Planet Neuroscientists

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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 Four of his papers have been retracted.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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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.

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 2026-01-22 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.

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Mystery Prototaxites tower fossils may represent a newly discovered kind of life

Towering Prototaxites ruled Earth before trees—and they may have been a form of life entirely new to science

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

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Lawsuit fails to block retraction of paper claiming to link heart-related deaths to COVID-19 vaccines

A Taylor & Francis journal has retracted a widely-read paper linking cardiac-related mortality to COVID-19 vaccines after an unsuccessful legal attempt by the lead author to block the withdrawal. That author says he is considering further legal action against the publisher.

The article, “Risk of all-cause and cardiac-related mortality after vaccination against COVID-19: A meta-analysis of self-controlled case series studies,” drew swift criticism when it was published in Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics in August 2023. At the time, critics and sleuths were quick to challenge the data and methods used in the paper, which now has more than 143,000 views on the Taylor & Francis website and has been cited 15 times, including by two letters to the editor of the journal and a response from the authors, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

The retraction notice, posted online January 16, states the retraction resulted from concerns that arose about the methodology of the study and the integrity and availability of the data. The authors provided a full response to the queries; however, the publisher determined the validity of the findings remained in question, the notice states. It continues:

In addition, after publication, a major dataset that formed a central part of the evidence presented in the paper has been removed from public access by the issuing government authority; therefore, key portions of the published analysis are unverifiable using publicly available data.

As verifying the validity of published work is core to the integrity of the scholarly record, we are, therefore, retracting the article. The corresponding author listed in this publication has been informed. The Editor and Publisher confirm that there is no allegation of research misconduct on the part of the authors.

The publisher’s decision was informed by its editorial policies and COPE guidelines, the notice states. 

The retraction follows a December 11 decision by a federal court in Arizona rejecting a request for a temporary restraining order against the publisher by lead author Greg J. Marchand. The author pursued the order to prevent Taylor & Francis “from causing irreparable harm” to his “professional reputation by improperly retracting his published and peer-reviewed research article in breach of the parties’ contract and T&F’s duties of care as a publisher,” according to his November 2025 complaint.  

The U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona found Marchand was unlikely to succeed on the merits of his claim, and declined to “impose restraints on a publisher’s editorial discretion,” which the court said would violate the publisher’s First Amendment rights. The court decision was first reported by Eugene Volokh.

In a statement sent to Retraction Watch, Marchand said he and his team stand behind the paper’s findings as well as “the methods used, which were appropriate to the data and tools available at that time.” Marchand is a gynecologic surgeon and managing director of Marchand Institute for Minimally Invasive Surgery, a non-profit research corporation based in Mesa, Arizona. 

As part of the meta-analysis, Marchand and his coauthors included data from The Ladapo report, an analysis by Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, according to Marchand’s 33-page defense of the paper. The report, released in October 2022, addressed vaccine safety and led to guidance from Ladapo advising against COVID-19 vaccines for men aged 18 to 39 because of a purported higher risk of cardiac-related death.

Data from Ladapo’s report has since been removed from the Florida Department of Health’s servers, said Marchand, who noted that, in accordance with COPE guidelines, it’s “acceptable to retract a meta-analysis under these circumstances.” He wasn’t pleased, however, with the wording in the retraction notice, which he said gives the impression a COPE standards review was performed.

“There was no COPE-compliant query that took place, and no evidence of any invalid finding,” he said in the emailed statement. “All questions were answered to absolute resolution, and no further concerns were raised by the editors or outside reviewers.” 

Marchand said he is considering legal action for libel for the publisher’s ambiguous wording, “which could portray authors and their considerable work on this paper in a negative light.” 

A spokesperson for Taylor & Francis said the publisher had no comment beyond the details in the retraction notice. “The retraction decision was made and communicated to the authors before the legal action, and therefore the legal action did not affect the decision to retract,” they added.

The Marchand paper evaluated a self-controlled case series, a novel study design “uniquely equipped to ethically quantify the safety of vaccination,” according to the abstract. The authors say they found three such case series, totaling about 750,000 patients.

The researchers found no significant association of COVID-19 vaccination with all-cause mortality, but concluded there was an increased risk of cardiac-related mortality linked to the vaccine. A subgroup analysis purported to show “the male gender is significantly associated with an increased incidence of cardiac-related deaths.”

Other studies have shown that myocarditis is a rare but possible side effect of the vaccines. Vinay Prasad, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, recently called for stricter regulations of new vaccines after claiming that the COVID-19 vaccine was linked to the death of at least 10 children, according to a leaked memo reported by STAT.   

Shortly after the Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics paper was published in 2023, critics and sleuths began poking holes in the research. 

In an August 2023 letter to the editor, independent researcher Borja Somovilla Del Saz of Valencia, Spain, raised concerns that authors relied on data from the Ladapo paper, which was not a peer-reviewed study. In addition, “sensitivity analyses were lacking, undermining result robustness, particularly in gender-specific outcomes,” Del Saz wrote in his letter. 

Another letter to the editor, this one by Tyler Black of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, highlighted “significant methodological, important omissions … and errors in data extraction” in the article. 

The paper also became the source of much discussion on X, where sleuth Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz wrote a lengthy thread about what he called a “clear error” with the meta-analysis. Meyerowitz-Katz, a research fellow at the University of Wollongong in Australia and a coauthor on Black’s letter, explained the authors used two types of meta-analyses for the two different models: a random-effects model, and a fixed-effects model. 

A fixed-effects model assumes the studies are essentially identical, while a random-effects model assumes the studies are different, and the differences are distributed in somewhat random ways, he explained in the August 2023 post. 

“To me, this is an obvious error,” Meyerowitz-Katz wrote. “The correct thing to do in this situation would be to report both the fixed and random-effects models, because their results conflict, and discuss which one would potentially be more important to consider.” 

Instead, it appears the main finding rested on a single, “arbitrary decision” about which statistical model to use for each analysis, Meyerowitz-Katz wrote.

Similar concerns were raised by Taylor & Francis in emails sent to Marchand by Jade Boyd, journals portfolio manager for the publisher, according to correspondence seen by Retraction Watch. In an email dated March 14, 2024, Boyd told Marchand the publisher sent his article for “confidential post-publication review to an independent expert, as is common in cases like this.”

In subsequent email exchanges that went on for more than a year, Boyd questioned Marchand about various aspects of the research, including queries about hazard ratios, and the sensitivity analysis, according to the email communication provided by Marchand.

The email exchanges indicate Marchand and his coauthors were responsive to the publisher’s investigation – which the retraction notice affirmed – sharing additional information, answering questions, and at one point, sending a corrected manuscript with new figures requested by Taylor & Francis for a correction. 

The corrected article never went forward however, and the back-and-forth stalled. On November 12, 2025, the publisher sent Marchand an email stating that some of the major concerns with the paper remained unaddressed and Taylor & Francis intended to publish a retraction notice, according to a timeline in Marchand’s legal complaint. He sued the publisher on November 24, 2025, alleging breach of contract by Taylor & Francis, among other claims. Marchand claimed the publisher’s acceptance and publication of the article, its policies, and the journal’s adherence to COPE guidelines formed a contract between the publisher and Marchand, and that retraction would breach the contract. 

District Judge Diane J. Humetewa disagreed, writing that while the Court recognizes the importance of contract enforcement in commercial transactions, “here Marchand has failed to sufficiently identify the enforceable terms of any agreement between the parties.”

In their 33-page response, Marchand and his coauthors address the criticisms against the paper, including their characterization of the Ladapo report as “a peer-reviewed publication” and concerns with the fixed- and random-effect models. 

The characterization of the Ladapo report was “thorough, transparent, and justified, prioritizing scientific merit over external controversies,” according to the defense. The authors also contend the handling of the fixed- and random- effects models was “transparent, consistent with our pre-specified criteria, and aligned with established guidelines.”

“The sensitivity analyses and re-analysis under random effects validate the stability of our findings, and the critique’s alleged overturning relies on disputed data adjustments rather than a flaw in our model application,” they said. “No substantive deviation occurred, and our conclusions remain supported.”

When reached by Retraction Watch, Meyerowitz-Katz said it’s “a good thing” the study was retracted. “It was a very poorly-done meta-analysis that differed significantly from its own pre-registration without any discussion of why,” he told us. “In addition, the entire finding – that COVID-19 vaccines may increase cardiac mortality – was predicated on a single, openly political paper…. Had the authors only considered high-quality, peer-reviewed studies, they would similarly have not found an effect.”

Marchand has authored other recent research purporting to show harms related to vaccines, including a research collaboration with Peter McCullough about a connection between RSVpreF vaccines and pregnancy and preterm birth. The Wellness Company, where McCullough is chief scientific officer, sells an “Ultimate Spike Detox” aimed at treating purported vaccine-induced spike proteins that linger in the body after vaccination for $89 per bottle.

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 2026-01-21 18:35:01 UTC.

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New JWST images show Helix Nebula in astonishing clarity

A fresh look at the Helix Nebula captures new details of the cycle of stellar life and death

in Scientific American on 2026-01-21 18:00:00 UTC.

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Oldest cave art ever found discovered in Indonesia

Beating the previous record for the oldest known cave artwork by at least 15,000 years, a hand stencil in an Indonesian cave might shed light on when early humans migrated to Australia

in Scientific American on 2026-01-21 16:12:00 UTC.

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Attention Authors: updated endorsement policy

arXiv has updated our endorsement policy. As of January 21, 2026, arXiv will no longer accept institutional email addresses (i.e., an email address associated with an academic or research institution) as the sole qualifier of endorsement for new authors. This policy update is being made to support the arXiv community (authors, readers, volunteer moderators, and staff) by stemming the flood of low-quality, non-scientific submissions to arxiv.org.

Endorsement for new submitters in all categories will now follow two paths. The first path requires both 1) an institutional email address from an academic/research institution and 2) previous authorship on an existing paper which has been accepted to the arXiv “endorsement domain”* they wish to submit to (see paper ownership). New submitters who cannot meet these requirements can pursue the second path, which is seeking personal endorsement directly from an established arXiv author in the same endorsement domain.

I have questions about this policy update / getting endorsed. 

This is a significant change for many arXiv authors. You can read below for more about why arXiv has made this update and how this will affect your submission. If you still have questions, comments, or concerns after reading, please fill out our Endorsement Policy Feedback Form.

arXiv staff cannot waive endorsement requirements or provide a personal endorsement for authors. The feedback form is the best way to get in contact with arXiv about endorsement issues.

What does this update mean for researchers wishing to submit to arXiv?

Authors who were previously endorsed to submit to a particular category will still be endorsed in that category. This policy update will mostly affect new submitters — arXiv authors who are submitting to a category for the first time.

Because new submitters to an arXiv category need both an institutional email address AND previous authorship on an existing paper in the endorsement domain of the category they wish to submit to, the following are best practices for new authors hoping to get endorsed via the first endorsement path:

• If you are affiliated with an academic or research institution, make sure your arXiv account is connected to your academic or research email.

• If you have co-authored a paper or papers that have been accepted to arXiv, claim ownership of your paper(s).
  • For automatic endorsement, the paper(s) you own must be in the endorsement domain that the category you wish to submit to is in. If you have co-authored several papers, it is recommended that you claim ownership of all of them and keep your arXiv account as up-to-date as possible.

If you are a new submitter who meets BOTH of the requirements of the first endorsement path, you will likely be able to submit without taking any further action.

If you are a new submitter who does not meet BOTH of the requirements, you must follow the second path and seek personal endorsement. Our help pages go into detail on how to seek personal endorsement from an advisor, colleague, or arXiv author with endorsement privileges. arXiv staff are not able to personally endorse arXiv authors.

What is endorsement and why is arXiv updating the endorsement policy?

Endorsement (in one form or another) has always been a requirement to submit to arXiv. arXiv’s mission is to advance science by providing a place for the scientific community to freely and quickly share and discover relevant scientific research, and arXiv authors are expected to be scientists with expertise in their field. 

Endorsement is how arXiv determines that a potential arXiv author is a research scientist and has relevant research to share. When arXiv was small, all endorsements were personal endorsements – one scientist personally vouching for another. As we grew, most arXiv sections automatically endorsed first-time submitters as long as they had an affiliation to an academic or research institute. arXiv felt this was a fair way to allow new researchers to submit to arXiv while still preserving the corpus and maintaining a standard of scientific integrity. However in recent years, arXiv has received an unsustainable increase in the number of non-scientific submissions, increasing the rejection rate and requiring excessive moderation and staff effort. Because of this, we have determined that institutional email addresses are no longer a sufficient credential for determining minimum research competence or endorsement.

arXiv first rolled out a similar endorsement update across the arXiv Math section in December 2025, which you can read about in our previous blog.

arXiv was built for scientists, by scientists, and endorsement is not a guarantee. Endorsement is reserved for members of the scientific community with expertise in their field. Endorsement can also be revoked if an author violates arXiv policies or the arXiv code of conduct.

How can I help first-time authors submit to arXiv?

The arXiv endorsement process ensures a sustainable and fair way for scientists to help arXiv determine who is a member of good standing in the scientific community by vouching for the scientific work of first-time submitters. Want to know how you can help by endorsing new authors in your field? Learn about endorsement, and how to find out if you have endorsement privileges.

Thank you to our scientific community for supporting us in this policy update. We rely on you to help us keep arXiv open and free, and to help us make sure submissions to arXiv are scientifically rigorous and of interest to the community.

* “Endorsement domains” are high-level subject areas or related categories on arXiv. Endorsement domains have been chosen to reflect related subject areas and ensure that it will be easy for people to seek personal endorsement from authors in their field. Most high-level subject areas (e.g., hep-th, cond-mat, q-bio) are currently endorsement domains, with the notable exception of physics, in which individual subject classes (e.g., phys.acc-phys, phys.med-ph) are endorsement domains.

in arXiv.org blog on 2026-01-21 15:04:39 UTC.

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NASA quietly ends financial support for planetary science groups

The U.S. space agency will quit funding several independent science advisory groups this year

in Scientific American on 2026-01-21 15:00:00 UTC.

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Deer may see hidden glowing signs in forests

Deer antler rubs and hoof scrapes change how parts of the forest reflect short-wavelength light, perhaps leaving a glowing signal

in Scientific American on 2026-01-21 15:00:00 UTC.

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Watch three solar prominences erupt in epic video

A European spacecraft caught rare footage of three successive prominences popping off the sun

in Scientific American on 2026-01-21 12:00:00 UTC.

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Fed up, author issues her own retraction after journal ghosts her

At wit’s end after a publisher ignored her repeated requests for a correction, Ursula Bellut-Staeck took the extreme step of issuing her own retraction. But is that even a thing?  

Bellut-Staeck, an independent researcher from Berlin, Germany, submitted a paper to SCIREA Journal of Clinical Medicine last spring after receiving an invitation from the journal. The article, about mechanotransduction and the impact of infrasound and vibrations, was published June 16.  

But when Bellut-Staeck realized her affiliation as listed on the article needed changing, she contacted the journal to request a correction. The problem, she said, was linguistic. Because she didn’t realize “affiliation” has a different meaning in German than English, she had mistakenly listed herself as being at an institution she has since left.

Receiving no response to three correction requests, she finally asked the journal to retract the paper. Frustrated when she still didn’t hear back, Bellut-Staeck said, she performed an “unilateral author-initiated retraction” on November 27.

She documented the self-retraction on Figshare, writing she “unilaterally retracts” the article for “persistent non-responsiveness of the publisher for more than five weeks to repeated legitimate requests for correction of a critical affiliation error” and for “evidence of absence of meaningful peer review.”

“Since its publication on June 16, 2025, the behavior of the editors of the Journal of Clinical Medicine has been a major source of stress,” Bellut-Staeck told us in an email. “In any case, it damaged my credibility during this period, which I was only able to restore by unilaterally retracting a scientific article that had been the result of a great deal of work.” She believes the self-retraction “fully complies with COPE Retraction Guidelines for cases of publisher non-responsiveness and predatory practices.”

Published online by SCIREA – which publishes 25 journals in total – the Journal of Clinical Medicine is not a COPE member. On its website, the journal calls itself an “international, scientific peer-reviewed open access journal” that provides “rapid publication” and “high visibility.” The journal boasts being “indexed in the Google Scholar and other databases.” It is not indexed in Clarivate’s Web of Science, but MDPI’s identically named Journal of Clinical Medicine is. 

While Bellut-Staeck says she’s following COPE’s guidelines in her unusual move, in fact those standards do not address self-retraction in cases of non-responsive publishers. The guidelines state authors who become aware of potential errors, ethical issues or misconduct must raise these issues to the journal’s editor and with the institution, but that “the decision to correct or retract an article is made by the editor.”

“There is no such thing as ‘self-retract,’” said Jodi Schneider, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in information quality, biomedical informatics and controversies in science. 

If the journal is a COPE member and is not responding to correspondence, authors can reach out to the group to issue a complaint, Schneider said. If the journal is not a COPE member, authors can check whether they participate in other professional associations that might take an interest. 

“If professional organizations and DOI registrars cannot help, the author does not have any obvious remedies,” she told us. 

Bellut-Staeck detailed for Retraction Watch the extraordinary path her paper took her down. She originally submitted it to another journal, she said, where it was rejected. Around the same time, she received the submission invitation from SCIREA Journal of Clinical Medicine. She reviewed the journal’s profile, but “apparently not thoroughly enough,” she said. 

After many failed attempts to reach the publisher about the correction, and before resorting to posting her own retraction notice, Bellut-Staeck had an idea. She transmitted a new “submission” through the journal’s submission portal. Instead of sending an article, she sent a request to contact her about the correction. 

After nine days, the “submission” was accepted as if it were an article, according to Bellut-Staeck and correspondence we have seen. She then received a payment request for $460. When she didn’t respond, the journal sent a second, discounted offer of publication for $99.   

“For me, this meant that the publisher had finally crossed a red line, and it strengthened my resolve to unilaterally withdraw the work,” she told us. 

The publisher eventually corrected the affiliation error without communicating with Bellut-Staeck, she said. However, the researcher still wants a retraction because she has ethical concerns with the journal now and wants to protect her credibility.  

Apart from the affiliation issue, Bellut-Staeck said the content of her paper is scientifically correct and remains fully valid. She hopes to reintegrate the important results of her work into a new publication. 

In an attempt to get the journal’s side of the story, we sent emails to the four email addresses listed on SCIREA’s Journal of Clinical Medicine’s contact page. Two of the messages were undeliverable because the addresses could not be found. No one responded from the other two.  

The journal has no editor-in-chief listed on its website, and no one named as a contact for the publication. The site does list more than 90 members on its editorial board from institutions across the world. Few board members returned messages by Retraction Watch seeking comment, and those who did respond said they were not affiliated with the journal. 

Cancer researcher Bene Akromaa Ekine-Afolabi, for example, told us she is not a member of the board and only learned she is on the journal’s website when we contacted her. Ekine-Afolabi is listed as affiliated with an institution at which she had a role 15 years ago, the University of East London School of Health, Sport and Bioscience. She has since contacted the journal, asking it to remove her name.

Cardiologist Nassir Azimi also told us he’s not affiliated with the journal. He learned he is included on the journal’s purported board when we  contacted him. 

When it comes to routes for researchers unhappy with a publisher’s response – or lack thereof – authors can always formally update their views on an earlier work and try to bring attention to the changes. Authors can, for instance, write or share a new document online or in an editorial, said Schneider. But the updates can be challenging to publicize.  

“These commentaries about a publication — whether in an online post or an editorial — can be difficult to find unless the original publisher makes similar links,” she said. “Readers would have to search specifically for such documents.”

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 2026-01-21 12:00:00 UTC.

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Can science explain consciousness?

A dive into how scientists are trying to understand what consciousness is and where it comes from

in Scientific American on 2026-01-21 11:00:00 UTC.

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California wildfire smoke linked to increased autism diagnoses, new study finds

Children born to mothers who were exposed to smoke in southern California showed increased rates of autism, although the reason why is unclear

in Scientific American on 2026-01-21 10:00:00 UTC.

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Mansoor Amiji: rare gem and modern-day polymath

in For Better Science on 2026-01-21 06:00:00 UTC.

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A brief history of precision self-scanning

in The Transmitter on 2026-01-21 05:00:17 UTC.

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RSV is surging, but antibody shots and vaccines can protect babies

Cases of respiratory syncytial virus are increasing, but vaccines and antibody shots can keep young children out of the hospital

in Scientific American on 2026-01-20 19:00:00 UTC.

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World has entered an era of ‘global water bankruptcy,’ U.N. warns

Humans are using more water than Earth can support, with many water sources already damaged beyond repair, a report from the United Nations found

in Scientific American on 2026-01-20 18:20:00 UTC.

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Why did Jeffrey Epstein cultivate famous scientists?

The Epstein files revive questions of whether the disgraced financier sought to merely cultivate famous scientists, or to shape science itself

in Scientific American on 2026-01-20 16:30:00 UTC.

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This detached hand robot has a thing for skittering on its fingertips

in Science News: AI on 2026-01-20 16:00:00 UTC.