Fabian Wittmers - PubPeer: Archasia Belfragei
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academic-integrity.bsky.social
Fabian Wittmers - PubPeer: Archasia Belfragei
@academic-integrity.bsky.social
490 followers 83 following 640 posts
just a scientist who cares about scientific integrity.
Find sketchy things I find on pubpeer, user "Archasia Belfragei"
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academic-integrity.bsky.social
Wang et al. 2024 (DOI: 10.1038/s41419-024-06897-y) corrected their paper once, but unfortunately, in the already CORRECTED figure they ended up using images that overlapped... Now they request to correct the correction. 🤦‍♂️ I don't know what else to say... #ImageForensics
pubpeer.com/publications...
December 6, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Reposted by Fabian Wittmers - PubPeer: Archasia Belfragei
forbetterscience.bsky.social
With a Pakistani papermill in Oxford!
December 5, 2025 at 6:36 AM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
FBS wrote about a case with 10+ papers published w/ scientist(s) from Exeter University, UK. The main character is now group leader at Oxford. Flagged by me & others.
2 retractions so far, a few more likely. Some pretty bad papermill-collaborations included:
forbetterscience.com/2025/12/05/s...
Schneider Shorts 5.12.2025 – I write poetry and fiction
Schneider Shorts 5.12.2025 – a young genius in Oxford, a Greek tobacco shill, a Spanish papermiller, retractions for important men and women, including a retracted retraction, glyphosate pape…
forbetterscience.com
December 5, 2025 at 7:25 AM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
Not only 157(!!!) citations to a single "researcher" 🤡, but also fake microscopy images??? This paper has it all!: El-Bindary et al. 2023 (DOI: 10.1016/j.molliq.2023.121946) - Truly magnificent work, published in the Journal of Molecular Liquids! pubpeer.com/publications...
December 3, 2025 at 12:46 AM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
While crawling through 100th of BMC Stem Cell Research & Therapy papers last month I stumbled upon a series of questionable papers by an Australian Lab at Melbourne University (some flagged by others). The PI blamed students. Leonid Schneider summarized nicely: forbetterscience.com/2025/12/02/b...
Blame Your Students
“I should have checked these images more closely, but they were intended to be representative images rather than duplications or forgeries of other images.” – Crishan Samuel
forbetterscience.com
December 2, 2025 at 6:35 AM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
Retraction for a (now) Oxford University group leader in a Royal Society journal. This work was published during the first-authors PhD at Exeter University: Tabish et al. 2018 (DOI: 10.1098/rsfs.2017.0054). pubpeer.com/publications...
I reported this to the journal 3 months ago:
November 29, 2025 at 10:08 PM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
Reported in March, retracted recently: Mousazadeh et al.2022 (DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2021.118747) 'Carbohydrate Polymers'.

The authors even argued on PubPeer that repetitions in noise in their various figures is totally expected 🤡
pubpeer.com/publications...
Glad Elsevier didn't buy it...
November 28, 2025 at 5:58 AM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
Happy Thanksgiving!
A nonsense paper I posted about 9 months ago got retracted by the Elsevier journal today, what a nice Thanksgiving present:
pubpeer.com/publications...
Meng et al. 2021 (DOI: 10.1016/j.jare.2020.08.010) ...probably not the last retraction for this author.
November 27, 2025 at 6:56 PM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
A great start to the week when you get a notification from @smutclyde.bsky.social spotting a Wiley retraction of a paper me & @sholtodavid.bsky.social flagged in July '25: Wu et al. 2020 (DOI: 10.1002/adhm.201901307) pubpeer.com/publications...
November 24, 2025 at 7:36 PM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
Always a good read: forbetterscience.com/2025/11/21/s...
(this week featuring some interesting finds from labs in Brazil and Canada I made throughout this year)
Schneider Shorts 21.11.2025 – New metal-organic framework for the delivery of curcumin
Schneider Shorts 21.11.2025 – with long Shorts about a fountain of youth found in grape seeds, rodents tortured for fake science in Brazil, an Iranian papermill operating from Canada, plus se…
forbetterscience.com
November 21, 2025 at 6:51 AM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
This article was already corrected, replacing Figure 7 because of image duplication. Yet, in the now 'correct' figure, some of the image panels are still obviously mixed-up. Who approved this correction?:
Du et al. 2022 (DOI: 10.1186/s12885-022-09740-9) 'BMC Cancer' pubpeer.com/publications...
November 16, 2025 at 8:52 PM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
I have recently been looking more closely at BMC Cancer. They often correct papers but it seems like no-one checks if the "corrected" figures are actually correct. Huang et al. 2021 (DOI: 10.1186/s12885-021-08056-4) is just one example. pubpeer.com/publications...
This is a "corrected" figure:
November 16, 2025 at 8:40 PM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
Another retraction, for concerns that I reported in February. Wiley even credited me in the note (that's a first)!: Sarandry et al. 2015 (DOI: 10.1155/2015/919342) reused data published years prior + most of the newly presented data consisted of overlapping images... pubpeer.com/publications...
November 14, 2025 at 9:12 PM
Reposted by Fabian Wittmers - PubPeer: Archasia Belfragei
brendannyhan.bsky.social
A staggering statistic: "North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year." What are we doing?
hansonmark.bsky.social Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · Nov 11
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 12, 2025 at 1:58 PM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
🤡

Banu et al. 2020 (DOI: 10.1186/s12885-020-07608-4) in 'BMC Cancer' pubpeer.com/publications...
November 14, 2025 at 2:19 AM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
I am not entirely sure why these regions appear cloned and what the purpose of this type of image alteration is, but this doesn't seem correct to me: Mokhtari et al. 2019 (DOI: 10.1186/s12885-019-6018-1) in 'BMC Cancer': pubpeer.com/publications...
November 14, 2025 at 2:16 AM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
Another example of great 'BMC Cancer' research: Gao et al. 2021 (DOI: 10.1186/s12885-021-08294-6) - non-coding RNA & breast cancer "research" seem to pair well...
pubpeer.com/publications... #ResearchIntegrity #ImageForensics
November 14, 2025 at 2:11 AM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
I have recently been looking closely at some BMC journals. To no ones surprise, there is an abundance of questionable biomedical research. For example: Wang et al. 2021 (DOI: 10.1186/s12885-021-08914-1) in 'BMC Cancer' pubpeer.com/publications...
November 14, 2025 at 2:06 AM
Reposted by Fabian Wittmers - PubPeer: Archasia Belfragei
sholtodavid.bsky.social
Reverse Image Forensics Challenge: Try to find a unique area in Figure 9 of this recent Scientific Reports paper: 10.1038/s41598-025-17456-6 [Aug 2025] - Annotated by ImageTwin.ai
November 11, 2025 at 1:49 AM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
Always a good start to the week when you get notified that a paper flagged more than a year ago finally got retracted: Ahsan et al. 2021 (DOI: 10.1007/s10787-021-00840-9). Images overlap with multiple other papers. pubpeer.com/publications...
November 10, 2025 at 5:01 PM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
Wiley today retracted this paper in which a corner clone was used to manipulate a microscopy-image: Iconaru et al. 2011 (DOI: 10.1155/2011/291512) - retraction was the appropriate actions. pubpeer.com/publications...
I even got cited for my comment on PubPeer! That's a first for me, but nice to see.
November 5, 2025 at 8:05 PM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
A retraction can also increate the confidence that we have in the integrity of someone's research. I think this is a good example of that.
This of course does not count for retractions caused by sleuths who find clearly manipulated images or data & w/ the authors continuously making poor excuses...
dereklowe.bsky.social Derek Lowe @dereklowe.bsky.social · Nov 4
It’s true that some scientific results can’t be replicated. And it’s also true that some people do the right thing when that happens:
Taking It Back, The Right Way
www.science.org
November 4, 2025 at 8:17 PM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
Not sure I buy these scale bars, at least one must be off.
Team from India & New Zealand: Yadav et al. 2025 (DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2025.146238). That's on top of what seems like the same underlying image representing two materials... pubpeer.com/publications...
November 4, 2025 at 7:36 PM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
Next retraction for Italian cancer researcher Sebastiano Andó: molpharm.aspetjournals.org/article/S002... pubpeer.com/publications... The first concerns on this article were raised in 2013 by C. Francis
I wrote about this disgraceful saga for FBS a few weeks ago: forbetterscience.com/2025/10/21/l...
November 1, 2025 at 4:13 AM
academic-integrity.bsky.social
More 'science' by the same Canadian team: Nabipour et al. 2025 (DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2025.140027). pubpeer.com/publications...
Plenty more anomalies and issues flagged by various others on PubPeer; too much to blame it on a student or undergrad.
October 30, 2025 at 4:50 PM