Planet Neuroscientists

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Hurricane Humberto and Potential Tropical Storm Imelda Complicate Forecasts

Hurricane Humberto and a system that may become Tropical Storm Imelda in the coming days are swirling quite close to each other in the western Atlantic Ocean

in Scientific American on 2025-09-26 21:20:00 UTC.

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NIH Funds New Autism Studies on Genes and Environment as Trump Focuses on Tylenol

The National Institutes of Health is investing $50 million into research on genetic and environmental factors underlying autism—news that was eclipsed by President Donald Trump’s recent controversial claims about acetaminophen

in Scientific American on 2025-09-26 18:30:00 UTC.

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Pasteurization destroys H5N1 bird flu in milk

in Science News: Health & Medicine on 2025-09-26 18:17:28 UTC.

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Taylor & Francis threatens legal action against anonymous group’s ‘highly defamatory’ claims

Taylor & Francis has threatened legal action against an online group that has made allegations, based largely on vague insinuations rather than evidence, about the publisher and a member of its research integrity team. 

The group, ScienceGuardians, is an anonymous organization whose website serves as what they call an online “journal club.” On X, it has been posting so-called “investigations” of several sleuths, publishers and organizations, what it calls “perpetrators of the PubPeer Network Mob.” Its targets have included sleuths Kevin Patrick and Reese Richardson, and others such as Science editor-in-chief Holden Thorp, and its posts are often amplified by those whose work has been questioned on PubPeer or retracted. 

On September 7, the group published a string of claims on X about Nick Wise, a sleuth who joined Taylor & Francis in January as a research integrity manager. The ScienceGuardians post characterized the move as Wise “infiltrated” the publisher’s research integrity office. The post states he is responsible for 1,300 posts on PubPeer (which we have noted he does under his real name), and, ScienceGuardians claims, more than 100 others under the name “Simnia avena.” 

“These inflammatory words suggest that something illegal or secret has occurred, although it seems more likely that T&F hired Nick because of his sleuthing experience,” said sleuth Elisabeth Bik, who has also been called out by ScienceGuardians. “They also accuse Nick and other sleuths of using ‘fake accounts’ on PubPeer, even though many of us sleuths might use or have used pseudonyms out of fear of being sued. It is not a crime or fraud to use a pseudonym. In fact, ScienceGuardians are hiding behind one as well.”

On September 8, the group sent a “formal notice” to Taylor & Francis, which they also posted on Substack, to the attention of Laura Wilson, head of research integrity and ethics, and Sabina Alam, director of publishing ethics and integrity. Among its “material concerns,” the letter cites “conflicts of interest,” referencing Wise’s PubPeer posts, and whether he “disclosed his PubPeer activity” to the publisher. They also cite “collaboration with external actors,” referencing an exchange on Bluesky between Wise and Bik. The letter was signed by “Elias Verum, on behalf of ScienceGuardians.” 

Alam responded 10 days later in an email, the text of which ScienceGuardians posted online. “Your email and social media posts include several significant allegations about a particular individual at Taylor & Francis,” Alam wrote. The integrity team “committed to upholding the highest standards of research integrity and publishing ethics, as well as identifying and preventing unethical practices.”

Taylor & Francis takes such allegations very seriously. However, we note that you have not provided any evidence to support these allegations. If you have evidence to verify your claims, please share this with us and we will investigate accordingly. If you do not have such evidence, the substance of your email and social media posts are serious and highly defamatory, and have been disseminated by you to more than 3000 followers on the social media platform X. If you cannot substantiate these claims, then we insist that you retract these claims immediately.

If you continue to make these serious allegations without providing evidence of same, then we will have no choice but to refer this matter to our legal department and consider pursuing legal action.

A spokesperson for the publisher verified the correspondence reproduced in the posts as accurate but did not respond to further questions regarding the matter. Wise did not respond to a request for comment. 

ScienceGuardians has sent two subsequent replies to the publisher for what it deems “extremely significant concerns.”

In its response on September 20, ScienceGuardians repeated and linked to the allegations they posted on X, calling them “specific, archived evidence that supports the material concerns set out in our notice.” They continued, “For clarity, your threat of legal action does not relieve Taylor & Francis of its duty of care to the academic community.”

In a second follow-up email sent September 22, ScienceGuardians requested Taylor & Francis tell them whether Wise has access to the STM Integrity Hub, and if so, what permissions, data access and activity he has carried out, among other details of integrity research and work. 

In past posts, the group has also singled out Retraction Watch, with claims including that this site is the “institutional-level predatory arm of the PubPeer Network Mob.” 

“It is disturbing that ScienceGuardians not only post their vague insinuations on X, but that they also send emails to the employers of ‘sleuths’ in a clear attempt at defamation,” Bik told us. The account “uses accusatory language such as ‘malicious activities’, ‘entrapment’, ‘implicated’, and ‘exposing’, without actually showing any proof of fraudulent activities. “It is likely that these vague insinuations are costing the sleuths’ employers a lot of time and headaches.”

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 2025-09-26 17:45:43 UTC.

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In a first, Huntington’s disease is slowed by an experimental treatment

in Science News: Health & Medicine on 2025-09-26 17:45:00 UTC.

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OIST/NAIST initiative supports recruitment and development of foreign doctoral talent in Japan

in OIST Japan on 2025-09-26 12:00:00 UTC.

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Smallmouth Bass Evolve to Evade Electric Culling in Adirondack Lake

Scientists electrically culled invasive fish in a 20-year battle—but the fish fought back with rapid evolution

in Scientific American on 2025-09-26 11:00:00 UTC.

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Asteroid ‘Families’ Reveal Solar System’s Secret History

Many asteroids are related, but their family trees can be hard to trace

in Scientific American on 2025-09-26 10:45:00 UTC.

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Neuroscience and Art Collide in a Posthumous ‘Composition’ by Alvin Lucier in Revivification

A museum exhibit in Australia lets visitors hear music generated by brain cells derived from the blood of a dead composer.

in Scientific American on 2025-09-26 10:00:00 UTC.

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Who gets to overwork in academia? Time and inequality in research

in Women in Neuroscience UK on 2025-09-26 09:29:14 UTC.

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Schneider Shorts 26.09.2025 – We will take serious clown action against you

in For Better Science on 2025-09-26 05:00:00 UTC.

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I never meant to study the brainstem

in Peter Rupprecht on 2025-09-25 23:15:56 UTC.

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Attention Authors: Restoration of arXiv login outage

Today (September 25, 2025) arXiv login was down from about 12:00 to 15:00 EDT. This occurred due to a confluence of technical issues, the majority of which we have now fixed. Some of these technical issues have been plaguing the arXiv system for the past week, but we believe this current fix will allow for smooth and uninterrupted service for the foreseeable future.

During the outage, only submissions, account maintenance (such as email or password changes) and Postscript downloads were affected. arxiv.org was still available to readers, and finding and viewing papers was not affected.

One of fixes we have implemented is the temporary suspension of the ability to download Postscript files. While this is a rarely used legacy feature, the excessive amount of requests from harvesting bots overwhelmed the feature, which also exacerbated inefficiencies in our ancient implementation. This feature is only temporarily suspended – as arXiv continues to update and modernize our technology systems, Postscript downloads will be restored when we are better able to support them efficiently.

We apologize for the interruption, and we will keep readers and authors updated as our development team implements fixes and updates to arxiv.org. As always, any outages, issues, or interruptions of service to arxiv.org will be promptly posted and updated on the arxiv.org Operational Status page.

in arXiv.org blog on 2025-09-25 20:22:55 UTC.

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Authors defend retracted paper on vitamin D and COVID-19 critic called ‘deeply bizarre’

PLOS One has retracted a paper linking vitamin D levels and COVID-19 morbidity three years after a critic flagged the data in the study as “deeply bizarre.” The authors objected to the retraction, with one calling it “outrageous” and pointing to flaws in the published notice.

The article, which appeared in February 2022, claimed people with low levels of vitamin D were at increased risk for severe COVID-19 and were more likely to die of the disease than other patients. It has been cited 65 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

The paper had a “huge, immediate impact,” said Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, a senior research fellow from the University of Wollongong in Australia, citing the fact that the paper had been viewed over 1 million times within six weeks of being published. The article joins others, many also flagged by Meyerowitz-Katz, purporting to find links between vitamin D intake and COVID-19 severity that have been retracted or removed.

In an April 2022 thread on X, Meyerowitz-Katz noted the study’s “MASSIVE effect, whereby virtually everyone who died” had vitamin D levels below the normal range, he wrote at the time. 

Meyerowitz-Katz also wrote that, while the paper had “no obvious signs of fakery,” the data were “deeply bizarre.” He noted all of the patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the study also had hypertension, a trend not in itself unusual besides the complete overlap. 

The study considered low vitamin D levels to be less than 20 ng/mL, and 15 people had a vitamin D level of exactly 10 ng/mL. Ten of those 15 died, a larger percentage than any other bracket. “This makes having a vitamin D of exactly 10ng/mL the most dangerous range seen in the study,” Meyerowitz-Katz wrote. 

The September 8 notice cites a “fatal flaw” with the study design “which prevents testing of the hypothesis.” David Knutson, the head of communications at PLOS, told us the flaw refers to the fact the authors included only patients who had already been tested for vitamin D. The notice states the fact the patients had been previously assessed for vitamin D levels and that that level may have changed prior to COVID-19 infection may have introduced “confounding factors” or bias. 

Eyal Sela, director of the Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery Department at Galilee University in Israel, and the senior author of the article, called the journal’s decision “outrageous.” 

“We did the research during COVID, which put all of us in a position to examine any patient who entered the hospital without any selection,” he told Retraction Watch, maintaining patient selection was unbiased. The research was conducted in Sela’s lab at the university. 

After responding to Meyerowitz-Katz’s posts on X, the journal asked a member of the editorial board and an independent statistical expert to reassess the work. 

Meyerowitz-Katz had followed up with the journal in March 2023 and was told by Maddy Ghose, an editor at PLOS One, the journal was still investigating. He said he hasn’t heard anything since. 

As for why the retraction ultimately took three years, “the case was delayed at different points for various reasons,” Knutson told us. 

All but three of the study’s 18 authors disagreed with the retraction. The rest did not respond, the retraction notice states.

An email to Retraction Watch signed by three of the authors — Amiel Dror, Michael Edelstein and Orly Yakir, writing “on behalf of the authors” — says the possibility of “measurement and selection bias is there and acknowledged in the paper.” They also noted the patients’ vitamin D values the researchers used weren’t recorded as part of their study; instead, they included patients who both tested positive for COVID-19 and had existing prior levels available in the hospital database. 

Both Dror — the study’s corresponding author — and Yakir are researchers at Galilee University, and Edelstein is a professor of public health and epidemiology at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. 

“Because of these limitations we were very cautious regarding claims of causation, and we also explicitly state that our findings should not be interpreted as evidence for using vitamin D therapeutically for COVID patients,” the authors told us. 

The retraction notice also mentions a delay in measurement of vitamin D and COVID-19 infection — anywhere from 14 to 730 days — which the authors said is “relatively short compared to other papers using a similar approach” but was mentioned in the study limitations. 

The authors also pointed out what they considered errors in the retraction notice, including the statement “the analyses performed were inadequate to test the association between 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 levels at the time of infection and severity of COVID-19 illness.” The authors told us in their email the “association tested is NOT about levels at the time of infection (since the acute infective process affects vit D levels) but PRE-infection- this is even in the title.”

The researchers continued their “offer to conduct additional analyses to check for the extent of were rejected as coming too late” and the retraction came “without a warning.” 

“We think our results have been a useful addition to the literature, especially in the context of the acute phase of a pandemic,” the authors wrote. 

Meyerowitz-Katz told us the reasons cited in the retraction notice “make little sense” to him as well and “are very straightforward limitations to the methodology.” 

“And yet, the journal has now retracted the paper for reasons that were immediately obvious on a quick perusal of the manuscript, three years too late,” he continued.

Meyerowitz-Katz has flagged several papers from the COVID-19 literature, including attempting to debunk the controversial drug ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment. 

By our count, nearly 600 COVID-19 studies have been retracted so far, bringing into question how robust the publishing process was in the midst of the pandemic.

Correcting COVID-19 literature has been largely slow and laborious. A study published in April in the Cambridge University Press, coauthored by Ferric Fang, who is on the board of The Center for Scientific Integrity, of our parent nonprofit organization, noted more than half of COVID-19 retractions “resulted from problems that could have been detected prior to publication.” 

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 2025-09-25 19:02:32 UTC.

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WWI-Era Shipwrecks in Mallows Bay Form Ecological Sanctuary

Nearly 100 years ago dozens of ships were abandoned in a shallow bay in the Potomac River. Today plants and animals are thriving on the skeletons of these vessels

in Scientific American on 2025-09-25 19:00:00 UTC.

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Authors retract Science paper on controversial fMRI method

in The Transmitter on 2025-09-25 18:07:59 UTC.

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Taylor Swift’s Speech Pattern Changed over Time, Linguistics Study Shows

An analysis of Taylor Swift’s interviews suggests her speech pattern has changed over her career

in Scientific American on 2025-09-25 18:00:00 UTC.

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Punch Cards, Pipeline Problems, and the Future of Women in Computing

Carla Brodley, founding executive director of the Center for Inclusive Computing at Northeastern University, explains how to make computer science education more accessible to everyone

in Scientific American on 2025-09-25 17:00:00 UTC.

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Striking moments make previous memories stronger

in Science News: Psychology on 2025-09-25 15:00:00 UTC.

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Shining a light on dark valleytronics

in OIST Japan on 2025-09-25 12:00:00 UTC.

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Good Conversations Don’t Require Everybody to Agree, Neuroscience Shows

Brain imaging is illuminating the patterns linked to productive, positive dialogue, and those insights could help people connect with others

in Scientific American on 2025-09-25 12:00:00 UTC.

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Bird Flu and Human Flu Viruses Could Mix in Cow Udders and Spark a Pandemic

Cells in cow udders could act as a site for human flu and bird flu viruses to swap genes and generate dangerous novel strains

in Scientific American on 2025-09-25 10:45:00 UTC.

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In memoriam: Stephanie “Steve” Shirley, autism philanthropist

in The Transmitter on 2025-09-25 04:00:27 UTC.

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‘Nightmare Bacteria’ Infections Spiking, Leaving Key Carbapenem Antibiotics Useless, CDC Warns

The infection rate of one type of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales bacteria has risen by more than 460 percent in recent years. Scientists say people receiving treatment in hospitals are at highest risk

in Scientific American on 2025-09-24 22:15:00 UTC.

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What Is Leucovorin, the Unproven Autism Drug Backed by Trump Officials?

The Trump administration is backing leucovorin as a treatment for autism, despite limited evidence. Some doctors and researchers are concerned

in Scientific American on 2025-09-24 19:15:00 UTC.

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Math has publication fraud, too

Scholarly publishing in mathematics is unlike many other fields, marked by fewer papers, fewer coauthors per paper and fewer citations. But that doesn’t mean the field is immune to fraud and cheating. 

A pair of papers posted to the arXiv addresses the issue of fraudulent publishing in math, particularly metrics gaming, and offers a list of recommendations to help detect and deal with that problem and other fraudulent activities. (The former was also published in the October AMS Notices; the latter will appear in the November issue.) “Fraudulent publishing undermines trust in science and scientific results and therefore fuels antiscience movements,” mathematician Ilka Agricola, lead author of both papers, told Retraction Watch. 

A professor of mathematics at Marburg University in Germany, Agricola was president of the German Mathematical Society in 2021-2022 and is chair of the Committee on Publishing of the International Mathematical Union. The new articles are the products of a working group of the IMU and the International Council of Industrial and Applied Mathematics. 

Agricola spoke with us about the reports and about fraud in mathematics. Questions and responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Retraction Watch:  Few people talk about fraudulent publishing in math. Why is that?

Agricola: For a long time, mathematicians thought that as long as they keep away from predatory journals or paper mills, the problem does not affect them. This turned out to be wrong. 

Retraction Watch: If you look at the number of papers that tripped Clear Skies’ Papermill Alarm in 2022 (we included a histogram in this article we wrote for The Conversation), math is pretty far down the list. Are there a lot of fake papers in math?

Agricola: It is probably fair to say that the problem is not as severe as in other fields like cancer research, but the community is smaller and the number of fake papers is growing at alarming speed. Predatory and low-quality mega-journals are trying hard to lure respected scientists into their parallel universe of fake science, thus trying to give themselves the impression of respectability. Thus, one of our goals is to raise awareness for the issue in the mathematical community!

Retraction Watch: As you note in the new papers, Clarivate announced in 2023 it had excluded the entire field of math from its list of “Highly Cited Researchers,” or HCRs. What’s going on?

Agricola: The publication culture in math differs a bit from, say, experimental and life sciences. On average, mathematicians publish fewer papers with fewer authors than scientists in other fields. So, with the same absolute number of papers and citations, one can become a “highly-cited researcher” in math, but not in other fields. Thus, gaming the system is easier. 

The list of HCRs for mathematics became so screwed that Clarivate couldn’t pretend anymore that it had any value. This being said, Clarivate announced that they would look into new measuring tools, but didn’t come up with any alternative ideas in the meantime, nor did they contact any representatives of the international mathematical community. 

Retraction Watch: You note in your paper that the institution with the highest number of highly cited researchers in 2019 was China Medical University in Taiwan, which does not have a program in mathematics. How is that possible?

Agricola: Good question! Admission to the “Hall of Fame” of HCRs has a decisive advantage for the university of a scholar: It impacts their rank in the “Academic Ranking of World Universities” [ARWU, published since 2003], also nicknamed the “Shanghai ranking.” So, the institution benefits even if it does not have a math program. Of course, we agree that a topic not taught at a place ought not to be included, but that’s how the system works. Clarivate is treating its HCRs in a very kind way: They ask them about their affiliation. So, at the moment of making the count, researchers just give China Medical University (or any other institution) as their affiliation, despite not being there. The researchers typically get a contract as a “visiting professor” to hide that, in the end, they are being dishonest about their affiliation, and of course, being an HCR may give them more benefits, prestige, and grant access at their home institution as well. I was certainly surprised to learn that there is a lot of cheating with affiliations going on! Actually, many institutions do not have clear rules for primary and secondary affiliations.

Retraction Watch: If a clinical trial is fake, that’s a problem that can obviously affect life-and-death decisions. Do bogus papers and other types of publishing fraud in math have real-world consequences, too?

Agricola: Mathematics has many famous open conjectures. Predatory journals can give people the opportunity to publish “proofs” of these without credible peer review. The status of these results can become unclear, and further research based on them will then be a waste of effort or resources. On a larger scale, many junk papers are claiming to deal with applications, so it could create the wrong impression that these results solve concrete problems, and actually don’t. 

Retraction Watch: You and your coauthors are mathematicians, and yet you argue against focusing on numbers like journal impact factors and publication and citation counts. Is that what’s driving all of this bad behavior?

Agricola: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” This quote is from the British economist Charles Goodhart, and it also applies to bibliometrics measures. Of course, gaming these metrics has always existed, but some of us liked to believe that they would be roughly OK, with some error bar due to some cheating. Now, we realize the error bar is larger than the number one wants to measure. Perhaps one advantage of mathematicians is that they are not easily impressed by numbers, and we have the means to understand and analyze them — this is our job. And so, the conclusion is very clear: The correlation between bibliometrics and research quality is so low that we should not use bibliometrics. And I urge all colleagues to say so openly!

Retraction Watch: So how do we judge research quality if we shouldn’t use publication metrics?

Agricola: Read the actual publications instead of relying on bibliometrics! Plus, in mathematics, we are lucky to have two extremely well curated databases for math papers and journals, zbMath Open and MathReviews. If a journal is not included there, it’s either very interdisciplinary or one should get suspicious.

Retraction Watch: Is it possible for individual researchers to jump off the bibiometrics bandwagon without jeopardizing their careers?

Agricola: We need to fight for a change in culture, that’s for sure, and the path will be rash and hard. To young researchers, we should give the warning that being involved in predatory publishing can also just as well put their scientific integrity at risk. Remember the people who had to resign because of data falsification? 

But the situation is not hopeless. Some effective changes would be easy to implement:

• Define good publishing practices, encourage people to follow them, educate the young generation about predatory publishing.
• Discourage the use of bibliometrics in hiring and promotion committees or for graduating.
• Evaluate faculty by their best papers and ‘activeness’ without pressure to publish too frequently.
• Do not publish in journals charging article processing charges  — most serious math journals don’t do it.
• Check the quality of journals before joining their editorial board.
• Choose the journals or special issues in which you publish and the journals for which you write reviews wisely.

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 2025-09-24 15:34:00 UTC.

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Staph bacteria are bad at letting go

in Science News: Health & Medicine on 2025-09-24 13:00:00 UTC.

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Earthquakes Release Energy Mostly Through Heat, Not Ground Shaking

Up to 98 percent of the energy of an earthquake goes into flash heating rocks, not shaking the ground, new research shows. The finding could help yield better earthquake forecasts

in Scientific American on 2025-09-24 10:45:00 UTC.

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Mary Roach’s New Book Replaceable You Explores Challenges in Replacing Body Parts

Mary Roach unpacks the millennia-long effort to replace failing body parts—and the reasons that modern medicine still struggles to match the original designs.

in Scientific American on 2025-09-24 10:00:00 UTC.

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A global leader in neurology and neuroscience

in For Better Science on 2025-09-24 05:00:00 UTC.

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Ann Kennedy explains the theoretical neuroscience of survival behaviors

in The Transmitter on 2025-09-24 04:00:49 UTC.

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Local circuit loops within body control fly behavior, new ‘embodied’ connectome reveals

in The Transmitter on 2025-09-24 04:00:33 UTC.

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We Can Stop Teen Suicide

By understanding warning signs and talking to your child, parents can help reduce the risk of teen suicide

in Scientific American on 2025-09-24 03:00:00 UTC.

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Study on apple cider vinegar for weight loss retracted after many raise concerns

Easy fixes for complex health problems can be tempting — but they rarely pan out. That seems to be the case for the investigators on one clinical trial who claimed consuming apple cider vinegar caused obese teens and young adults to lose weight. 

Their article appeared in March 2024 in BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health. The journal is retracting the paper “because the authors’ analyses could not be replicated and multiple errors were identified,” according to the retraction notice.

The retraction, dated September 23, comes more than a year after sleuths pointed out some of these errors and other problems with the analysis. 

The paper was covered widely when it was published, though some outlets gave context for the unreliability of this type of research when they mentioned it. It has been cited three times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

The study found that overweight and obese people who consumed apple cider vinegar daily for 12 weeks lost an average of 6 to 8 kilograms and their BMI dropped by an average of 2.7 to 3.0 points.

If the claims were true, apple cider vinegar would be 50 percent more effective than GLP-1 agonists such as Ozempic, said James Heathers, a research integrity consultant and director of the Medical Evidence Project (an initiative of The Center for Scientific Integrity, the parent nonprofit of Retraction Watch). 

Rony Abou-Khalil, corresponding author on both the paper and the response, did not respond to our requests for comment. He is listed as the head of the department of biology at Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, in Lebanon.

Heathers started looking into the paper shortly after it was published, and published an analysis describing flaws in the study in May 2024. He described the nearly identical age and BMI distributions within each 30-person experimental group as “unlikely.”

Although researchers want each group to have similar characteristics, randomly assigning participants would usually result in more variation between the groups than seen in the study. The age, height and weight are “almost identical between the randomized [groups of] participants,” he wrote. “This extreme uniformity likely represents a failure of randomization, although it is unclear how this arose.”

He went on to describe other flaws with the statistical analysis in the paper, and pointed out the authors didn’t include their original dataset with the publication. 

After reading Heathers’ assessment, Vahid Malbouby at Boise State University and Eric Trexler at Duke University wrote to him citing additional problems with the paper. For example, other studies do not support the claim that apple cider vinegar raises basal metabolic rate even at higher doses than used in the study. The three wrote a letter to the journal detailing their concerns, which they submitted in June 2024 and the journal published in February of this year.

Five rapid responses posted on the article in September and October 2024 questioned the statistical analysis conducted in the paper, as well as problems with the study’s design. One such concern is that each experimental group included participants ages 12 to 25 years. This large range of ages including both children and adults could confound the results, “in that BMI and weight change is very different in a 12 year old who is still likely to be growing and a 25 year old,” according to a response authored by Duane D. Mellor, a dietitian at Aston University in England. 

Mellor also pointed out “there is no statement of trial registration, no CONSORT flowchart and now [sic] CONSORT checklist.“ Many publishers, including BMJ, require authors to provide these documents before publishing the research to ensure the validity and transparency of the findings. 

In December 2024, the journal published a letter from two of the paper’s original three authors. The authors cited papers to justify their original statistical analysis, the biological plausibility of such a large effect, and the unusual data distributions. They concluded, “we assert that the methodologies employed in our study were appropriate and supported by existing literature.”

Given how long ago serious flaws were identified, “it is disappointing that an expression of concern had not been posted to the article,” said Andrew W. Brown, an associate professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and director of biostatistics for the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute, who studies pediatrics, nutrition and obesity. “That left a window of time when a reader may have been misled by the work while it was being evaluated.”

In addition to the paper’s analyses not being replicable, the retraction notice identifies other issues as well: “The authors supplied dataset also demonstrated patterns inconsistent with random allocation of participants to treatment groups, improbably small p-values given the limited number of participants included in the study.”

According to the notice, “the authors state that the discrepancies were honest mistakes that arose from version mismatches, data rounding or formatting differences when exporting from statistical software to reporting spreadsheets. However, the authors agree with the decision to retract the work.” 

In a statement, Helen Macdonald, publication ethics and content integrity editor at BMJ Group, said: “While we deal with allegations as swiftly as possible, it’s very important that due process is followed. Investigations are often complex. This one involved detailed scrutiny of data and correspondence with researchers, institutions, and other experts, for example. Reaching a sound and fair and final decision can therefore take several months.”

Regarding the fact that the journal published the study without clinical trial registration, Martin Kohlmeier, editor-in-chief of BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health, said in the same statement, “In hindsight, this was the wrong decision to make. But the authors come from a scientific environment that is underrepresented in nutritional research and the journal aims to prioritise high quality evidence, which usually comes from clinical trials.”

Flawed clinical trials are not uncommon in the field of nutrition, Brown told us. “I am glad to see the retraction of this paper to uphold the integrity of the field, but we need to do better in the field of nutrition to register, design, conduct, and report trials to a high standard before publication,” he said.

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

in Retraction watch on 2025-09-23 22:30:00 UTC.

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With little proof, Trump links Tylenol to autism and touts a treatment

in Science News: Health & Medicine on 2025-09-23 19:20:57 UTC.

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The Moon Is Rusting—Thanks to ‘Wind’ Blown from Earth

Lunar minerals can rust when bombarded with high-energy oxygen particles, experiments show

in Scientific American on 2025-09-23 17:30:00 UTC.

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Second study using ‘Tin Man Syndrome’ X-ray under scrutiny following Retraction Watch inquiry

Just as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was the first of 14 books in a series, our recent coverage of a paper on “Tin Man syndrome” seems to have sequels. After we wrote about a case study describing a man with his heart in his abdomen retracted for plagiarizing images from an April Fools’ joke, a reader flagged yet another paper using the same image.

As we previously reported, the authors of a “rare case report” appearing in Medicine claimed they had encountered a case of a man with asymptomatic “ectopia cordis interna,” in which his heart was in his abdomen. After the article was retracted, the corresponding author admitted the photos had been taken from a 2015 April Fools’ paper in Radiopaedia describing the same (fictitious) condition.

Following that coverage, a reader did a reverse image search of the X-ray in both papers and found a 2021 article from Scientific Programming, published by Wiley. The study recommends a non-conventional ventilation option for treating neonatal respiratory distress syndrome. The paper has been cited twice, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

Figure 2 of the paper purports to show a neonate X-ray where the “heart contour of diaphragm was not seen.” David Sanders, an image expert and biologist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., told us it “is indisputable” that the figure “derives from” the Tin Man Syndrome hoax paper. Aside from similarities within the image itself, Sanders pointed to the label in the upper right hand corner, which has helped us identify other instances of reuse. 

On September 9, a spokesperson from Wiley, which publishes Scientific Programming, told us they had initiated an investigation after we flagged concerns.

Sanders said the paper has even more flaws.The references of the paper “are a mess,” including number 8, which describes an algorithm for removing shadows of moving objects. Reference 5, which the authors point to when sourcing the term “white lung,” makes no mention of the condition. 

Corresponding author Xin Chen, a researcher at The First Affiliated Hospital of Bengbu Medical College in China, did not respond to our request for comment. 

Chen and two coauthors on the Scientific Programming article lost a paper in 2022 from the Journal of Healthcare Engineering, a Wiley title formerly owned by Hindawi, which Wiley acquired in 2021. The retraction notice says the paper was investigated by the Hindawi Research Integrity team, which raised concerns “that the peer review process has been compromised.”

Wiley has retracted over 11,000 papers in journals it acquired from Hindawi, a known target of paper mill activity.

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 2025-09-23 15:35:30 UTC.

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A Long Road to an RSV Antibody to Protect the Most Vulnerable

Tragic RSV vaccine trials in the 1960s set the field back for decades. Here’s how scientists finally made breakthroughs in RSV immunization

in Scientific American on 2025-09-23 13:00:00 UTC.

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The Fight to End Childhood RSV in Indian Country

American Indian and Alaska Native infants experience the highest rates of RSV-related hospitalization in the U.S., but a breakthrough immunization is helping to close the gap

in Scientific American on 2025-09-23 13:00:00 UTC.

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How Indigenous Storytelling Is Transforming RSV Care in Native Communities

Abigail Echo-Hawk, a preeminent Native American public health expert, discusses RSV, “data genocide” and positive change driven by Indigenous storytelling

in Scientific American on 2025-09-23 13:00:00 UTC.

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The Global Burden of RSV

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) continues to affect infants and older and immunocompromised people around the world. These graphics reveal where the burden lies and what the effects of immunizations are

in Scientific American on 2025-09-23 13:00:00 UTC.

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New RSV Preventives Dramatically Reduce Infant Illness and Death

The year 2023 marked the debut of groundbreaking innovations to prevent severe RSV infections in infants. Now protected babies are way less likely to develop severe infections or to end up in the ICU

in Scientific American on 2025-09-23 13:00:00 UTC.

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The Promise of RSV Prevention

RSV is the leading cause of infant hospitalizations in the U.S. But that could soon change as research advances lead to new preventive drugs for everyone

in Scientific American on 2025-09-23 13:00:00 UTC.

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The Final RSV Frontier Is within Reach

The journey toward an RSV vaccine for children has been wrought with tragedy and setbacks. But six decades after scientists embarked on that path, they are nearing the finish line

in Scientific American on 2025-09-23 13:00:00 UTC.

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James Webb Space Telescope Finds Atmosphere on Lava Planet TOI-561 b

Hot, small and old—exoplanet TOI-561 b is just about the worst place to look for alien air. Scientists using JWST found it there anyway

in Scientific American on 2025-09-23 11:25:00 UTC.

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Save the date & join us for the Copim Conference 2026! Exploring the future of community-led open access books. 26-27 February 2026 @ Loughborough London Campus and online | Copim Community

in Open Access Tracking Project: news on 2025-09-23 05:10:00 UTC.

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‘What Is Intelligence?’: An excerpt

in The Transmitter on 2025-09-23 04:00:44 UTC.

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Impaired sensory learning in a mouse model of fragile X syndrome; and more

in The Transmitter on 2025-09-23 04:00:44 UTC.

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Alzheimer’s paper retracted over apparent image duplication

in The Transmitter on 2025-09-23 04:00:20 UTC.

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Tylenol Is Popular and Safe, Yet Nobody Knows How It Works

The common pain reliever is safe when used as directed, research shows. But scientists remain puzzled by one aspect: how it reduces pain and fever

in Scientific American on 2025-09-22 22:40:00 UTC.