Planet Neuroscientists

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Artemis II images boost NASA’s moon-base plans

The first crewed lunar mission in more than a half-century brought back more than 800 gigabytes of data on colorful craters, flashing meteoroids and much more

in Scientific American on 2026-10-08 15:00:00 UTC.

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Hurricane Isaias just set a new record for Atlantic storms

Isaias just became the latest-forming first hurricane of the Atlantic storm season since reliable records began, meteorologists say

in Scientific American on 2026-10-08 14:25:00 UTC.

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Did your brain decide before you did? The science of free will

in Women in Neuroscience UK on 2026-10-08 14:00:09 UTC.

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An experimental drug kills fat cells, rather than shrinking them

in Science News: Health & Medicine on 2026-10-08 13:00:00 UTC.

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First observation of quantum spins shifting a centimeter-scale object in the lab

in OIST Japan on 2026-10-08 12:00:00 UTC.

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The ‘Kelvin wave’ hitting California is a potent warning about sea-level rise

Sea level on the California coast is likely to be pushed to extremes this winter by compounding forces, but these extremes could be the norm by the end of the century

in Scientific American on 2026-10-08 12:00:00 UTC.

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Mathematicians invented a knitting stitch that stops mistakes from spreading

With a little help from knot theory, scientists have invented a “robust knit” to fight laddering

in Scientific American on 2026-10-08 10:45:00 UTC.

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Number of autism-linked genes more than triples in new analyses

in The Transmitter on 2026-10-08 04:00:08 UTC.

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Gene therapy and special goggles give some blind people limited sight

in Science News: Health & Medicine on 2026-10-07 21:00:00 UTC.

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Wildlife journal issues corrections for missing ethics statements

In what one sleuth called a “systemic failure,” a wildlife journal has issued corrections to a handful of papers not for an error in the articles but to include an item that wasn’t: ethics statements. 

The most recent such correction in the European Journal of Wildlife Research (EJWR) was on September 8. According to the notice, authors of a March article on mammal diversity in Mexico provided additional information on the camera trapping method employed in the study —  namely, that their research did not require approval from an animal ethics committee. 

At least three other similar corrections have appeared in EJWR in the last four years, with several more articles with missing ethics statements flagged on PubPeer by commenter “Pseudotocinclus tietensis.” For example, for a 2021 paper on “understanding human controversies on the return of the wolf through the use of socio-cultural values,” which included a survey of nearly 1,500 people, Pseudotocinclus pointed out the ethics approval section for the paper says “Not applicable.” 

The submission guidelines on the journal’s website state authors should include a section on “compliance with ethical standards” that includes informed consent and research involving humans or animals.

“Taken together, the pattern suggests a systemic failure at EJWR to enforce basic ethics policies, both through inadequate corrections for missing ethics declarations and through the publication of papers that lack any meaningful ethical oversight,” Pseudotocinclus told Retraction Watch when they emailed us to flag the issue. They have asked to remain anonymous because of past correspondence with one of the editors. 

Jacqueline Frair, editor-in-chief of The Wildlife Society’s Journal of Wildlife Management, told us ethics and animal care statements “are an important component of scientific transparency, particularly in wildlife research where studies may involve animal capture, handling, monitoring or interaction with people and communities.” She declined to comment on whether the cases at EJWR indicate a systemic issue, given she is not familiar with the journal’s editorial history. 

Jacco Flipsen, the vice president of life sciences at Springer Nature, which publishes the journal, told us he would “caution against drawing conclusions about the journal’s processes from a small number of unrelated cases.”

The journal issued its first correction addressing the missing ethics statements in May 2022, stating the authors “failed to include the complete ethical statement” for a paper on animals in a national park in Senegal. In addition to noting the authors took ethical considerations into account, the updated statement said: “It was confirmed by the Senegal Ministry of Health that no ethics approval was required.”

The second was for a 2020 paper on movements of goat herds in Mexico. The correction, published May 2024, states “it was not necessary to request permission from national research ethics committees since the vertebrate species studied is not regulated and not native to Mexico.” 

The journal published the third correction in July 2025 for a study published earlier that year on human-wildlife conflicts in areas adjacent to a research center in Zimbabwe. The statement says the research was guided by ethical guidelines “which prioritized ethical treatment of participants, ensuring no physical or psychological harm” and noted no formal approval was needed. 

Pseudotocinclus told us they flagged each of these papers to the journal directly before discovering the PubPeer platform in October 2023.

For a 2022 article about predator control by gamekeepers, Pseudotocinclus wrote the study “does not comply with normal standards of animal ethics, and was not ethically reviewed before the killing of animals was carried out for research.” 

Flipsen told us the research in the publications “was conducted in different countries, under different regulatory and ethical frameworks.” 

“Each case must therefore be assessed individually in light of its specific circumstances,” he said, and noted assessments of the papers were ongoing. 

When we asked whether checking for ethics statements was a part of the editorial process, and how the papers were published without them, a representative for Springer Nature declined to comment. 

Earlier this month, we wrote about the retraction of a PeerJ paper on tourists’ reactions to snakes for ethical oversight issues — the second snake retraction we’ve covered. 

A paper on wildlife in Tanzania recently received a correction from EJWR for another reason: “Nelson Mandela” was “incorrectly” listed as a coauthor on a paper published the month prior rather than as the affiliate institution “Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology.”

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 2026-10-07 19:43:30 UTC.

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A suspected case of pneumonic plague is raising fears of an outbreak. Should you be worried?

Russian authorities reported earlier this week that an employee at a lab in Siberia that studies plague and other infectious diseases had died of pneumonia of “unknown” cause

in Scientific American on 2026-10-07 19:00:00 UTC.

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Scientists unlock the longevity secrets of 194-year-old Jonathan the giant tortoise

The secret to Jonathan the tortoise’s extreme longevity may be in keeping genes tidy

in Scientific American on 2026-10-07 18:00:00 UTC.

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The Atlantic hurricane season has been eerily quiet—Tropical Storm Isaias could change that

Tropical Storm Isaias is expected to become a hurricane by Thursday, meteorologists say

in Scientific American on 2026-10-07 16:45:00 UTC.

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Why does weed cause anxiety? A new brain study investigates cannabis paranoia

A new study explores what goes on in the brain when mice get high on marijuana

in Scientific American on 2026-10-07 14:00:00 UTC.

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Remember the ‘caregiving kills’ study? Reality is more nuanced

in Science News: Psychology on 2026-10-07 13:00:00 UTC.

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What is AI model distillation, and why is it so hard to stop?

Anthropic and OpenAI accused Chinese AI developers of mining their models’ answers to train cheaper copycats. Here’s how distillation works and why it’s so hard to stop

in Scientific American on 2026-10-07 11:00:00 UTC.

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Rogue AI or human error? The real story behind the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident

Behind the headlines about AI agents lies a deeper debate over accountability, safety and control.

in Scientific American on 2026-10-07 10:00:00 UTC.

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2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai for their work in ‘mirror’ chemistry

The prize recognizes Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai’s discovery of nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis

in Scientific American on 2026-10-07 09:45:00 UTC.

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How does a control theorist explain cognition?

in The Transmitter on 2026-10-07 04:10:37 UTC.

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Holographic mesoscope reads, writes from different cortical regions simultaneously

in The Transmitter on 2026-10-07 04:00:14 UTC.

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OpenAI unleashes hundreds more math results upon a field already in shock

A month after resolving one of the six biggest open problems in mathematics, the company says its new internal model has toppled heaps more—this time without the multimillion-dollar price tag

in Scientific American on 2026-10-06 22:19:00 UTC.

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Editor-in-chief resigns amid probes of alleged citation manipulation, data errors 

The editor-in-chief of The Egyptian Rheumatologist has resigned following claims of questionable citation practices and improper peer review at the journal. 

At least three publishers are also investigating alleged data errors in papers in other journals by the former journal editor, Tamer Gheita, and his research group. Gheita, a professor of rheumatology at Cairo University in Giza, has denied the claims, calling the complaints “subjective” and “malicious.”

The Egyptian Society of Rheumatic Diseases (ESRd) started investigating Gheita in June following concerns about his editorial practices at the society’s journal, including unusually rapid peer-review timelines and questionable citation patterns, according to Bassel Elzorkany, interim editor-in-chief for the journal. Elzorkany told Retraction Watch the ESRd board temporarily suspended Gheita, and Gheita resigned shortly afterward. 

“We acted promptly once concerns were raised,” said Elzorkany, secretary general for the society. “As the investigation is still in progress, we cannot characterize its outcome or comment further on a specific allegation at this stage.” 

An anonymous complaint sent to us accused Gheita of allegedly inflating his citation metrics by forcing authors to cite his work in the journal and accepting articles for publication in days, without proper peer review.

Gheita told us he did not “instruct, pressure, or encourage authors to cite” his publications for “reasons unrelated to scientific relevance.” In an email, Gheita said he served as editor-in-chief for the journal from 2013 to July 2026. According to journal records Gheita was previously an associate editor for the journal and became editor-in-chief in July 2012. 

“I do not agree that the available citation patterns establish a scheme to manipulate citations,” he told us. “Authors determine the references included in their manuscripts based on the scientific literature relevant to their work. There was no journal policy requiring or encouraging authors to cite me or any other specific individual.”

Gheita said he conducted his own analysis of four journal issues published between October 2025 and June 2026, in which he identified 2,009 references in total. Of these, 69 references (3.4%) cited papers with him as a coauthor. References to articles published in The Egyptian Rheumatologist represented 117 of the 2,009 references, or about 5.8%, Gheita said. 

But according to data in the anonymous complaint and confirmed through an analysis by Mariana Ribeiro, Retraction Watch Sleuth in Residence, between January 2011 and January 2026, 49% of articles in The Egyptian Rheumatologist cited Gheita’s publications. In  2011, there were no citations to Gheita’s work, rising to 12% of papers published in 2012 and up to 73% of those from 2020, according to data verified by Ribeiro. 

A 2015 article in the journal about lupus, for example, cites Gheita at least 10 times. 

During Gheita’s tenure, the journal also accepted hundreds of articles within three days of submission, many on the same day. A paper about Henoch–Schönlein purpura published online in July 2016, for example, shows a submission date of May 1 and an acceptance date of May 1. Another paper, about arthritis, shows the journal received the paper Nov. 30, 2022 and accepted it the same day. 

Gheita said he would “caution” against drawing conclusions about peer review solely from dates displayed in public databases or submission systems. Historical publishing workflows and changes in electronic submission systems can result in dates appearing “deceptively close together,” he told us. 

“A conclusion that a manuscript was accepted without peer review should, in my view, be based on the actual editorial records and workflow history held by the publisher, rather than solely on publicly available submission and acceptance dates,” he told us. “The underlying editorial history, including previous versions, transfers, reviewer assignments, and editorial decisions, would be the appropriate evidence for determining what actually occurred.”

Elzorkany told us the ESRd board referred the anonymous complaints about Gheita’s work to the journal’s publisher, Elsevier, and requested a full investigation.  

A spokesperson for Elsevier told us the publisher is “aware” of the claims involving the journal and that “an investigation is ongoing.” 

“We cannot provide further information until this is complete,” the spokesperson told us. 

Meanwhile, a sleuth has raised concerns on PubPeer about at least 13 papers that include Gheita as an author, involve subsets of his data or encompass his common research group.  The Egyptian Rheumatologist published one of the flagged papers and the other 12 were published in other journals. 

After receiving an anonymous complaint, psychologist Nick Brown started investigating the research group earlier this year, finding what appears to be “numerous inconsistencies and errors in the statistical reporting,” he told us. The papers in question were published from 2019 to 2026 in various journals, many with large authorship groups and overlapping authors.

Brown told us the article problems include “impossible p values,” issues with data formatting and rounding, and overall numbers that aren’t compatible with subgroups in the data, among other issues. 

“I find the whole set of articles thoroughly implausible,” he told us.

For example, Brown wrote on PubPeer that for seven measures in a 2021 article in Lupus about systemic lupus erythematosus children in Egypt, the overall mean doesn’t make sense  when compared to other data in the paper. In addition, 43 values in three columns of a data table are mathematically impossible given the number of participants in the study, according to Brown’s analysis.  

Similarly, for three measures in a 2026 article in Scientific Reports about systemic sclerosis in children, the overall mean and standard deviation are inconsistent with other data in the paper,  Brown wrote on PubPeer. He noted further problems with incorrect or incompatible values in the paper. Brown also reached out to several journals to share his concerns, he said. 

Gheita said he takes the PubPeer concerns “seriously.” He and his coauthors are reviewing the comments and will “respond to substantiated concerns on the basis of the underlying evidence,” he told us. 

“If an error is confirmed, we support addressing it through the appropriate scientific and editorial processes,” he said. “At the same time, we have not received formal comments or requests for clarification from the journals concerning several of the matters referred to in your email.”

Lupus, a Sage title, published some of the flagged articles. A spokesperson for Sage confirmed the articles are under investigation, but declined to share further information. 

Scientific Reports, Rheumatology International and Clinical Rheumatology published several other flagged papers. Tim Kersjes, head of research integrity for Springer Nature, which publishes the three titles, told us Springer is “aware of concerns with these papers” and is “investigating them carefully.” 

“We will take editorial action as appropriate once our investigations are complete,” Kersjes told us. 

Wolters Kluwer, which publishes the Saudi Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences, where one of the flagged papers appears, declined to comment, citing its policy not to comment on “ongoing editorial matters.” 

A spokesperson for Taylor & Francis confirmed the publisher is investigating another paper in Open Access Rheumatology: Research and Reviews.

Ahmed Elsaman, a professor of rheumatology at Sohag University in Egypt and an author on  seven of the papers, called some of the issues raised on PubPeer “relatively limited technical observations.” The publications being scrutinized originate from the Egyptian College of Rheumatology Study Groups, a longstanding multicenter research collaboration involving rheumatologists and investigators from across Egypt, Elsaman said in an email. 

Since 2016, the groups have generated clinical and epidemiological data on several rheumatic diseases through large, multicentre cohorts, according to Elsaman. He pointed to a 2023 article by the group in Rheumatology International that included 10,364 patients recruited from 26 specialised centres across 22 Egyptian cities. (Brown critiqued this paper on PubPeer.)

“This is just an example to show how huge is our work,” Elsaman told us. “We fully welcome legitimate post-publication scientific scrutiny. Large multicentre studies may contain typographical, transcriptional, reporting, or statistical errors, and we are prepared to investigate and correct any genuine error through the appropriate editorial process.”

But Elsaman said his concern is the “apparent escalation of relatively limited technical observations into implications of fabrication or research misconduct without evidence proportionate to such serious allegations.”

Elsaman added he and his research group attempted to respond to the critiques on PubPeer, but he said the replies were not accepted.  

Samar Tharwat of Mansoura University in Egypt is an author on at least 11 of the papers critiqued by Brown, and Faten Ismail of Minia University in Egypt is an author on at least nine of the articles. Neither Tharwat nor Ismail returned messages seeking comment.  We contacted authors appearing in five or more of the papers. Elsaman is the only author who returned our messages. 

Tharwat is also the author of a retracted 2023 COVID-19 paper in Open Medicine. Editors withdrew the work because of “significant overlap with other papers published by the same authors in Journal of Clinical Virology Plus,” according to the retraction notice.

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 2026-10-06 20:54:18 UTC.

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Two meteor showers are lighting up the October sky—here’s how to see them

The Draconids and Orionids both peak this month

in Scientific American on 2026-10-06 17:00:00 UTC.

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‘A Mother’s Brain’ explores the neuroscience of motherhood

in Science News: Neuroscience on 2026-10-06 15:00:00 UTC.

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What makes a good AI safety test? Experts explain why even the best techniques may not be powerful enough

“With today’s science we usually can’t show with high confidence that dangerous behavior isn’t there”

in Scientific American on 2026-10-06 14:30:00 UTC.

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Your voice is more than sound. It’s part of who you are

in Science News: Health & Medicine on 2026-10-06 11:00:00 UTC.

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2026 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Francis Halzen for discovery of high-energy neutrinos

Francis Halzen is a leader in the study of neutrinos, ghostly particles from across the universe that hint at exciting new physics

in Scientific American on 2026-10-06 09:45:00 UTC.

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Florida couple hits Gulf War Mice on the head with hammer, posts on internet

in For Better Science on 2026-10-06 05:00:00 UTC.

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Susana Carmona on the neurobiology of pregnancy

in The Transmitter on 2026-10-06 04:10:03 UTC.

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Aging biomarkers in autism; and more

in The Transmitter on 2026-10-06 04:00:43 UTC.

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Beyond wiring diagrams: Inside a $19 million effort to expand access to connectome technology

in The Transmitter on 2026-10-06 04:00:01 UTC.

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These Super Mario levels are mathematically unsolvable

In math and Mario Land, there are questions that are algorithmically undecidable, meaning they will demonstrably never have an answer

in Scientific American on 2026-10-06 04:00:00 UTC.

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How Nobel Prize-winning optogenetics has revolutionized neuroscience

in The Transmitter on 2026-10-05 21:31:03 UTC.

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United Arab Emirates to launch spacecraft to probe seven asteroids in 2028

The country’s space program is new and ambitious, having already sent a mission into Mars orbit

in Scientific American on 2026-10-05 16:30:00 UTC.

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Astronomers catch dwarf stars gobbling up their orbiting companions

Red and white dwarf stars may be hungrier than we thought

in Scientific American on 2026-10-05 15:00:00 UTC.

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Are You Really a Different Person at 25? The Truth Behind the “Fully Developed Brain”

in Women in Neuroscience UK on 2026-10-05 14:00:07 UTC.

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Why the creative brain feeds on movement

Movement and creativity go hand in hand. Scientists are working to discover why

in Scientific American on 2026-10-05 13:00:00 UTC.

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Should you be ‘poop maxxing,’ or ‘fiber maxxing’? Experts explain what’s healthy

Your feces can tell you a lot about your health

in Scientific American on 2026-10-05 11:00:00 UTC.

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An El Niño–fueled ocean wave could raise California flood risks as Florida’s vaccine debate sparks outbreak concerns

An El Niño–driven ocean surge threatens coastal flooding, researchers warn that a plan to loosen vaccine requirements will increase measles risks in Florida, and experts debunk a viral TikTok cold remedy

in Scientific American on 2026-10-05 10:00:00 UTC.

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2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Georg Nagel and Peter Hegemann for work on optogenetics

Karl Deisseroth, Georg Nagel and Peter Hegemann developed optogenetics, which uses light and genetics to control individual cells

in Scientific American on 2026-10-05 09:30:00 UTC.

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Is confidence a second thought—or part of the first one?

in The Transmitter on 2026-10-05 04:00:33 UTC.

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What AI can learn from hunger

in The Transmitter on 2026-10-05 04:00:23 UTC.

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How attachment theory can help us understand AI relationships

Attachment is the term psychologists use for the most significant relationships that hold people’s lives together

in Scientific American on 2026-10-04 10:00:00 UTC.

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How the brain uses memory to imagine what might have been

Philosopher and 2026 MacArthur “genius grant” recipient Felipe De Brigard explains how our brains use imagination to reconstruct the past

in Scientific American on 2026-10-03 11:00:00 UTC.

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How AI helped bring an ancient tomb dating to before the Roman Empire back to life

Pairing artificial intelligence with acoustic technology helped reveal an Etrurian tomb in new light

in Scientific American on 2026-10-03 10:00:00 UTC.

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Weekend reads: China intensifies crackdown on misconduct; AI flooding medical journals with ‘meaningless’ research; Sham scientific societies

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

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Journal investigating paper on heart device with registration number for wrong trial
• When open data are misused
• ‘Hot mess’ paper questioning CO2 and climate change gets retracted
• Announcing the First Research Accountability Reporting Fellows: Our collaboration with The Open Notebook.

We’re honored to be the subject of a paper published this week: Retraction Watch is “a significant example of the long‐anticipated, but little‐realised, idea of watchdog science journalism,” Declan Fahy writes.

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 450 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 67,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is approaching 700, and our mass resignations list has more than 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):

• “China intensifies crackdown on academic misconduct with new measures and database.”
• “Is AI Flooding Medical Journals With ‘Meaningless’ Research?” Our Ivan Oransky says “It’s not fraudulent, and it’s not really slop.”
• “Sham scientific societies are misleading star researchers.”
• “Boot Camp Promises a Submitted Paper in Just 2 Days.” We have noted similar schemes target foreign applicants to U.S.programs.
• The researcher who published the second-highest number of papers in Norway is acquitted of misconduct.
• “By overlooking retractions, ranking systems incentivize volume over quality, weakening accountability.”
• “China punishes prominent academics exposed by research sleuth.”
• AI bots like iLands are “flooding researchers with requests for money and time.” An agent even sent us a musical lament for a retraction earlier this week.
• Researchers publish peer-reviewed proposal of tool to help researchers “spot problematic trials before they distort evidence.”
• “AI cannot replace human participants in behavioral research.”
• Researchers look into whether some preprint publishers are “more attractive to predatory publishers.”
• Director of Iran science ministry said more than 2,200 Iranian papers have been retracted, called for new policies from university research ethics committees.
• “We’re asking the wrong question about AI in research,” says head of journals policy at Springer Nature.
• “U.K. funder uses ‘AI triage’ to reject grant proposals—leaving researchers dismayed.” And “AI ‘could filter out weaker grant proposals’, study suggests.”
• “AI Presents Science with a ‘Ship of Theseus’ Problem: Replacing every part of the research process with AI will leave science recognizable but devoid of human judgment.”
• “‘AI slop’ hides the conversations we should be having.”
• “AI can widen science — but only if institutions stop rewarding the already measurable.”
• Poor research methods “are substantially driven by deficits in statistical thinking and data skills that are common across the sciences,” says researcher.
• China launches journal aimed at “rivalling the world’s oldest and most influential academic titles.”
• “Beware sham scientific societies: the research community must be more vigilant.”
• Editors of biomedical journal on why they reject submissions before peer review. 
• “Our metrics for measuring faculty productivity are fueling a crisis in scientific integrity.”
• “Paid to peer review: firms are paying researchers to assess manuscripts for journals.”
• “Secret watermark labels proteins as ‘made by AI.'”
• “AI Slop Coming to a Library Near You.”
• “The Methods Section Should Not be an Afterthought in Scientific Papers.”
• “The clinical trial bottlenecks game: Can you speed up a vaccine trial by changing its design?”
• “Every reply pleases one group and angers another”: Play a game to see how many weeks you’d last running an academic journal.

Upcoming Events

• “What is Accountability Journalism in Science and Why Does It Matter?” in partnership with The Open Notebook (October 5, virtual)
• “Covering Fraud and Misconduct: Lessons from the Retraction Beat,” featuring our Kate Travis (October 8, virtual)
• “Meta-Research In Action: Implementing Better Science” featuring our Medical Evidence Project researchers Rhiannon Kamstra and Floe Foxon presenting with New York University colleagues (October 27, NYU)

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 2026-10-03 10:00:00 UTC.

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Could a giant iceberg really break off Greenland? Scientists check Tom Cruise’s new movie Digger

In the movie, a giant iceberg from Greenland floats into the sea, imperiling millions—but is that even possible?

in Scientific American on 2026-10-02 19:00:00 UTC.

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2026 has been a record hot year for the U.S.—it can only get worse

So far this year has been ridiculously hot. If it stays that way, 2026 could set a sobering new record

in Scientific American on 2026-10-02 18:14:00 UTC.

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‘Hot mess’ paper questioning CO2 and climate change gets retracted

A paper that called into question many central data linking carbon dioxide to the rapidly warming climate has been retracted for “significant concerns,” including “unsupported conclusions” and “inaccuracies” in the interpretation of the data.

The paper, published in August 2023 in the MDPI journal Atmosphere, was written by Stuart Harris, a former geography professor at the University of Calgary. It has 26,000 views and was mentioned 869 times on the social media platform X, according to Altmetric. It was also covered by the climate skeptic website The Daily Sceptic. The article was cited four times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.

“It is a hot mess,” Marcus Sarofim, a climate scientist at Johns Hopkins University, told Retraction Watch. “I certainly don’t think this paper has any business being in the peer-reviewed literature.” He also pointed out the paper was submitted and accepted in under a month, saying the short timeframe “is always a bad sign.”

Harris did not respond to multiple emails requesting comment.

John Kennedy, a climate scientist with the World Meteorological Organization at the time, blogged about the paper shortly after it was published, highlighting a handful of its many errors.

“From a distance, it looks just like a regular paper, but up close it’s chaos,” he wrote. 

In one paragraph, Harris claimed carbon dioxide is primarily measured at one observatory in Hawaii. “The increase in this gas is measured primarily at a single station at the summit of Mount Kea on the island of Hawaii, and the increase parallels the change in air temperature at that station since about 1900 A.D.,” Harris wrote in the paper. 

But the observatory is on Mauna Loa — not Mauna Kea — and only began measuring carbon dioxide in 1958. 

“The contention that carbon dioxide is measured primarily at this single station is also completely wrong,” Kennedy wrote in 2023. More than 221 monitoring stations and many additional satellites currently track carbon dioxide emissions. 

Harris also criticized the logic inherent to global heat maps, which illustrate how different parts of Earth have warmed over a given time period. 

“An obvious problem is found when examining the map of the distribution of climate change (mean yearly air temperature) obtained by NASA from satellites,” Harris wrote. “The main areas of warming are in Northern Canada and the Arctic, with lesser warming in the Sahara and the Australian Outback! Eastern China and Germany show no obvious warming. Obviously, this does not fit in with the main industrial centers in the world!”

As Kennedy noted, the data are not pulled from NASA satellites but from “weather stations, ships, and buoys.” 

Harris also attributed recent climate change to solar radiation, which is not uncommon among climate science denialists, Sarofim said. While solar radiation certainly affects Earth’s climate, “believing that CO₂ is not involved in climate change is on par with believing that the Moon is made of green cheese.”

Aside from the misunderstandings and misrepresentations of climate research, the study also claimed Neanderthals went extinct only 3,200 years ago. (The true number is closer to 40,000 years ago.)

A spokesperson for MDPI told us the journal launched an investigation “following concerns raised after publication,” but did not respond to questions regarding specific concerns  or where the concerns originated. They found “significant concerns,” “including an insufficient assessment of the relevant literature, unsupported conclusions, inaccuracies in the interpretation of the presented data, and issues relating to the use and attribution of references,” according to the retraction notice. MDPI declined to provide details of the investigation, citing confidentiality.

Harris responded to the investigation but the journal determined the responses “did not adequately resolve the issues.” The journal retracted the paper on September 16. 

David Ho, a climate scientist at the University of Hawaii, responded to our request for comment on the paper by saying he was not interested in reading it. “I’m sorry, but I’d rather keep my brain cells,” he said.

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in Retraction watch on 2026-10-02 17:27:22 UTC.

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