e-ISSN: Pending

Browse the failure-mode index

19,879 real negative results, null findings, and replication failures · Negative / Null Result Report. 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 accessGeography. Anthropology. Recreation

Diversity of Monogononta rotifer species among standing waterbodies in northern Cambodia

Ratha Sor, Seanghun Meas, Ken K.Y. Wong et al. · 2014 · Journal of Limnology

The incidence and abundance of Monogononta rotifer species were recorded from lakes and reservoirs in the upper part of the Cambodian Mekong River basin in April and November 2010. One hundred and seven species are reported, 25 of which are new records to Cambodia and 8 taxa were unidentifiable to species level. Species richness at the regional and local scale was not significantly different between habitat types or between seasons, whether it was estimated using incidence or abundance data. Comparison of incidence data also revealed no significant difference from species richness of ponds con

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessHistory of scholarship and learning. The humanities

Psychological science from 'publish or perish' to 'trust but verify'

Keljanović Anđela D. · 2021 · Zbornik Radova Filozofskog Fakulteta u Prištini

At the time when social psychologists believed they could be proud of their discipline, there was the devastating news that Diederik Stapel had committed a major scientific fraud. This event coincided with the start of the discussion on trust in psychological findings. It was soon followed by the report of a series of nine studies that failed to replicate the 'professor's study'. These replication results were astounding due to earlier reports of successful replications. Due to the crisis of confidence in the results of field research, the Open Science Collaboration subsequently replicated 100

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDiseases of the genitourinary system. Urology

Concerns about stone free rate and procedure events of percutaneous nephrolithotripsy (PCNL) for 2–4 cm kidney stones by standard-PCNL vs mini-PCNL- comparative randomised study

Mohamed Wishahi, Ahmed El Feel, Amr Elkhouly et al. · 2023 · BMC Urology

Abstract Background To compare the efficacy and safety of standard percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) with mini- PCNL for kidney stones 2–4 cm. Methods Eighty patients were enrolled in a comparative study, they were randomly divided into mini-PCNL group (n = 40) and standard-PCNL (n = 40). Demographic characteristics, perioperative events, complications, stone free rate (SFR) were reported. Results Both groups showed no significant difference in clinical data about age, stone location, back pressure changes, and body mass index. The mean operative time was (95 ± 17.9 min) in mini-PCNL, and (7

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry

Hebbian Control of Fixations in a Dyslexic Reader: A Case Report

Albert Le Floch, Guy Ropars · 2023 · Brain Sciences

When reading, dyslexic readers exhibit more and longer fixations than normal readers. However, there is no significant difference when dyslexic and control readers perform only visual tasks on a string of letters, showing the importance of cognitive processes in reading. This linguistic and cognitive processing requirement in reading is often perturbed for dyslexic readers by perceived additional letters and word mirror images superposed on the primary images on the primary cortex, inducing internal visual crowding. Here, we show that while for a normal reader, the number and the duration of f

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessElementary particle physics

Avoiding Bias in Measurements of Fundamental Constants from High Resolution Quasar Spectra

John K. Webb, Chung-Chi Lee, Dinko Milaković · 2022 · Universe

Recent advances in spectroscopic instrumentation and calibration methods dramatically improve the quality of quasar spectra. Supercomputer calculations show that, at high spectral resolution, procedures used in some previous analyses of spacetime variations of fundamental constants are likely to generate spurious measurements, biased systematically towards a null result. Developments in analysis methods are also summarised and a prescription given for the analysis of new and forthcoming data.

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Nogo stimuli do not receive more attentional suppression or response inhibition than neutral stimuli: evidence from the N2pc, PD and N2 components in a spatial cueing paradigm

Caroline eBarras, Dirk eKerzel · 2016 · Frontiers in Psychology

It has been claimed that stimuli sharing the color of the nogo-target are suppressed because of the strong incentive to not process the nogo-target, but we failed to replicate this finding. Participants searched for a color singleton in the target display and indicated its shape when it was in the go color. If the color singleton in the target display was in the nogo color, they had to withhold the response. The target display was preceded by a cue display that also contained a color singleton (the cue). The cue was either in the color of the go or nogo target, or it was in an unrelated, neutr

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessEducation (General)

Challenging the notion of a general disfluency effect: the moderating effect of element-interactivity on perceptual disfluency

Maik Beege, Maik Beege, Christoph Mengelkamp et al. · 2026 · Frontiers in Education

IntroductionThe disfluency effect proposes that deliberately introducing challenges or difficulties into the learning process can be advantageous. Particularly, perceptual disfluency (e.g., harder to read fonts) might affect learning positively. However, an ongoing debate persists regardxing the robustness of this effect, as some studies have failed to replicate it or have uncovered opposing outcomes.MethodsTo investigate potential moderators of the disfluency effect, two experiments were conducted using different types of instructional materials (instructional texts: N1 = 76; concept maps: N2

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Ten minutes of transcranial static magnetic field stimulation does not reliably modulate motor cortex excitability.

Sabrina Lorenz, Birte Alex, Thomas Kammer · 2020 · PLoS ONE

Recently, modulatory effects of static magnetic field stimulation (tSMS) on excitability of the motor cortex have been reported. In our previous study we failed to replicate these results. It was suggested that the lack of modulatory effects was due to the use of an auditory oddball task in our study. Thus, we aimed to evaluate the role of an oddball task on the effects of tSMS on motor cortex excitability. In a within-subject-design we compared 10 minutes tSMS with and without oddball task. In one of the two sessions subjects had to solve an auditory oddball task during the exposure to the ma

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeurology. Diseases of the nervous system

Exploring EEG resting state differences in autism: sparse findings from a large cohort

Adam J.O. Dede, Wenyi Xiao, Nemanja Vaci et al. · 2025 · Molecular Autism

Abstract Background Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental condition, the precise neurobiological underpinnings of which remain elusive. Here, we focus on group differences in resting state EEG (rsEEG). Although many previous reports have pointed to differences between autistic and neurotypical participants in rsEEG, results have failed to replicate, sample sizes have typically been small, and only a small number of variables are reported in each study. Methods Here, we combined five datasets to create a large sample of autistic and neurotypical individuals (n = 776) and extracted 726 variable

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Exploring the role of Honesty-Humility in replicating "The relationships between behavioral addictions and the five-factor model of personality"

Singh, Anjali, Durand, Guillaume · 2022 · Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology

This study is a replication of Andreassen and colleagues (2013) [The relationships between behavioral addictions and the five-factor model of personality. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 2(2), 90-99]. We partially replicated the findings of the original study. Our results support the role of personality, particularly conscientiousness, in predicting behavioral addictions, such as video game, Internet, and mobile phone addiction. However, we failed to replicate the same pattern of personality traits for each behavioral addiction.

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessSocial Sciences

Good luck, bad luck, and ambiguity aversion

Briony D. Pulford, Poonam Gill · 2014 · Judgment and Decision Making

We report a series of experiments investigating the influence of feeling lucky or unlucky on people's choice of known-risk or ambiguous options using the traditional Ellsberg Urns decision-making task. We induced a state of feeling lucky or unlucky in subjects by using a rigged wheel-of-fortune game, which just missed either the bankrupt or the jackpot outcome. In the first experiment a large reversal of the usual ambiguity aversion effect was shown, indicating that feeling lucky made subjects significantly more ambiguity seeking than usual. However, this effect failed to replicate in five ref

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDiseases of the endocrine glands. Clinical endocrinology

Revisiting the Role of Vitamin D in Fracture Prevention in the Era of Mega-Trials

Sung Hye Kong · 2026 · Endocrinology and Metabolism

For decades, vitamin D has been a cornerstone of preventive medicine. However, recent large-scale randomized controlled trials have failed to replicate the broad benefits previously observed in epidemiological studies, particularly with respect to fracture and fall prevention in vitamin D-replete populations. Moreover, growing evidence suggesting an increased fall risk associated with high-dose bolus administration has necessitated a re-evaluation of safety assumptions. This review synthesizes these discordant findings to propose a framework grounded in precision medicine. We explore the ‘dive

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNutrition. Foods and food supply

Genome- and CD4+ T-cell methylome-wide association study of circulating trimethylamine-N-oxide in the Genetics of Lipid Lowering Drugs and Diet Network (GOLDN)

Stella Aslibekyan, Marguerite R. Irvin, Bertha A. Hidalgo et al. · 2017 · Journal of Nutrition & Intermediary Metabolism

Background: Trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO), an atherogenic metabolite species, has emerged as a possible new risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Animal studies have shown that circulating TMAO levels are regulated by genetic and environmental factors. However, large-scale human studies have failed to replicate the observed genetic associations, and epigenetic factors such as DNA methylation have never been examined in relation to TMAO levels. Methods and results: We used data from the family-based Genetics of Lipid Lowering Drugs and Diet Network (GOLDN) to investigate the heritable determi

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMicrobiology

SARS-CoV-2 Isolates Show Impaired Replication in Human Immune Cells but Differential Ability to Replicate and Induce Innate Immunity in Lung Epithelial Cells

Miao Jiang, Pekka Kolehmainen, Laura Kakkola et al. · 2021 · Microbiology Spectrum

ABSTRACT The primary target organ of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection is the respiratory tract. Currently, there is limited information on the ability of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) to infect and regulate innate immunity in human immune cells and lung epithelial cells. Here, we compared the ability of four Finnish isolates of SARS-CoV-2 from COVID-19 patients to replicate and induce interferons (IFNs) and other cytokines in different human cells. All isolates failed to replicate in dendritic cells, macrophages, monocytes, and lymphocytes, and no in

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessBiology (General)

Wildtype epidermal growth factor receptor ( Egfr ) is not required for daily locomotor or masking behavior in mice

Sancar Aziz, Mankinen Richard W, Lee Daekee et al. · 2006 · Journal of Circadian Rhythms

Abstract Background Recent studies have implicated the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) within the subparaventricular zone as being a major mediator of locomotor and masking behaviors in mice. The results were based on small cohorts of mice homozygous for the hypomorphic Egfr wa 2 allele on a mixed, genetically uncontrolled background, and on intraventricular infusion of exogenous EGFR ligands. Subsequenlty, a larger study using the same genetically mixed background failed to replicate the original findings. Since both previous approaches were susceptible to experimental artifacts relat

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessSocial Sciences

Threatened suicide and baiting crowd formation: a replication and extension of Mann (1981)

Christine M. Smith, Paulina Dzik, Errin Fornicola · 2019 · Social Influence

Using the lens of Deindividuation Theory, Leon Mann explored the formation of baiting crowds in a small sample of public suicides/suicide attempts. Instead of attempting to prevent the suicide, baiting crowds encourage the victim to jump. Our aim was to replicate Mann's study with a larger more diverse sample of suicide attempts and a broadened theoretical lens (Frustration-Aggression). Using ProQuest, we identified 152 public suicide attempts reported in English language newspapers and failed to replicate Mann’s findings. Rather, baiting crowd formation was associated with variables that incr

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessScience

Eleven years of student replication projects provide evidence on the correlates of replicability in psychology

Veronica Boyce, Maya Mathur, Michael C. Frank · 2023 · Royal Society Open Science

Cumulative scientific progress requires empirical results that are robust enough to support theory construction and extension. Yet in psychology, some prominent findings have failed to replicate, and large-scale studies suggest replicability issues are widespread. The identification of predictors of replication success is limited by the difficulty of conducting large samples of independent replication experiments, however: most investigations reanalyse the same set of [Formula: see text]. We introduce a new dataset of 176 replications from students in a graduate-level methods course. Replicati

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Ptbp1 is not required for retinal neurogenesis and cell fate specification

Haley Appel, Rogger P Carmen-Orozco, Clayton P Santiago et al. · 2025 · eLife

The RNA-binding protein Ptbp1 has been proposed as a master regulator of neuronal fate, repressing neurogenesis through its effects on alternative splicing and miRNA maturation. While prior studies using RNA interference suggested that Ptbp1 loss promotes neurogenesis, recent genetic studies have failed to replicate glia-to-neuron conversion following Ptbp1 loss of function. To evaluate the role of Ptbp1 in developmental neurogenesis in vivo, we conditionally disrupted Ptbp1 in mouse retinal progenitors. Ptbp1 was robustly expressed in both retinal progenitors and Müller glia but absent from p

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessSocial Sciences

The unconscious thought advantage: Further replication failures from a search for confirmatory evidence

Mark Nieuwenstein, Hedderik van Rijn · 2012 · Judgment and Decision Making

According to the deliberation without attention (DWA) hypothesis, people facing a difficult choice will make a better decision after a period of distraction than after an equally long period of conscious deliberation, an effect referred to as the unconscious thought advantage (UTA). The status of the DWA hypothesis is controversial, as many studies have tried but failed to replicate the UTA. Here, we report a series of experiments that sought to identify the conditions under which the UTA can be replicated. Our starting point was a recent meta-analysis that identified the conditions under whic

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Born to fail: flaws in replication design produce intended results

Abraham D. Flaxman, Riley Hazard, Ian Riley et al. · 2020 · BMC Medicine

Abstract We recently published in BMC Medicine an evaluation of the comparative diagnostic performance of InSilicoVA, a software to map the underlying causes of death from verbal autopsy interviews. The developers of this software claim to have failed to replicate our results and appear to have also failed to locate our replication archive for this work. In this Correspondence, we provide feedback on how this might have been done more usefully and offer some suggestions to improve future attempts at reproducible research. We also offer an alternative interpretation of the results presented by

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessSocial Sciences

Good luck, bad luck, and ambiguity aversion

Briony D. Pulford, Poonam Gill · 2014 · Judgment and Decision Making

We report a series of experiments investigating the influence of feeling lucky or unlucky on people’s choice of known-risk or ambiguous options using the traditional Ellsberg Urns decision-making task. We induced a state of feeling lucky or unlucky in subjects by using a rigged wheel-of-fortune game, which just missed either the bankrupt or the jackpot outcome. In the first experiment a large reversal of the usual ambiguity aversion effect was shown, indicating that feeling lucky made subjects significantly more ambiguity seeking than usual. However, this effect failed to replicate in five ref

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry

Not so different after all? An event-related potential study on item and source memory for object-scene pairs in German and Chinese young adults

Michael Weigl, Qi Shao, Qi Shao et al. · 2023 · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

In recent years, several cross-cultural studies reported that Westerners focus more on central aspects of a scene (e.g., an object) relative to peripheral aspects (e.g., the background), whereas Easterners more evenly allocate attention to central and peripheral aspects. In memory tasks, Easterners exhibit worse recognition for the central object when peripheral aspects are changed, whereas Westerners are less affected by peripheral changes. However, most of these studies rely on hit rates without correcting for response bias, whereas studies accounting for response bias failed to replicate cu

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessLanguage and Literature

Words can interfere with perception at their associated locations: the role of orthography in spatial interference

Elisa Scerrati, Zachary Estes · 2025 · Language and Cognition

The spatial interference effect, whereby words with implicit spatial associations (e.g., ‘bird’) hinder identification of unrelated visual targets (e.g., a square) at the associated locations (i.e., at the top of a display), has been demonstrated many times in English, although it has failed to replicate several times in Italian. The current study tested whether the replication failures in Italian may be due to insufficient semantic processing of the words. Indeed, while languages with highly inconsistent pronunciations, such as English, are more likely to involve semantic processing during wo

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPharmacy and materia medica

Formulation, Stability and Bioequivalency Study of Prepared Salbutamol Sulphate Nebules .

Bazigha K. Al –Temimy, Alaa A. Abdul –Rasool · 2017 · Iraqi Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences

ABSTRACT: Salbutamol sulphate nebules is considered as the most rapid effective route of administration for treatment of acute attacks of asthma . This study was carried out to formulate a stable formula of salbutamol nebules containing 0.1% (2.5mg / 2.5ml) of the active ingredient in a buffered solution . Stability study in different buffers at pH 3 showed that the longest shelf life was equal to 3.5 years for formula F .In addition the bioequivalency of this formula incomparison to ventolin nebules was measured and it was equal to (± 5.2) %. Also it was found that there was no significant d

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessTechnology

Assessing Cognitive–Motor Performance in Table Tennis: Validity and Reliability of the Reactive Table Tennis Test

Alessandro Guarnieri, Fabiana Laurenti, Salvatore Mazzei et al. · 2025 · Applied Sciences

Table tennis (TT) is a high-speed sport requiring integrated cognitive and motor skills. However, the existing assessment tools have failed to replicate its sport-specific demands. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Reactive Table Tennis test designed to assess cognitive–motor performance in TT. Sixty athletes were recruited from TT, combat sports (CS), team sports (TS), and track and field (TF). Participants were required to react to 10 visual stimuli randomly emitted from three devices placed 3 m frontally by performing 1.5 m lateral or frontal displa

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Exploration of Attentional and Executive Abilities in French-Speaking Children Immersed in Dutch Since 1, 2, 3, and 6 Years

Sophie Gillet, Cristina Anca Barbu, Martine Poncelet · 2020 · Frontiers in Psychology

Advantages in diverse aspects of cognitive functioning have been reported in early bilinguals (Bialystok, 2011) as well as in children frequenting an early bilingual immersion school program (Nicolay and Poncelet, 2015). However, during the last decade, some studies failed to replicate these advantages. Currently, the presence of cognitive benefits in children frequenting an immersion program remains debated. The lack of consistency between the studies could come from the fact that time spent by children within the immersion program is variable from one study to the other and that studies used

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Constraining meV axion dark matter with ALMA observations of the galactic center magnetar SGR 1745–2900

Javier De Miguel, Evanthia Hatziminaoglou, Frédéric Poidevin et al. · 2026 · Physics Letters B

We report a mm-wave search for axion dark matter from SGR 1745–2900, based on 4.8 h of ALMA observations. No candidate features are found between 133.99–135.78, 135.91–137.70, 145.99–147.78, and 147.99–149.78 GHz, corresponding to 0.55–0.62 meV. Interpreting this null result within a state-of-the-art stellar framework, we derive sensitivity to the axion–photon coupling at the level of gγ≳2×10−11 GeV−1 under a standard Navarro–Frenk–White profile; down to gγ≳2×10−13 GeV−1 upon accounting for a dense dark-matter spike around Sagittarius A*, probing the quantum chromodynamics axion parameter spac

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPolitical science (General)

Limited backlash? Assessing the geographic scope of electoral responses to refugees

Jeremy Ferwerda, Sascha Riaz · Political Science Research and Methods

Recent research suggests that local exposure to refugees does not increase support for far-right parties. We challenge this null result by drawing on granular data from Berlin in the wake of the Syrian refugee crisis. While prior work in the German context has generally assumed that refugee exposure is exogenous at the local level, we demonstrate that refugee housing was disproportionately concentrated in neighborhoods with young, non-citizen residents. To address this selection bias, we harmonize in-person and mail-in precinct boundaries across elections and implement a difference-in-differen

View details →
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAstrophysics

Strong field vacuum birefringence in plane wave pulses

B. King, T. Heinzl, T. G. Blackburn · 2023 · European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields

Abstract By combining an adiabatic approach based on a ‘locally monochromatic’ approximation with a local Hilbert transform, it is demonstrated how vacuum birefringence in the strong field regime can be calculated using a rate approach suitable for Monte Carlo simulation codes. Results for the flipping of the photon’s polarisation (helicity) are benchmarked with evaluation of exact expressions in a circularly (linearly) polarised plane wave of finite extent. For the circularly polarised case, the Heisenberg–Euler approach predicts a null result; an approximation similar to the ‘locally constan

View details →