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Retraction rates are not equal across male and female leading and corresponding authors.

New data from researchers in the UK and China suggest that male authors retract more than their female colleagues.

“Our research provides policymakers across all countries and disciplines with an understanding of the current situation of retractions from a gender perspective,” Er-Te Zheng, PhD researcher at the University of Sheffield and lead author of the study, told Technology Networks. “This can help them develop targeted measures based on the actual retraction realities of different genders, encouraging scholars of all genders to engage in fewer instances of academic misconduct.

The gender gap in science’s “dark side”

Much of the existing research on gender differences in science has focused on the “bright side” of research, such as publication counts, citation impact, grant success rates and career advancement, Zheng observed. Meanwhile, “research on the ‘dark side’ of science – particularly in areas such as retractions and scientific misconduct – remains scarce,” he said.

Retraction rates have rapidly increased over recent years. Perhaps this reflects a rise in misconduct, or the fact that scientists and journals have simply become more aware of – and proactive against – flawed practices that have long existed.

Research on rising retraction rates has examined factors like career pressures, paper mills and the “publish or perish” culture. Few studies have explored links between gender and retraction.

“Existing studies in this area often rely on only a few hundred or thousand retracted articles for case analysis, typically finding that male researchers account for a higher proportion of authors in these retraction samples,” Zheng explained. However, male researchers typically publish more papers than their female peers, ergo a higher number of retractions from male authors doesn’t necessarily point to a higher level of misconduct by men.

Zheng and colleagues’ study introduced, for the first time, the concept of a retraction rate, and the male-to-female retraction ratio, to assess gender differences in retractions using more precise indicators and a big-data perspective.

“Our approach incorporates both retracted and non-retracted publications for male and female researchers, enabling us to calculate the ratio of the number of retracted articles authored by a gender to the total number of articles authored by that gender (retraction rate), and the ratio of male-to-female retraction rates,” Zheng explained.

“This allows us to more accurately assess the actual extent of gender differences in retractions, rather than relying solely on the raw counts of retracted papers.”

Global study reveals gender gaps in retraction rates and reasons

Research papers published from 2008–2023, including over 10,000 retracted articles and almost 20 million non-retracted articles, were included in the study. “We obtained data on retraction reasons from the Retraction Watch database, which is widely recognized as the most comprehensive repository of retracted articles,” said Zheng.

The Retraction Watch Database utilizes a highly detailed classification system for documenting retraction reasons, which comprises 111 categories. “Drawing on the detailed descriptions provided by the Retraction Watch, as well as prior research on retraction reason classification, we refined these into nine overarching categories: Mistakes, fabrication/falsification, duplication, plagiarism, ethical issues, authorship issues, single reason, multiple reasons and reasons uncategorizable or not available.”

Gender differences in retractions across scientific disciplines and countries were also assessed.

Overall, retraction rates were higher in men than women, whether analyzing first authors or corresponding authors.

Male first authors had significantly higher rates for almost all retraction reason categories except for “mistakes” where no gender differences were observed. Male first authors have much higher retraction rates for “plagiarism” and “authorship issues” compared to female first authors.

Gender differences in retractions across scientific disciplines and countries were also assessed.

Male authors had higher retraction rates in the biomedical and health sciences, while female authors had higher retraction rates in mathematics and computer science.

Men had a higher retraction rate than women in countries such as the US, Pakistan and Iran. In contrast, women had higher retraction rates in Italy and China. However, many Chinese names are hard to classify by gender from English transliterations, making China’s findings subject to further validation.

Why are men’s papers retracted more often?

Why are male authors’ papers being retracted more than females? Though Zheng and colleagues cannot say for certain, they propose two hypotheses.

The first is that men may simply be more likely to engage in scientific misconduct.

“Psychological research has shown that men, on average, are more prone to risk-taking in areas such as driving and financial decisions, which may extend to academic behavior,” Zheng said. “From an evolutionary perspective, this pattern may be partly attributable to men’s higher tolerance for potential harm and greater expectation of rewards, which may make risky actions – such as scientific misconduct – more appealing.”

Male misconduct may also be more likely to be detected. “Not all wrongdoing comes to light, especially subtle forms like data falsification. But higher visibility of male researchers could increase the likelihood that their misconduct is uncovered, contributing to the higher observed retraction rates,” Zheng continued.

Ultimately, future research adopting mixed methods approaches – collecting both quantitative and qualitative data – will be needed to establish the validity of these hypotheses. In turn, this could help identify solutions to misconduct issues.

“This could include in-depth interviews with researchers who have experienced retractions, surveys that gauge attitudes toward research integrity across different career stages and disciplines and focus groups that examine how factors such as academic culture, competitive pressures and gender role expectations shape behavior,” said Zheng.

“Importantly, although we found higher retraction rates among male researchers, our message applies to everyone: it’s always better to publish modest but honest results than to have a paper retracted for scientific misconduct,” he concluded.

Reference: Zheng ET, Fu HZ, Thelwall M, Fang Z. Do male leading authors retract more articles than female leading authors? JOI. 2025;19(3):101682. doi: 10.1016/j.joi.2025.101682

About
the interviewee:

Mr. Er-Te Zheng is a PhD researcher at School
of Information, Journalism and Communication, University of Sheffield. He is
currently conducting research in metascience, the
science of science, scientometrics and research integrity.

Aug. 12 (UPI) — Chile’s the CiELO project is opening new frontiers in the study of how galaxies form and evolve, positioning the country as a leader in computational astrophysics in Latin America.

“This is the first simulation project of its kind developed in Chile and in the region,” said Patricia Tissera, director of the Center for Astrophysics and Related Technologies and leader of the project.

“Thanks to this initiative, the national scientific community can now pose and address its own questions about the universe with an independent perspective and a local identity,” Tissera said.

The project, whose acronym stands for Chemo-dynamIcal propertiEs of gaLaxies and the cOsmic, aims to understand how galaxies form and evolve within their natural environment — the cosmic web — using their chemical properties as markers of that evolution.

It seeks to determine how different environments — cosmic voids, filaments and walls — influence the dynamics and composition of galaxies, offering new insights into their formation and transformation over time.

“CiELO builds virtual universes inside supercomputers — true cosmic virtual twins — that allow us to navigate from the Milky Way to the first galaxies in the universe,” Tissera said. “This capability opens possibilities outside astronomy, in fields where simulations and modeling are essential.”

The project, developed over eight years with universities in Ibero-America and international centers such as the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics and Durham University, is supported by the Center for Astrophysics and Related Technologies, which provides access to powerful computing clusters such as Geryon and helps train new researchers.

The simulations, also run at the National Laboratory for High Performance Computing at the University of Chile and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, use tools such as GADGET-3 (GAlaxies with Dark matter and Gas intEracT) — a code for modeling the formation and evolution of galaxies — and SKIRT (Stellar Kinematics Including Radiative Transfer), software that simulates how light interacts with interstellar dust, to reproduce and analyze galactic evolution in detail.

The CiELO project’s results are intended to complement and enhance the interpretation of data from telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope, which orbits 930,000 miles abiove Earth; the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, situated in Cerro Pachón in Chile’s Coquimbo region; and the future Extremely Large Telescope, under construction on Cerro Armazones in Chile’s Antofagasta region.

The project’s innovative focus on galaxies in low-density environments allows researchers to study processes that have been little explored, with particular attention to chemical elements as indicators of their evolutionary history.

Aug. 12, 2025 — Just as overlapping ripples on a pond can amplify or cancel each other out, waves of many kinds — including light, sound and atomic vibrations — can interfere with one another. At the quantum level, this kind of interference powers high-precision sensors and could be harnessed for quantum computing.

In a new study published in Science Advances, researchers at Rice University and collaborators have demonstrated a strong form of interference between phonons — the vibrations in a material’s structure that constitute the tiniest units, or quanta, of heat or sound in that system. The phenomenon where two phonons with different frequency distributions interfere with each other, known as Fano resonance, was two orders of magnitude greater than any previously reported.

“While this phenomenon is well-studied for particles like electrons and photons, interference between phonons has been much less explored,” said Kunyan Zhang, a former postdoctoral researcher at Rice and first author on the study. “That is a missed opportunity, since phonons can maintain their wave behavior for a long time, making them promising for stable, high-performance devices.”

By showing that phonons can be harnessed as effectively as light or electrons, the study paves the way for a new generation of phonon-based technologies. The team’s breakthrough hinges on the use of a two-dimensional metal on top of a silicon carbide base. Using a technique called confinement heteroepitaxy, the researchers intercalated just a few layers of silver atoms between a layer of graphene and silicon carbide, producing a tightly bound interface with remarkable quantum properties.

“The 2D metal triggers and strengthens the interference between different vibrational modes in silicon carbide, reaching record levels,” Zhang said.

The research team studied how phonons interfere with each other by looking at the shape of their signal in Raman spectroscopy, a technique that measures the vibrational modes of a material. The spectrum revealed a sharply asymmetric line shape and in some cases showed a complete dip, forming an antiresonance pattern characteristic of intense interference.

The effect proved highly sensitive to the specificities of the silicon carbide surface. The comparison between three different surface terminations of silicon carbide revealed a clear link between each surface and its unique Raman line shape. Moreover, when the researchers introduced a single dye molecule to the surface, the spectral line shape changed dramatically.

“This interference is so sensitive that it can detect the presence of a single molecule,” Zhang said. “It enables label-free single-molecule detection with a simple and scalable setup. Our results open up a new path for using phonons in quantum sensing and next-generation molecular detection.”

Exploring the dynamic of the effect at low temperatures, the researchers confirmed that the interference stemmed purely from phonon interactions and not electrons, marking a rare case of phonon-only quantum interference. The effect has only been observed in the particular 2D metal/silicon carbide system used in the study and is absent in regular bulk metals. This is due to the special transition pathways and surface configurations enabled by the atomically thin metal layer.

The study also explored the possibility of using other 2D metals, such as gallium or indium, to induce similar effects. By fine-tuning the chemical composition of these intercalated layers, researchers could design custom interfaces with tailored quantum properties.

“Compared to conventional sensors, our method offers high sensitivity without the need for special chemical labels or complicated device setup,” said Shengxi Huang, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and materials science and nanoengineering at Rice and corresponding author on the study. “This phonon-based approach not only advances molecular sensing but also opens up exciting possibilities in energy harvesting, thermal management and quantum technologies, where controlling vibrations is key.”

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation (2011839, 2246564, 1943895, 2230400), Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-22-1-0408), Welch Foundation (C-2144) and the University of North Texas. The content in this press release is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of funding organizations and institutions.

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Source: Silvia Cernea Clark, Rice University