A digest of last month’s news articles, retractions, and scientific publications about science integrity and misconduct. Some articles might be behind a paywall. Let me know in the comments if I missed something!
News articles on science integrity
- Biomedical paper retractions have quadrupled in 20 years — why? Unreliable data, falsification and other issues related to misconduct are driving a growing proportion of retractions. Holly Else – Nature News
- The epidemic of bogus science – There’s an arms race in academic publishing between AI, fraud detectors and authorship brokers – Anjana Ahuja – Financial Times
- Why Scientific Fraud Is Suddenly Everywhere – Among the institutions exposing such practices is Retraction Watch, a 14-year-old organization co-founded by journalists Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus. I spoke with Oransky about why there has been a surge in fake research and whether fraud accusations against the presidents of Harvard and Stanford are actually good for academia. – Kevin T Dugan – Intelligencer New York Mag
- Fake Scientific Studies Are a Problem That’s Getting Harder to Solve
Wiley’s decision to axe several journals infested with fraud is a dramatic step, but it’s not enough. – F.D. Flam – Bloomberg - Data integrity watchdogs call for stronger safeguards in scientific journals – According to Elisabeth Bik, a scientific watchdog who has discovered thousands of errors in scientific papers, the problem of fraud, errors, or data mishandling in the scientific literature seems to be getting worse. – Angus Chen – STAT
- Academic Fraud Is a Waste of Taxpayer Dollars – More transparency is needed to hold researchers to account. – Bloomberg
- Reimagining research impact: Introducing Web of Science Research Intelligence – Smita Krishnan – Clarivate
- Are lab safety violations research misconduct? – New paper suggests they are, given their connection to the research enterprise
by Dalmeet Singh Chawla, special to C&EN - Why Investigative Journalists Should Report on Lax Oversight and Fraud in Research Data – Denise-Marie Ordway, The Journalist’s Resource – Global Investigative Journalism Network
Notable misconduct findings and retractions
- Findings of research misconduct have been made against Darrion Nguyen (Respondent), who was formerly a Laboratory Technician, Division of Pediatric Neurology and Developmental Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) – Federal Register
- A retraction milestone: 200 for one author. Readers who have checked the Retraction Watch leaderboard lately may have picked up on something notable: One researcher, Joachim Boldt, has now been credited with 210 retractions – making him the first author (to our knowledge) with more than 200 retractions to his name. – Adam Marcus – Retraction Watch
- Journal retracts 6 further articles and corrects 2 others authored by former editor – EurekAlert
Detecting problematic papers
- Software that detects ‘tortured acronyms’ in research papers could help root out misconduct Generated by plagiarism disguisers, these red flags can point to deeper problems with a paper – Cathleen O’Grady – ScienceInsider
- Hundreds of cancer papers mention cell lines that don’t seem to exist
Finding could be an indicator of paper mill activity – Jeffrey Brainard – ScienceInsider
Science and policy
- EPA union ratifies contract to protect employees’ scientific integrity
A new provision in the parties’ contract, which is now subject to the 60-day agency head review process, creates a new appeals process for employees disciplined over what they view as retaliation for pursuing science-related work. In those cases, appeals would go to an independent arbitrator for review. Erich Wagner – GovExec.com - Biden’s got a plan to protect science from Trump – In an effort to Trump-proof, NIH has designated an official to identify political meddling in the agency’s work and is tasking a soon-to-be-established scientific integrity council with reviewing those cases. – Erin Schumaker – Politico
Artificial Intelligence (AI): generating and detecting fraud
- Using AI Tools To Improve Research Integrity Processes – Ankura
- Some scientists can’t stop using AI to write research papers – If you read about ‘meticulous commendable intricacy’ there’s a chance a boffin had help – Matthew Connatser – the Register
- Science has an AI problem. This group says they can fix it. – UC San Diego Today
- Humans plus AI detectors can catch AI-generated academic writing –
Wagdy Sawahel – University World News
New editorials and publications
- Editorial: Protecting scientific integrity in an age of generative AI. “We call upon the scientific community to establish oversight structures capable of responding to the opportunities AI will afford science and to the unanticipated ways in which AI may undermine scientific integrity.” – Blau et al., PNA
- Misspellings or “miscellings”—Non-verifiable and unknown cell lines in cancer research publications – Oste et al., Intern J Cancer
- Guidance needed for using artificial intelligence to screen journal submissions for misconduct – While using AI can enhance the integrity of published manuscripts, it can also increase the risk of false/unsubstantiated allegations. Ambiguities related to journals’ and publishers’ responsibilities concerning fairness and transparency also raise ethical concerns. – Hosseini and Resnik, Research Ethics
- The ethics of using artificial intelligence in scientific research: new guidance needed for a new tool – In this article, we briefly introduce AI and explain how it can be used in research, examine some of the ethical issues raised when using it, and offer nine recommendations for responsible use – Resnik and Hosseini – AI and Ethics
- Managing extreme AI risks amid rapid progress Preparation requires technical research and development, as well as adaptive, proactive governance – Bengio et al., Science.
- REFORMS: Consensus-based Recommendations for Machine-learning-based Science – Kapoor et al. ScienceAdvances
- The great detectives: humans versus AI detectors in catching large language model-generated medical writing – Liu et al., Int J Educational Integrity
Retraction Watch’s Weekend Reads
- May 25: Weekend reads: ‘Why Scientific Fraud is Suddenly Everywhere’; ‘misconduct, intimidation, alcohol abuse and theft’; ‘grimpact
- May 18: Weekend reads: Rector in Spain faces more scrutiny; Wiley to shut down 19 more journals; chemistry journal folds after outcry
- May 11: Weekend reads: Editor under scrutiny resigns; bullshitting scientists; questionable practices in expanding disciplines
- May 4: Weekend reads: Medical residents’ publish or perish problem; Alzheimer’s and predatory journals; brain biopsies set off alarm bells
Science Integrity Digest 
