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Browse the failure-mode index

21,245 real negative results, null findings, and replication failures. Search the index →

WASTE indexes published research — it does not host or republish full papers. Each entry is a metadata record compiled from open scholarly databases; the abstract is shown in full only where the paper is openly licensed, otherwise a short excerpt under fair use. Classifications are automated and approximate.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Single nucleotide polymorphism rs6716901 in SLC25A12 gene is associated with Asperger syndrome

Jaroslava Durdiaková, Varun Warrier, Simon Baron‐Cohen et al. · 2014 · Molecular Autism

BACKGROUND: Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) are a group of developmental conditions which affect communication, social interactions and behaviour. Mitochondrial oxidative dysfunction has been suggested as a mechanism of autism based on the results of multiple genetic association and expression studies. SLC25A12 is a gene encoding a calcium-binding carrier protein that localizes to the mitochondria and is involved in the exchange of aspartate for glutamate in the inner membrane of the mitochondria regulating the cytosolic redox state. rs2056202 SNP in this gene has previously been associated w

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Characteristics of personally important episodic memories, counterfactual thoughts, and future projections across age and culture

Müge Özbek, Annette Bohn, Dorthe Berntsen · 2020 · Applied Cognitive Psychology

Summary We have limited knowledge as to whether the phenomenological differences between episodic memories, counterfactuals, and future projections show the same pattern across age groups and diverse samples. Here we compared the…

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Negative / Null Result ReportImmunology and Microbiology

Deficiency of ULK1/ATG1 in the follicle cells disturbs ER homeostasis and causes defective chorion deposition in the vector Rhodnius prolixus

Larissa Bomfim, Isabela Ramos · 2020 · The FASEB Journal

In insects, synthesis and deposition of the chorion (eggshell) are performed by the professional secretory follicle cells (FCs) that surround the oocytes in the course of oogenesis. Here, we found that ULK1/ATG1, an autophagy-related…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Underestimating Calorie Content When Healthy Foods Are Present: An Averaging Effect or a Reference-Dependent Anchoring Effect?

Suzanna Forwood, Amy L. Ahern, Gareth J Hollands et al. · 2013 · PLoS ONE

OBJECTIVE: Previous studies have shown that estimations of the calorie content of an unhealthy main meal food tend to be lower when the food is shown alongside a healthy item (e.g. fruit or vegetables) than when shown alone. This effect has been called the negative calorie illusion and has been attributed to averaging the unhealthy (vice) and healthy (virtue) foods leading to increased perceived healthiness and reduced calorie estimates. The current study aimed to replicate and extend these findings to test the hypothesized mediating effect of ratings of healthiness of foods on calorie estimat

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Negative / Null Result ReportSocial Sciences

Career Indecision in China

Meghan Roche, Andrea Carr, In Heok Lee et al. · 2016 · Journal of Career Assessment

This study explored the measurement equivalence of the Career Indecision Profile (CIP) in a Chinese sample with both U.S. and South Korean samples. Past measurement invariance research on the CIP in four international samples (Icelandic…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Replication of H9 influenza viruses in the human ex vivo respiratory tract, and the influence of neuraminidase on virus release

Renee W. Y. Chan, Louisa Chan, Chris Ka Pun Mok et al. · 2017 · Scientific Reports

H9N2 viruses are the most widespread influenza viruses in poultry in Asia. We evaluated the infection and tropism of human and avian H9 influenza virus in the human respiratory tract using ex vivo respiratory organ culture. H9 viruses infected the upper and lower respiratory tract and the majority of H9 viruses had a decreased ability to release virus from the bronchus rather than the lung. This may be attributed to a weak neuraminidase (NA) cleavage of carbon-6-linked sialic acid (Sia) rather than carbon-3-linked Sia. The modified cleavage of N-acetlylneuraminic acid (Neu5Ac) and N-glycolylne

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Psychological mechanisms of offset analgesia: The effect of expectancy manipulation

Tibor M. Szikszay, Wacław M. Adamczyk, Janina Panskus et al. · 2023 · PLoS ONE

A frequently used paradigm to quantify endogenous pain modulation is offset analgesia, which is defined as a disproportionate large reduction in pain following a small decrease in a heat stimulus. The aim of this study was to determine whether suggestion influences the magnitude of offset analgesia in healthy participants. A total of 97 participants were randomized into three groups (hypoalgesic group, hyperalgesic group, control group). All participants received four heat stimuli (two constant trials and two offset trials) to the ventral, non-dominant forearm while they were asked to rate the

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

Comparing qPCR and DNA methylation-based measurements of telomere length in a high-risk pediatric cohort

Waylon J. Hastings, Laura Etzel, Christine M. Heim et al. · 2022 · Aging

Various approaches exist to assess population differences in biological aging. Telomere length (TL) is one such measure, and is associated with disease, disability and early mortality. Yet, issues surrounding precision and reproducibility are a concern for TL measurement. An alternative method to estimate TL using DNA methylation (DNAmTL) was recently developed. Although DNAmTL has been characterized in adult and elderly cohorts, its utility in pediatric populations remains unknown. We examined the comparability of leukocyte TL measurements generated using qPCR (absolute TL; aTL) to those esti

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Negative / Null Result ReportNeuroscience

On the usefulness of formal judgment tasks in syntax and in second-language research: The case of resumptive pronouns in English, Turkish, and Mandarin Chinese

John Hitz, Elaine J. Francis · 2016 · Linguistics

Abstract Gibson and Fedorenko (2013, The need for quantitative methods in syntax and semantics research, Language and Cognitive Processes 28(2), 88–124) have argued against the continued use of informally collected acceptability judgments…

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Negative / Null Result ReportBusiness, Management and Accounting

THE EFFECTS OF PERCEIVED SERVICE QUALITY ON PATIENT SATISFACTION AT A PUBLIC HOSPITAL IN STATE OF PAHANG, MALAYSIA

Noor Azlinna Azizan, Bahari Mohamed · 2013 · Asian journal of social sciences & humanities

This study focuses on the effects of perceived service quality on patient satisfaction in a public hospital. Data was collected from 109 respondents that experienced the hospital service. Using a PLS-SEM tool, the hypothesized effects…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessSocial Sciences

The “Wallpaper Effect” Revisited: Divergent Findings on the Effects of Intergroup Contact on Attitudes in Diverse Versus Nondiverse Contexts

Katharina Schmid, Ralf Wölfer, Herman Swart et al. · 2017 · Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

This article reexamines the so-called "wallpaper effect" of intergroup contact, which contends that for minority group members living in areas more densely populated by majority group members, intergroup contact fails to reduce prejudice. We tested this claim in five studies, using data from five countries, two types of contexts, a range of measures, and involving different minority versus majority groups. Using multilevel cross-level interaction models, we considered whether effects of contact on outgroup attitudes were moderated by relative outgroup size. Results failed to replicate the prev

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences

Effects of adding an automated monitoring device to the health screening of postpartum Holstein cows on survival and productive and reproductive performances

Manuel A. Silva, Anderson Veronese, Anna Luiza Belli et al. · 2021 · Journal of Dairy Science

kg) than cows diagnosed with a clinical disease that had an AMD alert. Adding AMD-generated health alerts to the health screening of postpartum cows in a herd with an existing screening program did not improve survival, milk yield, or…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

No ordered arguments needed for nouns

Scott Grimm, Louise McNally · 2026 · Proceedings of the Amsterdam Colloquium

Syntacticians have widely assumed since [11] that there is a fundamental difference between so-called argument structure nominals (AS-nominals, also called Complex Event Nominals), e.g. destruction, and non-AS-nominals, e.g. book ([1, 5], i.a.). Grimshaw provided a list of properties characterizing AS-nominals, most notably that they have obligatory arguments (e.g. the destruction *(of Carthage) by the Romans). She and others have associated having argument structure with having event structure, but it has never been clear what having or lacking such structures amounts to semantically. In this

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessEnvironmental Science

Volumetric urban sprawl: Horizontal and vertical growth in two metropolitans

Alì Soltani, Parviz Azizi, Aliasghar Rahimioun et al. · 2025 · Journal of Urban Management

The escalating complexities of rapid urbanization necessitate a paradigm shift in urban form evaluation, moving beyond traditional horizontal analyses to incorporate the crucial dimension of vertical growth. This study pioneers a volumetric approach, integrating 3D and 2D spatial analyses, to dissect compactness, sprawl, and their underlying drivers across two contrasting metropolitan regions: the Tehran Metropolitan Region (TMR) and the Greater Sydney Region (GSR) over a 40-year period (1980s–2020s). Our findings reveal a striking dichotomy: TMR exhibits pronounced ‘vertical sprawl,’ characte

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Integrating Artificial Intelligence and PET Imaging for Drug Discovery: A Paradigm Shift in Immunotherapy

Jeremy McGale, Harrison J. Howell, Arnaud Beddok et al. · 2024 · Pharmaceuticals

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and positron emission tomography (PET) imaging has the potential to become a powerful tool in drug discovery. This review aims to provide an overview of the current state of research and highlight the potential for this alliance to advance pharmaceutical innovation by accelerating the development and deployment of novel therapeutics. We previously performed a scoping review of three databases (Embase, MEDLINE, and CENTRAL), identifying 87 studies published between 2018 and 2022 relevant to medical imaging (e.g., CT, PET, MRI), immunotherapy, arti

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessEarth and Planetary Sciences

Revising the Giant Planet Mass–Metallicity Relation: Deciphering the Formation Sequence of Giant Planets

Yayaati Chachan, Jonathan J. Fortney, Kazumasa Ohno et al. · 2025 · The Astrophysical Journal

Abstract The rate at which giant planets accumulate solids and gas is a critical component of planet formation models, yet it is extremely challenging to predict from first principles. Characterizing the heavy element (everything other than hydrogen and helium) content of giant planets provides important clues about their provenance. Using thermal evolution models with an updated H–He equation of state and atmospheric boundary conditions that vary with envelope metallicity, we quantify the bulk heavy element content of 147 warm (<1000 K) giant planets with well-measured masses and radii, mo

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

Artificial Intelligence for Exosomal Biomarker Discovery for Cardiovascular Diseases: Multi-Omics Integration, Reproducibility, and Translational Prospects

Rasit Dinc, Nurittin Ardıç · 2026 · Cells

Exosomes and other extracellular vesicles (EVs) carry microRNAs, proteins, and lipids that reflect cardiovascular pathophysiology and can enable minimally invasive biomarker discovery. However, EV datasets are highly dimensional and heterogeneous, strongly influenced by pre-analytic variables and non-standardized isolation/characterization workflows, limiting reproducibility across studies. Artificial intelligence (AI), including machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), and network-based approaches, can support EV biomarker development by integrating multi-omics profiles with clinical metada

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMathematics

The Effect of Omitted Variables on the Sign of Regression Coefficients

Matthew A. Masten, Alexandre Poirier · 2026 · American Economic Review

We show that, depending on how the impact of omitted variables is measured, it can be substantially easier for omitted variables to flip coefficient signs than to drive them to zero. This behavior occurs with “Oster's delta” (Oster 2019a),…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessArts and Humanities

Unique Motivations of the Underserved: Exploring Repertoire, Self-Identified, and Topical News Avoidance Among Black Adults

Miya Williams Fayne, Stephanie Edgerly · 2025 · Mass Communication & Society

This study examines three forms of news avoidance (repertoire, self-identified, and topical) among Black Americans and the overlap between the different forms. We center African Americans, who are often ignored or stereotyped by mainstream…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics and Astronomy

Hitting the slopes: a spectroscopic view of UV continuum slopes of galaxies reveals a reddening at z > 9.5

Aayush Saxena, Alex J. Cameron, Harley Katz et al. · 2026 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

ABSTRACT The ultraviolet (UV) continuum slope of galaxies, $\beta$, is a powerful diagnostic of the metallicity and ages of stars, nebular gas properties, dust content, and the escape of Lyman continuum (LyC) photons. In this study, we present $\beta$ measurements for 395 spectroscopically confirmed galaxies at $5 \lt z \lt 14.3$ selected primarily from JADES, using high-quality JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) NIRSpec/PRISM spectra. We find a median $\beta = -2.15$, finding a mild increase in blueness of $\beta$ with increasing redshift and fainter UV magnitudes. Interestingly, we find evide

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

The role of plasma inflammatory markers in late-life depression and conversion to dementia: a 3-year follow-up study

Mariia Bocharova, Tom Borza, Leiv Otto Watne et al. · 2025 · Molecular Psychiatry

Late-life depression (LLD) has been linked to increased likelihood of dementia, although mechanisms responsible for this association remain largely unknown. One feature frequently observed in both LLD and dementia is elevated levels of plasma inflammatory markers. The present study aimed to compare the levels of 12 plasma inflammatory markers between older people with LLD and controls, and to explore whether these markers, along with clinical characteristics, can predict dementia in patients with LLD within 3 years of follow-up. Using multiple linear regression with stepwise adjustment, we com

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

Artificial intelligence, data elements, digital economy, and corporate innovation performance

Yuan Ma, Wenchao Zhang, Chengxiang Ma et al. · 2025 · International Review of Economics & Finance

In an era defined by digital transformation, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a critical driver of corporate competitiveness, yet the mechanisms through which it enhances innovation remain a key area of inquiry. This study…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Physical activity for public health in the 21st century

Deborah Salvo, Inácio Crochemore-Silva, Andrea Wendt et al. · 2026 · Nature Medicine

With over 5 million attributed deaths per year, physical inactivity is a major global public health issue. Although the importance of physical activity is well recognized within the scope of obesity and cardiometabolic disease prevention…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMaterials Science

Innovative Strategies to Overcome Stability Challenges of Single-Atom Nanozymes

Rong Guo, Qiuzheng Du, Yaping He et al. · 2026 · Nano-Micro Letters

Single-atom nanozymes (SAzymes) exhibit exceptional catalytic efficiency due to their maximized atom utilization and precisely modulated metal-carrier interactions, which have attracted significant attention in the biomedical field. However, stability issues may impede the clinical translation of SAzymes. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the applications of SAzymes in various biomedical fields, including disease diagnosis (e.g., biosensors and diagnostic imaging), antitumor therapy (e.g., photothermal therapy, photodynamic therapy, sonodynamic therapy, and immunotherapy), antim

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