[Updates with the name of the author of a Smithsonian item; and with comment from one of the authors of the study on the error in the study's estimates.]
Researchers using something called "Swadesh words" have estimated that the Iliad was written in 762 B.C., give or take 50 years,...
[Updates with the name of the author of a Smithsonian item; and with comment from one of the authors of the study on the error in the study's estimates.]
Researchers using something called "Swadesh words" have estimated that the Iliad was written in 762 B.C., give or take 50 years, about the time that scholars thought it was written.
You might then reasonably ask, "So what?" Here's what: The research team, which included a geneticist, tracked changes in language since the time of the Iliad using methods similar to those used to track gene mutations over centuries and millennia. "Languages behave just extraordinarily like genes," Mark Pagel of the University of Reading, England, told Joel Shurkin. "It is directly analogous. We tried to document the regularities in linguistic evolution and study Homer's vocabulary as a way of seeing if language evolves the way we think it does."...
If there is anyone around to cast doubt on this week's story that a Mediterranean diet can cut heart disease by 30%, he or she is hard to find. (As we'll see below, however, I did find one post that thought much of the rest of the coverage was wrong-headed.)
In Gina Kolata's...
If there is anyone around to cast doubt on this week's story that a Mediterranean diet can cut heart disease by 30%, he or she is hard to find. (As we'll see below, however, I did find one post that thought much of the rest of the coverage was wrong-headed.)
In Gina Kolata's story in The New York Times, the heart association raves about the findings, and even Steven E. Nissen, chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation--as tough a critic as you're likely to find--said the results were encouraging. Low fat diets, he told Kolata, don't work well, because people can't stay on them. But this study changes things. "Now along comes this group and does a gigantic study in Spain that says you can eat a nicely balanced diet with fruits and vegetables and...
It's Tuesday, and I'm remiss in not mentioning last Friday's On Science Blogs by Tabitha M. Powledge, as I usually do on Fridays or Mondays.
I was particularly interested in...
It's Tuesday, and I'm remiss in not mentioning last Friday's On Science Blogs by Tabitha M. Powledge, as I usually do on Fridays or Mondays.
I was particularly interested in her discussion in this issue of a philosophical point that I could summarize, I suppose, by saying that we are all Jonah Lehrer. (He's the disgraced journalist who is trying--and so far failing--to resuscitate his cold, dead journalism career.)
Yes, the crack about Lehrer is an overstatement. But here's the point: We're talking not just about the transgressions of a journalistic fabulist, but of the distortions inherent in all of journalism:
...this is not only a failure of the entire field of science reporting, whether on blogs or in published outlets (or both), but of the very field and profession of journalism itself....
It's been about three months since National Geographic announced that it was starting a new blog network called Phenomena, and so it seemed like a good time to drop in and...
It's been about three months since National Geographic announced that it was starting a new blog network called Phenomena, and so it seemed like a good time to drop in and see how things are going.
The design is a little different from the usual blog setup, in which each new post rests on the shoulders of those that came before, as with the Tracker. The posts are in reverse chronological order--with the newest at the top--but each page contains a horizontal space at the top with a teaser for a post, and then eight vertical tiled teasers below that, each with a photograph. I can't decide whether this design is an improvement on the usual design, or a minor distraction. In either case, the design is secondary to the quality of the posts--which is superb.
One could hardly have...
Hankering for more prominent coverage of climate change policy paralysis and need a quick fix? A clever column on Time Magazine's Ecocentric site by veteran enviro reporter ...
Hankering for more prominent coverage of climate change policy paralysis and need a quick fix? A clever column on Time Magazine's Ecocentric site by veteran enviro reporter Bryan Walsh makes one think one should read stories on the political impasse over easing the US national debt immediately (conservatives) or after the economy perks up (liberals). Only instead of reading words such as deficit and debt, swap in global warming. Surprising, but it sort of works.
In both cases, he explains, the argument features a camp that brooks no compromise or other deal-making that delays immediate, forceful action. The stakes are so high that, these rigid sorts believe, politics as usual must be cast aside. The very existence of civilization and the American way is at stake. Denialists (who either think the federal budget...
As Jonathan Cohn points out in the cover story in this month's The Atlantic, creating systems to store medical records electronically "has...
As Jonathan Cohn points out in the cover story in this month's The Atlantic, creating systems to store medical records electronically "has been a frustratingly slow process, spanning at least the past two decades. And even today the project is a mess: more than 400 separate vendors offer EMRs [electronic medical records], and the government is still trying to establish a common language so that they can all 'speak' to one another." Too often, doctors with state-of-the-art medical-records systems still have to print, fax, and scan them when transferring them to another institution.
If doctors can't solve the relatively simple problem of keeping records and making them transferrable (writers and editors, not known for their technical prowess, managed this with Microsoft...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Spanish researchers have publiched in NEJM a randomized trial with 7447 people at high risk of cardiovascular disease showing that Mediterranean diet supplemented with olive oil or nuts reduces 30% of strokes and heart attacks, when compared with people...
(English intro to Spanish lang post) Spanish researchers have publiched in NEJM a randomized trial with 7447 people at high risk of cardiovascular disease showing that Mediterranean diet supplemented with olive oil or nuts reduces 30% of strokes and heart attacks, when compared with people consuming a conventional low-fat diet. The landmark study published is the most solid scientific evidence of the protective heart effect from the Mediterranean diet, but it also suggests that eating fat from olive oil or nuts is better than reducing the total intake of fat. The study has received huge coverage in Spain. All stories explain great things about it. Few reporters discusses possible limitations of the study, or talk to other researchers that might have similar or different views.
A menudo nos quejamos del batiburrillo existente en las noticias sobre nutrición, donde a menudo se promulgan propiedades de los alimentos sin tener en cuenta la...
President Obama was apparently doing more than just posturing in his last state of the union address when he talked up brain science and some sort of a brain mapping mega project that promises to be as ambitious and expensive as the $3 billion Human Genome Project. If there was ever an issue calling out for...
President Obama was apparently doing more than just posturing in his last state of the union address when he talked up brain science and some sort of a brain mapping mega project that promises to be as ambitious and expensive as the $3 billion Human Genome Project. If there was ever an issue calling out for clear science reporting, this would be it.
What, exactly, would this brain project entail? Why does it have to be so expensive? We got more information last week in a New York Times story by John Markoff, Obama Seeking to Boost Study of the Human Brain.
As Markoff described the project in the second graph, it would be a ...."concerted effort to advance the knowledge of the brain’s billions of neurons and gain greater insights into perception, actions and, ultimately, consciousness." By the end I was still not...
The lead story in the opinion pages of yesterday's New York Times was a fine reflection on children and gun violence by Alex Kotlowitz...
The lead story in the opinion pages of yesterday's New York Times was a fine reflection on children and gun violence by Alex Kotlowitz, a distinguished reporter formerly of the Wall Street Journal, and the author of the acclaimed bestseller "There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America," about a violence-plagued public housing project.
Kotlowitz's Sunday piece was entitled "The Price of Public Violence," and it deals with the problem not of children who are murdered, but of those who are wounded or who witness violence. "What is the effect...
In the last week discovery by the Dept. of Energy - and an immediate outcry from Washington Governore Jay Inslee - that several tanks of radioactive sludge at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington Statehave slow but significant leaks stirred up a brief news alarm squall in the region. This is of...
In the last week discovery by the Dept. of Energy - and an immediate outcry from Washington Governore Jay Inslee - that several tanks of radioactive sludge at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington Statehave slow but significant leaks stirred up a brief news alarm squall in the region. This is of course a recurring sort of story. The old tank farm holding leftovers from bomb production early in the Cold War is well-past its intended lifetime. It has a history of leaks and is the focus of the costliest nuclear clean-up in US history. Environmental watchdogs and the public in general do not like to hear its subsurface plume might contaminate, however slightly and damn the dilution, groundwater wells and the bordering Columbia River.
Over the weekend, frequent Forbes.com columnist James Conca...
The New York Times magazine does not have a good record lately with regard to medical stories. From its misguided profile of the man who falsely linked autism to vaccines, to its goofy claim that...
The New York Times magazine does not have a good record lately with regard to medical stories. From its misguided profile of the man who falsely linked autism to vaccines, to its goofy claim that jellyfish might hold the key to immortality, and a number of others, the Times magazine has appeared misinformed or naive. I went easy on a Times magazine story earlier this month about a boy with severe arthritis who appeared to improve on an alternative therapy, but Michelle M. Francl sharply criticized it in ...
After joining the Society of Environmental Journalists, freelance science writer Peter Byrne was surprised by the content of an email that was apparently sent to members of this organization:
Hello again from Nissan.
We want to share with you some exciting news...
After joining the Society of Environmental Journalists, freelance science writer Peter Byrne was surprised by the content of an email that was apparently sent to members of this organization:
Hello again from Nissan.
We want to share with you some exciting news about the 2013 Nissan LEAF. Now in its third model year, the LEAF boasts some electrifying enhancements, AND a major price reduction.
The vehicle is expected to offer improved range through incremental aerodynamic and energy management improvements, and reduced 220V charging time through an available 6.6 kW onboard charger.
Also, the SV and SL models now feature an all-new, custom-designed Bose® Energy Efficient Series sound system that delivers powerful, high-quality audio through six lightweight speakers.
The message goes on to further extol the virtues of this vehicle.
Why, Byrne wondered, would SEJ be trying to convince him to...
My first job as a dedicated newspaper science writer was at The Sacramento Bee. I took that job in 1984, newly minted out of graduate school, and not at all sure what I was actually supposed to do. The Bee wasn't sure either - the paper had never had a designated science writer before and many of...
My first job as a dedicated newspaper science writer was at The Sacramento Bee. I took that job in 1984, newly minted out of graduate school, and not at all sure what I was actually supposed to do. The Bee wasn't sure either - the paper had never had a designated science writer before and many of the editors were, at first, dubious about the idea. And me.
Fortunately, I had a great model just down the road. The San Francisco Chronicle had two of the best science writers in the country, Charlie Petit (now at the Tracker) and David Perlman, who, as Los Angeles Times' columnist Maria L. LaGanga wrote this week in a lovely tribute is still hard at work: "The San Francisco Chronicle's David Perlman churned out 111 stories last year and is still going strong. Not bad for someone born before the discovery of penicillin and Pluto."
...In a policy move, long awaited by open-access advocates, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced today that it is directing federal agencies - notably those with more than $100 million in annual research and development funding - to make the published results of federally-funded research...
In a policy move, long awaited by open-access advocates, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced today that it is directing federal agencies - notably those with more than $100 million in annual research and development funding - to make the published results of federally-funded research far more freely available to the public.
The move, announced by John Holdren, is aimed at a broad swath of citizens who might be interested in such research results: "The Obama Administration is committed to the proposition that citizens deserve easy access to the results of scientific research their tax dollars have paid for," began the OSTP announcement. The announcement noted that more than 65,000 citizens had recently signed a We the People petition asking that such research be more open to the public.
A Washington Post ...
Next week, Time magazine features a cover story that it says is “the longest single piece ever published by a single writer” in the magazine. Entitled "Bitter Pill: Why...
Next week, Time magazine features a cover story that it says is “the longest single piece ever published by a single writer” in the magazine. Entitled "Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills are Killing Us," it is an exhaustive, morbidly fascinating, and ultimately deeply discouraging story about the almost unimaginable financial excesses and distortions in the U.S. health care industry.
It was written by Steven Brill, a journalist, lawyer, and entrepreneur and the founder of Court TV, American Lawyer , and Brill's Content. Brill's most recent book was Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools (2011). ...
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