4 more retractions by @acs.org Omega for Prof. Hamad Al-Lohedan from King Saud University, totalling now 29 retractions!🏆
🤝Team work with @mumumouse2.bsky.social
@nvitiensis.bsky.social and other @pubpeer.com contributors ❤️
#ResearchIntegrity 🔍 #ImageForensics #FoSci
#ThisImageIsFine
🤝Team work with @mumumouse2.bsky.social , @nvitiensis.bsky.social and other @pubpeer.com contributors ❤️
#ResearchIntegrity 🔍 #ImageForensics #FoSci
#ThisImageIsFine
1. They did not catch the repetitive areas in the original figure
2. They did not address the PubPeer concerns about photoshopping with a retraction - instead, they allowed the authors to replace all panels 😡
3. They did not check if the new panels were ok.
#ThisImageIsFine
Publications of Atta reported and retracted, by publisher Publisher Not Retracted || Retracted Elsevier 71 3 Wiley 28 1 MDPI 31 9 Taylor & Francis 20 0 Springer Nature 11 2 ACS 3 7 SC Virtual Company of Physics 8 0 RSC 2 3 SAGE 2 0 Others 4 0 Bentham 1 0 De Gruyter 1 0
Ayman Atta (KSU, EPRI) now boasts no less than 25 #SciRetraction! 🍾 Soon entering @retractionwatch.com 's leaderboard!🏅
🤝Team work with @mumumouse2.bsky.social @nvitiensis.bsky.social among many other @pubpeer.com
contributors ❤️
#ResearchIntegrity 🔍 #ImageForensics #FoSci
#ThisImageIsFine
Figure from a scientific paper showing 6 panels, labeled A through F, shown in 2 columns and 3 rows. Each panel is a square and shows liver tissues from rats, which look like pale grey/purplish background with darker blue/purple cells and some brown staining. Some arrows in each panel point towards some darker purple cells.
Spot the two overlaps and you might win an Emoji Award!
Each panel is from a differently treated rat, so there should not be any overlaps.
#ImageForensics
#ThisImageIsFine
#ScientificPublishing
Two Western blot panels under each other (p-ERK1/2 and Tubulin). Each strip shows dark grey horizontal bands on a ligher grey background. Labels showing different time points, and different additions of EGF or Res + EGF.
It's a beauty!
Can you spot the problems here? Find at least two for your chance of winning one of the three Emoji Awards.
#ImageForensics
#ThisImageIsFine
#ScientificPublishing
Four Transmission Electron Microscopy photos in a 2x2 grid. Each has a light grey speckled background, and each shows darker dots in random patterns.
An easy one today.
Four TEM photos, four different formulations of 'quantum dots'.
Can you spot the unexpected overlap?
#ImageForensics
#ThisImageIsFine
#ScientificPublishing
Figure from scientific paper, showing panels in 5 columns and 4 rows, all showing cells associated with different nanoparticles. Each panel has a black background, blue fluorescent nuclei and green fluorescent blobs.
Can you spot all three overlaps?
#ImageForensics
#ThisImageIsFine
#ScientificPublishing
Two panel, labeled C / NA1I and D / NA1C, respectively. They show TEM (Transmission Electron Microscopy) photos, each showing a light grey background with darker black dots of different size in a sort of random pattern.
A nice and easy #ImageForensics challenge, sent to me by a reader.
Can you spot the problem here?
#ThisImageIsFine
#ScientificPublishing
Ten panels in two columns, 5 rows. Labeled A through J. Left column shows pink tissues with white crinkly lines. Right column shows brown tissue on a cyan blue background.
There are two sets of overlapping panels in this figure.
Can you spot them both?
Each panel is a differently treated rat.
#ImageForensics
#ThisImageIsFine
#ScientificPublishing
Figure from a scientific paper showing transwell assays. We see panels in a grid of four columns and four rows. The panels show purple cells on a light grey background.
Two sets of panels look identical, and another set of panels overlaps.
Can you spot at least two of the three problems here?
#ImageForensics
#ThisImageIsFine
#ScientificPublishing
Figure from a scientific paper. We see a grid of panels in 3 rows (different treatments) and 5 columns (different timepoints), each showing a dark grey background with lighter grey cells in small groups.
After yesterday's very hard challenge, I will give you a super easy one. Can you spot the duplication?
#ImageForensics
#ThisImageIsFine
#ScientificPublishing
No replies yet.... It is a hard one!
Hint: focus on the bottom right panel - there is something unexpected going on there.
#ThisImageIsFine
#ScientificPublishing
#ImageForensics
Figure from a scientific paper showing 9 'woundhealing' assays, where a pipette tip is used to make a scratch in a monolayer of cells and the assay monitors how fast the edges grow back together.
A pretty hard #ImageForensics.
Can you spot the duplication?
#ThisImageIsFine
#ScientificPublishing
Left: Figure 3D, showing 6 panels with orange, big and smaller blobs on a yellow background. Marked by me with rounded boxes in many different colors to highlight duplicated areas. Right: Corrected Figure 3D, showing 6 completely new panels, grey background and purple blobs.
Despite clear evidence of image manipulation, @elsevierconnect.bsky.social's BBRC did not retract the paper. Instead, authors were allowed to submit a new, “clean” set of figures.
This response seriously undermines research integrity.
#ThisImageIsFine #ImageForensics
pubpeer.com/publications...
A collage of 6 panels, showing duplicated panels in several figure (fluorescent cells, microscopy photos, western blots), and two tables with repetitive values
The second #retraction for the group of Kalipada Pahan at @rushmedical.bsky.social, with findings by @mumumouse2.bsky.social and myself.
36 of his papers have made it to @pubpeer.com.
Kudos to @pnas.org.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pubpeer.com/publications...
#ImageForensics #ThisImageIsFine
Figure from a scientific paper showing twelve panels labeled a through l, in three rows (different infection ratios), four columns (four time points). They have a dark grey background, and show lighter outlines of elongated cells. Some panels overlap, unexpectedly.
This is a nice #ImageForensics.
So far, I have found three problems in this paper. Can you spot at least two?
#ThisImageIsFine
Figure 4 from a scientific paper. It shows 5 panels with a purple background and blueish/purple cells, some with very dark inserts. Text below the five panels reads: "Fig. 4. Photomicrograph of brain section stained with H&E. A. Control group B. Carrier group C. Cisplatin group D. Sc-NPs group E. Sc-NPs +Cis group.(H& E X 400)."
A nice #ImageForensics for those who are still behind a screen. Can you spot a problem - or two - here?
#ThisImageIsFine
Screenshot of two sets of three Western blots each. The blots show dark round horizontal stripes on a light grey background. I have added colored arrows to show bands that look identical, but rearranged
Neuroscience, a @ibroorg.bsky.social journal, thought it was totally acceptable to rearrange the loading control bands a bit.
Correction: "The authors regret [...] the β-actin lanes were inadvertently misassembled, resulting in an incorrect lane order."
#ThisImageIsFine
pubpeer.com/publications...
Screenshot from PubPeer, where I marked Figure 2C, showing lots of Western blots (grey background, dark grey protein bands), which I have marked with colored boxes for unexpected duplicated areas
Retraction @plosone.org 👏 of a paper by researchers from the School of Dentistry at UCLA.
Senior researcher gave a long explanation @pubpeer.com that did not seem to make much sense.
Journal did not buy it, thankfully.
pubpeer.com/publications...
#ImageForensics #ThisImageIsFine
Two screenshots of problems with the figures in this paper. Left: detail of a figure showing Western blots. I have marked two seemingly-identical bands with red boxes, and two others with cyan boxes. RIght: A photo of green fluorescent cells on a black background. I have highlighted two areas showing (what appears to be) the same group of three cells with yellow boxes.
An interesting PubPeer discussion.
Senior author and Professor at @uqam.ca claims these bands and cells are not similar at all!
#ThisImageIsFine
#ImageForensics
Thanks @kaveh1000.bsky.social for providing the animations.
pubpeer.com/publications...
12 panels showing lung tissue: Purple structures with air bubbles. Three time points are shown as rows, and four treatments as columns.
#ImageForensics #ThisImageIsFine
#ResearchIntegrity
Spot the overlapping panels!
Three time points, four treatments, but are all 12 panels from different animals?
You tell me!
Figure from a scientific paper showing three Western blots, each with five lanes. The bottom one (labeled b-actin) has three dientical lanes, which I marked with red boxes. https://pubpeer.com/publications/4E8CA18B8A0DE440619A23D705CBB8 doi: 10.1016/j.ajpath.2021.11.005.
The Medical University of South Carolina Research Integrity Officer and Committee concluded that "human error in regards to organization and record keeping of original images was the cause for this mistake."
How the heck can this be caused by a mistake?
#ThisImageIsFine
#ImageForensics
A screenshot of comment #5 on https://pubpeer.com/publications/C98A744718FA3C8507ECAC7A3F56EC#5, reading: #3 Elisabeth M Bik comment accepted December 2025 This paper has a silent, unmarked "stealth" correction. If we compare the original paper (left, still available on e.g PubMedCentral) with the current version (right), several differences become apparent. Figure 1C has been removed ****** Figure 5a has been removed The phenomenon of stealth corrections has been described by Aquarius et al., The Existence of Stealth Corrections in Scientific Literature—A Threat to Scientific Integrity, Learned Publishing 2025, DOI: 10.1002/leap.1660
An ugly "stealth correction" at @tandfresearch.bsky.social's Hum Vaccin Immunother of a paper from authors at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda.
They just removed the overlapping image panels 😱
#ThisImageIsFine #ImageForensics
pubpeer.com/publications...
We see four panels labeled A through D. Each shows blueish stained tissue with some defined lighter blue areas with dark blot dots (nuclei of cells). Some panels have white arrows pointing at structures.
Can you spot some unexpected duplications?
A through D are four differently treated rats.
#ImageForensics #ResearchIntegrity #ThisImageIsFine
#ScientificPublishing
Eight panels from a scientific figure, all with different labels - four rows, two columns showing dark grey clumps on a light grey background
#ImageForensics #ResearchIntegrity #ThisImageIsFine
#ScientificPublishing
Can you spot something unexpected?
Hint: find the overlapping panels
Still laughing about this a year later. #ThisImageIsFine
researcher meme stash submission for @drmeagantyler.bsky.social
Figure 5 of this paper, with four repetitive areas within or across photos.
#ThisImageIsFine #ImageForensics
Neurobiology of Aging issues a correction, completely ignoring the serious concerns in Figure 5.
@nba-eic.bsky.social, can you please take a better look at the issues pointed out in this PubPeer thread?
This should be a retraction.
pubpeer.com/publications...
I often wonder how grown-up people, full professors even, can make such statements with such confidence, while the evidence appears to be staring them in the face.
#ThisImageIsFine
#ImageForensics
#Academia
#ResearchIntegrity
Figure from the paper showing six panels with red cells. I have added lots of colored boxes to highlight duplications. https://pubpeer.com/publications/981C24DC8085D84FAA610B07741F59#4
“the concerns pertaining to figs. 3, 4, and 5 which remain outstanding are unlikely to impact the wider conclusions of the article”
WHAT MORE is needed to impact an editor’s conclusion?
At least, an EoC was issued.
HT: @reeserichardson.bsky.social
#ResearchIntegrity
#ThisImageIsFine
#Academia
