Weekend reads: ‘The Weimar of knowledge’; ‘Could AI Be Better at Peer Review Than Humans?’; guidelines in South Korea ban hidden prompts, restrict AI use

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 recent book](https://retractionwatch.com/?p=136053)
- Elsevier journal [retracts 100+ papers](https://retractionwatch.com/?p=136060) for authorship issues, editor conflicts of interest
- Wiley investigating book chapter on biodiversity [for fake references](https://retractionwatch.com/?p=136075)
- Tennessee researcher heads to court amid claims of [theft, forgery and revenge](https://retractionwatch.com/?p=136083)
- Above and beyond: An editor wanted authors to know [they’d been falsely cited](https://retractionwatch.com/2026/09/25/above-and-beyond-an-editor-wanted-authors-to-know-theyd-been-falsely-cited/)

In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 450 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 67,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is approaching 700, and our mass resignations list has more than 50 entries. We keep tabs on all this and more. If you value this work, please consider showing your support with a tax-deductible donation. Every dollar counts.

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

• Researcher says academia will fall due to “[p]erverse incentives” that “sustained the publishing industry as we know it and blew up the bubble. AI is now pushing that trend into Weimar territory, and papers will be worth nothing .”
• “Could AI Be Better at Peer Review Than Humans ?”
• New guidelines in South Korea “mandate detailing AI tools, ban hidden prompts, restrict external AI use for sensitive data .”

- “Cambridge [Abandons Plans to Fully Investigate Its Hiring](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/world/europe/cambridge-jason-arday-investigation.html) of Jason Arday.”
- Op-eds and academic articles by Dartmouth provost flagged as AI-written [by AI detector](https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2026/09/schnell-ai-writing) .

• “Will retracting your paper ruin your career ?” A podcast featuring theinaugural winners of our Ctrl-Z Award .

- “Genomics addressed its ethical concerns, [AI can do the same](https://www.ft.com/content/66403f97-a2f4-44d9-8835-d68e916981b2) ,” says director of bioinformatics institute.
- “NIH details $170 million biomedical [research reproducibility effort](https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-details-170-million-biomedical-research-reproducibility-effort) .”
- “Trust in data: reproducibility packages [do not guarantee validity](https://deevybee.blogspot.com/2026/09/trust-in-data-reproducibility-packages.html) .”

• In an experiment at the International Conference on Machine Learning, 22.5% of peer reviewers asked not to use an LLM did so anyway .
• Journal of Academic Ethicsretracts paper on “academic corruption” in Yemen for irrelevant and non-verifiable references.
• Journal editor developing system to weed out authors “submitting AI-assisted papersthey ‘don’t understand .'”
• University rector in Kyiv “suspected of plagiarism and corruption .”
• “AI conference ICLR is drowning in abstracts, with roughly 50,000 submissions before the deadline .”
• “3 terabytes of biomedical research data allegedly transferred in UT MD Anderson trade-secret investigation .”
• “Discredited UIC lab manager Jennifer Bash is back on the witness stand .”
• “Hundreds of ‘free’ academic journals have started charging fees ,” a move many editorshave resigned over .
• “China must enforce high standards of integrity for scientists.”
• “Claudine Gay Is Back at Harvard—to Teach a Class About Harvard .” She resigned as president of the university after beingaccused of plagiarism .
• “Boston cans reparations report after lead researcher’s academic integrity comes under fire .”

- “How scientific publishers are fighting back [against fraudulent papermills](https://physicsworld.com/a/how-scientific-publishers-are-fighting-back-against-fraudulent-papermills/) .”
- “Economics journals are [governed by a shrinking elite](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2026/09/23/economics-journals-are-governed-by-a-shrinking-elite/) .”

• University “dropped from lawsuit by U.S. politician over release of his widely criticized PhD thesis.” A researcher said in 2024 he found “213 cases of academic fraud or misconduct ” in the thesis.
• “Lack of female researchers and participants in regenerative-medicine research holds everyone back .”
• Researchers find quality ratings of psychology manuscripts “were affected by sample sizes but not by statistical significance or the presence of statistical reporting errors in the rated research vignette.”

- “From Inside Ethics Review Boards: [On Consent, Context and Who it Protects](https://voelkerrechtsblog.org/from-inside-ethics-review-boards/) .”
- “China’s Price of Retraction: [Wasted Research Funding and Beyond](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/leap.2102) .”

• “AI companies must work with the research community to protect attribution .” And “Who gets credit in the AI era?OpenAI maths bombshell sparks debate .”

- “Can researchers trust that AI models [won’t leak their ideas](https://sciencebusiness.net/news/ai/can-researchers-trust-ai-models-wont-leak-their-ideas) ?”
- “The AI Discourse in Academia is Toxic. [It Doesn’t have to be](https://blekhman.substack.com/p/the-ai-discourse-in-academia-is-toxic) .”
- “What if AI can make Science Better, [not just Faster](https://diffdx.substack.com/p/what-if-ai-can-make-science-better) ?”
- “AI co-scientists are [revolutionizing how research is done](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02931-5) .”

• “AI saves scientists seven hours a week ,” but they spend “‘meaningful share’ of that gain verifying AI-generated results,”study finds .
• “The hidden cost of positivity : Ensuring integrity in scientific research.”
• “Ten simple rules for suggesting reviewers during a paper submission .”

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