(English intro to Spanish lang post) The place on Earth that receives more intensity of solar radiation is not located somewhere around the equator but in the Chilean desert of Atacama, according to a new study. The reason of this unexpected finding is the high altitude of the desert and the...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) The place on Earth that receives more intensity of solar radiation is not located somewhere around the equator but in the Chilean desert of Atacama, according to a new study. The reason of this unexpected finding is the high altitude of the desert and the extremely low humidity in the atmosphere, that doesn’t interfere with the radiation. A story in La Tercera says that 20 Km2 of solar panels in that area would provide all the electric energy that the country consumes. Also in La Tercera, we found a story suggesting that women’s immune system is stronger due to having two X chromosomes instead of one. The reporter makes a good job explaining the mechanism of microRNA gene silencing that supposedly is behind this effect. But she doesn’t provide references of the study, authors, methodology or extraordinary evidences that supports this extraordinary claim. In México, great story about the...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Argentinean men that in the last 12 months had at least one sexual encounter with another man are not allowed to donate blood. Gay collectives say this is discriminatory, and ask for the removal of the question about homosexual relationships from the blood donors’...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Argentinean men that in the last 12 months had at least one sexual encounter with another man are not allowed to donate blood. Gay collectives say this is discriminatory, and ask for the removal of the question about homosexual relationships from the blood donors’ questionnaire. Authorities argue that this filter is necessary to minimize the risk of accidental HIV infections. Today La Nación has an extensive story about this controversy. The story covers different angles, it includes opinions from many different sources, and it discusses the specific situation in Argentina. But it doesn’t mention a single study about risk of HIV transmission during blood donations. In another story in La Nación, a Spanish medical doctor explains that Spain eliminated the question about men having sex with men a few years ago, and he assures that the risk of infection is now higher than a decade ago. He also assures that the cases of...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Muy Interesante is the most read popular-science magazine in the Spanish-speaking world. Its website publishes short and anecdotal stories with eye-catching tiles and pictures. It has nearly 2 million followers in twitter. But the print monthly magazine has...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Muy Interesante is the most read popular-science magazine in the Spanish-speaking world. Its website publishes short and anecdotal stories with eye-catching tiles and pictures. It has nearly 2 million followers in twitter. But the print monthly magazine has extensive features, interviews and op-ed columns too. Today we reviewed the September number. We’ve found several really interesting stories. A professor of journalism criticises that journalists never include scientific data in their reporting about sociologic issues. A science writer thinks that media exaggerated when explaining the importance of the Higgs boson discovery. On the psychology side, a story discusses the personality traits of different kinds of toxic people. We also found a nice interview to a researcher who studies bacterial chemical communications, an extensive story about parasites, and a great 6-pages report explaining the hypothesis that first...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Many outlets in Latin America and Spain reported without enough criticism about the highly questionable French study suggesting carcinogenic effects of a Monsanto GM corn. Specially in Latin American countries, some stories were extremely alarming. Only a few...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Many outlets in Latin America and Spain reported without enough criticism about the highly questionable French study suggesting carcinogenic effects of a Monsanto GM corn. Specially in Latin American countries, some stories were extremely alarming. Only a few reporters included quotes of independent scientists expressing concerns about the methodology and results. The structure in these cases was the typical: a conventional title saying “GM corn gave rats cancer, study finds” followed by 3 or 4 paragraphs describing the methodology and results, and a final paragraph about the limitations. This is very problematic. In such a story the limitations should have been presented from the very beginning, and the cornerns be captured in the title. Very few spanish speaking media did it.
El asunto de los presuntos tumores en ratas alimentadas con transgénicos merece una crítica enérgica a la...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) A great story in El Universal (México) explores the technical challenges to extract oil safely and efficiently from the biggest oilfield of the country, under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The story is very well documented and the...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) A great story in El Universal (México) explores the technical challenges to extract oil safely and efficiently from the biggest oilfield of the country, under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The story is very well documented and the infographics are fabulous, but strangely, it doesn’t even mention the BP oil disaster from 2010. Also in Mexico, a conservative association criticized a government campaign that promoted the use of condoms. The association said that protection offered by condoms is not as high as the government said, and that abstinence should be encouraged. Some media missed the point and published that condoms are inefficient. From Uruguay, a very good story about the invasion of the exotic species bull frog. The story recall that environmentalists were alerting about the problem since 2005 where the population was still quiet small. They said they were in time to avoid...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Researchers themselves are to blame for exaggerated scientific results in the press, not reporters, according to a study published in PLOS Medecine. Authors of the study have compared the real data of the...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Researchers themselves are to blame for exaggerated scientific results in the press, not reporters, according to a study published in PLOS Medecine. Authors of the study have compared the real data of the original papers, the conclusions inferred in the abstracts, press releases written by press offices, the stories in the media. The study observes that nearly half of the papers analyzed contained inflated conclusions in the abstract, which persisted in the press releases from EurekAlert and the media coverage. If you check at the figure of this post (extracted form the original paper), you’ll notice that when the original paper is not distorted (light blue), only a few times it is exaggerated by press officers and journalists. And when you read magnified results in the media (dark blue), they usually come from papers that have been originally inflated by scientists in...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) US scientists found a new monkey species in Africa. But Mexican ones announced the discovery of news species of a porcupine, a night monkey, a fox and a shrew in the Peruvian Andes. Lesula is everywhere in the Latin American news; the Peruvian species are not....
(English intro to Spanish lang post) US scientists found a new monkey species in Africa. But Mexican ones announced the discovery of news species of a porcupine, a night monkey, a fox and a shrew in the Peruvian Andes. Lesula is everywhere in the Latin American news; the Peruvian species are not. Also, Wildlife Conservation said Madidi National Park in Bolivia could be the most biodiverse place on Earth. No reporting from Bolivia yet. About science policy: Paraguay invests only 0.06% of its GDP in research. It’s the lowest of the region, but a new report says policies are going to change. A Mexican scientific institution threats a lawsuit to the government administration for not carrying out the budget increases they promised. The body that administers science in Colombia has a new director, who promises to normalize the criticized Colombian S&T system. Good environmental stories also in Colombia about pollution in a coral reef, and mining...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Lots of ink today in the Spanish science sections about the good results of a vaccine against dengue, and a study saying that wind power has the potential to meet the world´s energy needs. Both stories need a high degree of explanation: dengue vaccine proves safety and...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Lots of ink today in the Spanish science sections about the good results of a vaccine against dengue, and a study saying that wind power has the potential to meet the world´s energy needs. Both stories need a high degree of explanation: dengue vaccine proves safety and efficacy only to three of the four dengue subtypes. And authors of the energy paper discuss technical limitations, not other factors. We compare the stories that have include these nuances in their texts and titles, and the ones that have simplistically told the readers that the vaccine against dengue is already here, or that the “wind could power the whole world”. We comment also in two related stories: about the Latin America's biggest solar power plant that will be built in Chile, and about the standstill of a project in Spain that planned to install windmills in one of the most important migratory bird sanctuaries in Europe.
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(English intro to Spanish lang post) With a study sample of 67 subjects, no group control, and just 4-weeks follow-up, Spanish researchers dare to conclude that drinking wine without alcohol reduces the risk of Coronary Heart Disease by a 14% and the risk of Stroke by 20%....
(English intro to Spanish lang post) With a study sample of 67 subjects, no group control, and just 4-weeks follow-up, Spanish researchers dare to conclude that drinking wine without alcohol reduces the risk of Coronary Heart Disease by a 14% and the risk of Stroke by 20%. Inconceivably, some journalists trust them without showing a slight skepticism. Researchers separated the 67 subjects in three groups. Eating the same diet, one group drank normal wine, the other the equivalent in gin, and the third wine without alcohol. The diet was new to all of them, but nobody followed it and drinking water instead. The lowering of blood pressure in the third group was minimum but significant according to researchers. They talk about polyphenols and nitric oxide as the responsible of the protection. We agree the study might deserve to be published as an hypothesis that's useful for other scientists, but not yet to the general public.
Costa...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Spanish science journalists have done a very good job reporting about the findings of the Encode Project published yesterday. In Latin America we’ve found a great story in the Chilean La Tercera. But with the exception of Brazil, nearly all other newspapers in the...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Spanish science journalists have done a very good job reporting about the findings of the Encode Project published yesterday. In Latin America we’ve found a great story in the Chilean La Tercera. But with the exception of Brazil, nearly all other newspapers in the region simply reproduce information from wires. We wonder if this reflects the lack of science reporters in LA, or the lack of editor’s interest in scientific research. We think that at least the main newspapers of each country should have paid more attention to such an important release of information about DNA structure and functioning.
Es una reflexión que no pretende ofender a nadie, pero a veces da la sensación que algunos medios latinoamericanos no saben distinguir cuando una noticia científica es realmente importante. Hay casos en los que da igual si esto de la genética es muy abstracto y crees que a tu poblaci...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Each day the back page of La Vanguardia (Spain) publishes an interview to a broad variety of people who have interesting ideas and experiences to explain. No celebrities but writers, economists, common people with remarkable achivements, different views,...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Each day the back page of La Vanguardia (Spain) publishes an interview to a broad variety of people who have interesting ideas and experiences to explain. No celebrities but writers, economists, common people with remarkable achivements, different views, doctors, artists, and a really high amount of scientists. These interviews are known as “the back page of La Vanguardia”, and are extremely successful among the online and print readers. Here we often highlight some of these interviews to important researchers. But there is a downside that we feel the need to comment: Every once in a while “The back page” (La Contra) publishes uncritical interviews to a whole range of pseudoscientists. This week some circles of Spanish science writers have criticized the text featuring a Mexican doctor who assures he can cure 16 different diseases with water imprinted with the right wavelengths of light. The whole...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Excellent series of stories in La Nación (Costa Rica) about the work of local researchers in the archeological site “Guayabo”. For two days, the topic have appeared in the front page of the print edition. The stories talk about radiocarbon dating, the...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Excellent series of stories in La Nación (Costa Rica) about the work of local researchers in the archeological site “Guayabo”. For two days, the topic have appeared in the front page of the print edition. The stories talk about radiocarbon dating, the effects of lichens and bacteria on the rocks, and the restoration work conducted by archeologists at the University of Costa Rica. The series include photos from the site, videos feautiring researchers, plenty of extra information, and an interview to a visiting international expert.
Lo defendemos airadamente: América Latina ofrece un potencial enorme de historias científicas apasionantes, que no está suficientemente explotado debido a la falta de periodistas especializados en la región. Quizás no serán investigaciones con colisionadores de partículas de presupuestos multimillonarios, pero –disculpad la...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Last Sunday the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo published an impressive special report describing the results of a survey research about infidelity in the country. It’s not rocket science, but the survey has been conducted with more than 1200 Colombians from 13 different...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Last Sunday the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo published an impressive special report describing the results of a survey research about infidelity in the country. It’s not rocket science, but the survey has been conducted with more than 1200 Colombians from 13 different cities, and it presents some interesting data about statistics, reasons, acceptance of infidelity, and so on. The special report have several stories focusing on different angles, there are experts from several fields commenting on the results, testimonies, references to other similar studies, and a great infographic summarizing the most important data. The only criticism is that none reporter gives us any information about the methodology followed in the survey. They don’t tell us either who are the principal investigators, neither basic info as the age range. In fact some experts comment that the big differences between men (8 of 10 have cheated) and women (4 of...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Spanish science journalist Manuel Calvo Hernando died yesterday in Madrid at the age of 88. Manuel Calvo Hernando founded in the early 70’s the first associations of science journalism in Spain and Latin America. He wrote dozens of books and manuals on science...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Spanish science journalist Manuel Calvo Hernando died yesterday in Madrid at the age of 88. Manuel Calvo Hernando founded in the early 70’s the first associations of science journalism in Spain and Latin America. He wrote dozens of books and manuals on science communication, and taught countless courses and seminars in Spain and in Latin America. He can be considered a pioneer on science journalism in Spanish language. Today several science reporters and associations are publishing obituaries about his life and career, highlighting his devotion to improve science journalism in the entire Spanish-speaking world.
Nunca conocí personalmente a Manuel Calvo Hernando. No sería propio por mi parte escribir unas líneas de despedida tras su muerte ayer 16 de Agosto en Madrid a los 88 años. Pero sí puedo decir que es el nombre que más me han citado durante mis participaciones en eventos...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Today we analyze three cases of data misinterpretation. First we see a clear example of how to fabricate a health story only from “expert’s” opinions, and without any empirical data. A reporter from BBC Mundo...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Today we analyze three cases of data misinterpretation. First we see a clear example of how to fabricate a health story only from “expert’s” opinions, and without any empirical data. A reporter from BBC Mundo interviewed a psychoanalyst who said that lack of orgasms cause diseases and psychological disorders, but didn’t ask for any scientific study that supports such a strong statement. The story expanded through some science sections in Latin America that use to take content from BBC Mundo. In México, UNAM scientists published a paper describing a genetic mutation in native and mixed race population, which is associated with an increase in LDL cholesterol. We haven’t found out why, but all the stories substitute cholesterol for obesity and put titles saying that obesity is genetically predetermined in Mexicans. And in Spain, we comment on a good and querying...
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