, among other issues. They say they uncovered over 500 mistakes with InsectChange’s methodology and statistical analyses, as BBC’s Science Focus reported last year.

“We argue that the datasets selected by the authors to build their database are not representative of the diversity of insect living conditions around the world and that the database is biased and cannot serve to estimate insect change,” Gaume continued.

Other critics flagged issues with the database in WIREs Water in 2020, noting van Klink and his coauthors “suggested that water quality has been improving, thereby challenging recent reports documenting drastic global declines in freshwater biodiversity.” Those critics argued the results of the meta-analysis “should not be considered indicative of an overall improvement in the condition of freshwater ecosystems.”

Gaume said a retraction of the Science paper was warranted, but said the expression of concern was “better than nothing.” She also said she believed Science should have addressed the issue in 2020, when the first critique was published. 

A representative from Science told us the new expression of concern on the paper will be permanent and “has the goal of alerting potential users to ensure they use the most up to date version.” They said they do not plan on looking into any other papers using the InsectChange database. 

Gaume expressed  unhappiness with the decision. “Marion [Desquilbet] and I are shocked by the way Science is ‘kicking the can down the road’ by essentially referring the problem back to the database, which is supposedly either fixed or in the process of being fixed, while the biased results of the meta-analysis are not being questioned and continue to be cited and influence public opinion, conveying a reassuring message on insects,” she said. 

Editor’s note: One sentence of this article was slightly amended on Jan. 23, 2026, to clarify the timing of Gaume and Desquilbet’s critique. The original read: “She said none of the issues they had identified in 2020 was addressed in the erratum, prompting her and Desquilbet…to write a much more extensive critique…” The sentence now reads, “She and Desquilbet wrote a much more extensive critique…” The full statement is available here and linked above.

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in Retraction watch on 2026-01-22 19:00:00 UTC.

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Parents might age faster or slower based on how many kids they have

A new study found that women in Finland who had a lot of kids—or none—aged faster than those with one or a few kids. But the findings don’t necessarily translate to today’s parents

in Scientific American on 2026-01-22 18:30:00 UTC.

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A spot in the base of the brain has a love of language

in Science News: Neuroscience on 2026-01-22 16:00:00 UTC.

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Peeling the layers off hormonal contraception: the effect on emotion regulation and memory

in Women in Neuroscience UK on 2026-01-22 15:00:20 UTC.

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Scientists just calculated how many microplastics are in our atmosphere. The number is absolutely shocking

A new estimate suggests land sources eject 600 quadrillion pieces of microplastic into the atmosphere every year

in Scientific American on 2026-01-22 11:45:00 UTC.

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Prenatal viral injections prime primate brain for study

in The Transmitter on 2026-01-22 05:00:43 UTC.

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NASA Crew-11 astronauts reflect on ISS medical evacuation and future of human spaceflight

At a press conference, former ISS commander Mike Fincke said Crew-11’s evacuation of the space station left him feeling more confident about human space exploration

in Scientific American on 2026-01-21 20:30:00 UTC.

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‘Bat accelerator’ unlocks new clues to how these animals navigate

Bats use echolocation to get around, but it wasn’t clear how these creatures managed to navigate dense environments—until now

in Scientific American on 2026-01-21 19:05:00 UTC.