“Researchers retract a paper because it turns out not to be about bullshit”

Retraction Watch reports:

Researchers retract a paper because it turns out not to be about bullshit

…a group of environmental scientists in China…  lost their 2019 article on soil contamination because what they thought was manure was in fact something else.

The article, titled “Immobilization of heavy metals in e-waste contaminated soils by combined application of biochar and phosphate fertilizer,” appeared in February in Water, Air, & Soil Pollution

the retraction notice says all that crap wasn’t crap after all:

“The authors have retracted this article. After publication they became aware that the data for cattle manure biochar reported in this article are actually data for rice straw biochar. The results, discussion and conclusions are therefore invalid. All authors agree with the retraction.”

Believe it or not, this paper isn’t the first one linked to manure that we’ve covered. That spot goes to this 2011 article, and a co-author who claimed that his data were lost when they fell into a pit of bullshit.