Science world stung by more fraud allegations

Two more allegations of research fraud have hit the science world following recent events at Bell Labs.

It has emerged that Victor Ninov, a physicist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has been sacked after an inquiry into alleged data fabrication surrounding the supposed discovery of new elements in 1999. Dr Ninov has denied the allegation and filed a grievance with the University of California, which manages the laboratory.

The New England Journal of Medicine has retracted a 1998 paper on heart complications suffered by HIV patients, written by a team of Italian researchers led by Giuseppe Barbaro, after allegations of data fabrication.