Declan Fahy

I wrote this alone, from a real retraction. PLOS Pathogens retracted a Japanese encephalitis virus paper after concerns about figures in Figs 2, 4, 6-8, S2 and S4; the corresponding author stood by th...

Retraction Watch and The Open Notebook are thrilled to introduce the first two fellows in our Research Accountability Reporting Fellowship. This program, supported by The Center for Scientific Integri...

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Misconduct case dropped against AI expert after claims of AI use in r…

Credit: tadamichi/iStock Like many college professors today, Sarah S. Richardson has seen AI-hallucinated citations in work submitted by her students. But she was surprised when an editor recently …

'It's not fraudulent, and it's not really slop,' one expert says

In May 2025, Tennessee authorities were preparing to arrest a university math professor for allegedly soliciting university donations from his students and pocketing the money.  Middle Tenness…

While reading a chapter from a 2024 book on restoring biodiversity in post-industrial land earlier this month, an ecologist came across a reference to a study on rewilding she wanted to look up.&nb…

Yes, yes, we know: It’s easy to publish “fake” papers in journals and expose the inherent flaws of academic publishing. We’ve covered many such stings, but there are simply …

Science of the Total Environment (STOTEN) has retracted 165 papers this year, most for “suspicious” changes in authorship or editorial conflicts of interest.  The retractions have come after S…

Sweden’s national committee on research misconduct has dismissed a case against an expert in the social ramifications of artificial intelligence following allegations her recent book contained hall…

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Diabetes association turmoil roils journal as group tries to thwart b…

Bank Phrom/Unsplash Studies produced by a suspected paper mill are frequently cited in patents, clinical guidelines and policy documents, according to a new analysis.  The work, posted on arXi…

Union members at The Lancet and its affiliated journals will go on strike Sept. 22 for one day with further action planned for the following week, after pay negotiations with parent publisher Elsev…

By Ivan Oransky, Caitlyn Allen. Falsifying data, fabricating references, peer-reviewing your own manuscript. There’s no shortage of ways that someone can damage the integrity of scientific research.

credit: Robin Marty/Flickr A legal challenge by authors over three retracted articles about mifepristone is set for an arbitration conference this month as nationwide debate over the abortion pill …

A banner message on the Diabetes Care website tells visitors they “continue to actively accept and appropriately review all new and previously submitted manuscripts,” which contradicts …

A psychology journal has retracted a paper on how using generative AI can affect confidence in work tasks after its sole author refused to share data with the editors.  The April paper, publis…

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Editors of higher education journal coauthor editorial with fake refe…

All 15 editors at a French journal have resigned after it was acquired by an editing service and publisher based in China.  Revue de l’Organisation Responsable, or Responsible Organization Rev…

For a study published in PeerJ, a researcher placed plastic snakes (left panel) and viper carcasses on hiking paths (right) to gauge people’s reactions. The journal retracted the paper in Aug…

Oslo University Hospital Five researchers at Norway’s national gender incongruence clinic are appealing a university committee’s finding they committed “gross negligence” and scientific misconduct …

Taylor & Francis is investigating an article in one of its journals after the editors published an editorial about academic freedom that contains multiple fake references and citation errors.&n…

University of Florida professor Christopher McCurdy has accepted travel reimbursements, donations to his university’s foundation and funding for symposiums from the American Kratom Association. None o...

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Study by Duke’s Dan Ariely retracted after sleuths find signs o…

A psychology journal has retracted a seminal 2002 paper on deadlines and procrastination coauthored by behavioral scientist Dan Ariely of Duke University just days after a team of sleuths published…

A statistical model claims there were enough fraudulent votes in 2024 to cast doubt on Trump’s win in Pennsylvania. Experts say the model is fundamentally flawed.

The authors of a June 2025 paper in Nature estimated the contribution of atmospheric evaporative demand on the severity of droughts worldwide, as shown in this figure from the article. The journal …

Laboratory workers can shape sustainable practices without affecting scientific quality.

The Great Pyramid of Giza, also known as the Pyramid of Khufu.Jerome Bon/Flickr A journal has retracted a paper by two Italian scientists who claimed to have found hidden structures inside of the o…

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Editors of economics journal resign after Elsevier doesn’t renew EIC’…

New York University Press is pulling all copies of a book about intelligent design after the author falsely quoted another scholar in the work.   Designer Science: A History of Intelligen…

Shinya Yamanaka The Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) at Kyoto University in Japan is defending Nobel Prize winner Shinya Yamanaka against claims of  image manipulation in mu…

Paolo Macchiarini Elsevier says it will begin investigating two papers coauthored by disgraced surgeon Paolo Macchiarini “soon,” more than a year after two critics of his work formally requested th…

wildpixel/iStock The involvement of independent academic researchers in examining data and conducting analyses is central to producing trustworthy research. Because of this, many journals require a…

Dr. Craig Towers was hailed as a hero for his research on detoxing pregnant opioid users. After he published a study that found naltrexone could help patients stay off drugs, addiction specialists sta...

Six editors and nearly 60 advisory editors of Games and Economic Behavior resigned after the journal’s publisher decided not to renew the editor-in-chief’s contract.  In late July, Elsevier to…

If your week flew by — we know ours did — catch up here with what you might have missed. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Sage issues dozens of retractions from two journals it acquired A New…

Changes at a major wood plant in Glens Falls, New York, could have ripple effects across our region.

Westock/Adobe Stock A trial date has been set in a $1 billion defamation case against Elsevier that alleges the company published what plaintiffs say was a manipulated study about an air purifying …

This study presents estimates of the global expenditure on article processing charges (APCs) paid to 14 publishers for open access (OA) between 2019 and 2025. APCs are charged for publishing in fully ...

A materials science journal has pulled 56 papers so far this year for transgressions including image overlap, concerns about data integrity and “suspicious” changes in authorship.  Ceramics In…

AI scientist systems are beginning to automate the production, evaluation, and iteration of scientific hypotheses. Their promise is speed; their risk is that speed also scales errors embedded in the s...

When Arna Mitchell submitted her article critiquing a proposal for different standards of practice for Māori and non-Māori clients in clinical psychology, she thought it would be too controversial …

In recent weeks Sage has retracted batches of articles published in two journals it acquired from IOS Press in 2023. In each case, the retractions were for manipulation of, and concerns about, peer…

As we were assembling this week’s Weekend Reads, we learned the tragic news that former Cambridge professor Jason Arday had been found dead in his home. Arday has been the subject of several …

A figure from the now-retracted paper in Macromolecular Materials and Engineering shows the “hypothesized effects” of the experiments described in the study. Earlier this week, Retracti…

This isn’t the first time a university has dug in to protect an obviously flawed professor.