Just in time for New Year’s resolution season, The Journal of the American Medical Association comes out with a study casting doubt on the medical dogma that even a small bit of “extra” weight will kill you.
The study in question is an analysis that used some 100 previous...
Just in time for New Year’s resolution season, The Journal of the American Medical Association comes out with a study casting doubt on the medical dogma that even a small bit of “extra” weight will kill you.
The study in question is an analysis that used some 100 previous studies on death and body mass index – an index based on weight and height. CDC researcher Katherine Flegal concluded that people who fell into the World Health Organization’s “overweight” category were 6% less likely to die than people in the “normal” range. Obese people were more likely to die.
The study deserved attention. It addresses a major heath issue, since more than 30 percent of Americans qualify for the so-called overweight category – the middle range between what the medical community deems healthy and obese. Flegal was widely quoted saying the take-home message should be that the relationship between weight and...
John Lott often gets trotted out as an expert because he has a degree in economics and is author of several books, including one called More Guns, Less Crime. He is a contributor to The National Review and Fox News. On his blog he expresses a dismissive attitude toward...
John Lott often gets trotted out as an expert because he has a degree in economics and is author of several books, including one called More Guns, Less Crime. He is a contributor to The National Review and Fox News. On his blog he expresses a dismissive attitude toward scientists who are concerned about global warming and ozone loss.
It was painful for me to watch CNN’s Soledad O’Brien flail and appear increasingly distraught as Lott listed questionable factoids suggesting gun laws kill people. See the interview here. Why wasn’t she prepared to challenge his specific statements about guns saving lives and gun-free zones posing a danger? At the very least she should have had another expert guest ready to take on his statements.
NPR’s...
It's been fascinating to watch journalists wrestle with the latest risk study involving bisphenol-A (BPA) the controversial ingredient in plastics that, as Jon Hamilton at NPR, notes "environmental groups have blamed for everything from ADHD to prostate disease."
And that note...
It's been fascinating to watch journalists wrestle with the latest risk study involving bisphenol-A (BPA) the controversial ingredient in plastics that, as Jon Hamilton at NPR, notes "environmental groups have blamed for everything from ADHD to prostate disease."
And that note of skepticism is not meant to suggest that BPA - which is identified by multiple studies as a notable endocrine disruptor - is without human and environmental risks. It is meant instead to point out a different kind of risk - the challenge for science writers covering a a well-promoted study about a high-profile compound in which even the researchers acknowledge that they aren't sure what their findings actually mean.
The study (paywall) was published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, under the title "An Association Between Urinary Bisphenol...
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If you go to the website of the journal, Pediatrics, you will find a section labeled eFirst pages. These are articles published online in advance of the print publication. This Monday, there were 15 such early releases, ranging from...
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This is a good news story.
And, no, sadly it's not that scientists have finally done that holy-grail study proving that eating chocolate by the truckload induces weight loss. But a group from San Diego did publish one this week that kind of, sort of suggested that possibility.
And the...
NPR reporter Nell GreenfieldBoyce did...
NPR reporter Nell GreenfieldBoyce did a nice job today on Morning Edition knocking down claims by Sen. Tom Coburn and, separately, the Traditional Values Coalition, that the government is wasting taxpayers' money putting shrimp on a treadmill and studying men's penis size.
Coburn, she reports, put out a report saying the National Science Foundation "squandered taxpayer money on questionable science projects, including one pursued by Burnett and his colleagues that involved putting shrimp on a tiny treadmill." The researcher, Lou Burnett of the College of Charleston in South Carolina, said the...
Yesterday morning, I caught a great bit on NPR's On the Media concerning the novelist...
Yesterday morning, I caught a great bit on NPR's On the Media concerning the novelist Audrey Braun (the pen name of the author Deborah Read) and the stunning success she's had publishing her work with Amazon. She's not just selling it on Amazon; she chose Amazon as her publisher, in an end-run around the old-media publishers in New York City. On the Media pretends to be critiquing the journalism of others, but I know better: It's actually practicing great journalism of its own.
When I got a chance to sit down, it occurred to me to look at what OTM has done on science journalism. I was eager to see how they handle science, figuring I could learn something from hosts Brooke Gladstone...
A few tidbits from the past week or two, thanks mostly to suggestions from Tracker...
A few tidbits from the past week or two, thanks mostly to suggestions from Tracker readers and Twitter friends:
• The Boston Globe put out a fine feature piece Mar. 20th on Ryan Westmoreland (left), once a top Red Sox prospect, who is now recovering from a sudden illness that could have killed him. The story is by Charles P. Pierce, a Globe magazine staff writer. You could call it a sports story, or a medical story. However you want to characterize it, it's one heck of a piece of writing. From the lede:
The afternoon is fading, and he is...
Last Thursday, the Columbia Journalism Review's Observatory ran a cheery, and disturbingly off-center, story on the new science section in the McClatchy papers in North Carolina, including the...
Last Thursday, the Columbia Journalism Review's Observatory ran a cheery, and disturbingly off-center, story on the new science section in the McClatchy papers in North Carolina, including the Raleigh News & Observer and the Charlotte Observer.
In a brilliant instance of being unable to see the forest for the trees, the article breezily noted the good news (we all love science sections, don't we?), and recapped a few recent stories. Rick Thames...
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