Tabitha M. Powledge examines the evolving reaction to John Bohannon’s sting involving a phony study linking chocolate consumption and weight loss: "Here’s another reason for dismay. The denialists are using the dark chocolate hoax as evidence that neither journalists nor journals can be trusted on climate change and global warming either." Also, on Michael LaCour's defense of his gay-marriage study: "I hope you will not be surprised to learn that no one believes it."
Science blogs
A grad student's fakery was caught by neither a major journal nor the student's co-author. Is this incident a turning point in the fight against scientific misconduct? Don't bet on it, Tabitha M. Powledge writes: "Could this exceptionally noisy example begin a real reform process and do something about fraud and misconduct in science? Also, is there hope that those who write about science and medicine will give up simple regurgitation and get their skepticism on? Nah."
As the National Academy of Sciences wades into the debate over gene editing research, Tabitha M. Powledge writes, genetic engineering produces another outcome that could easily become even more controversial: "Researchers say they are close to giving yeast a group of genes for making morphine, codeine, and other drugs that have been derived from the opium poppy for thousands of years. Biotechnologists could produce industrial quantities of these opioids in giant vats."
Tabitha M. Powledge rounds up the latest news on advances in birth control, both scientific and political — a new Obamacare rule that inflames the right wing; wider acceptance for the IUD and implants, and a protocol for safe self-induced abortions, courtesy of the World Health Organization. Powledge writes: "Effective birth control is, arguably, the most important human invention since language. Also the most important contribution of science to human welfare ever."
"We may have to wait until its own official independent report in June to know for sure whether the American Psychological Association really did collude with the Central Intelligence Agency and the Bush administration to put together a systematic program of torture," Tabitha M. Powledge writes. "But the evidence so far is certainly, ah, suggestive." Also, celebrating 25 years of the Hubble Space Telescope, and an update on its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope.
It's now been a week since the big earthquake struck the Himalayas, and Tabitha M. Powledge rounds up reports on the disaster's potential death toll, along with video and information about relief efforts: "People have begun to behave as if the immediate crisis is over, but now there will be worries about coming health risks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is telling U.S. residents not to go to Nepal unless they must." Also, a trove of earthquake graphics.
Chinese researchers incited new debate over genetic engineering of human embryos with a report that Tabitha M. Powledge says the major journals shunned: "The new paper appeared in the Springer journal Protein & Cell and is open-access. Why, you ask, not in Nature or Science, which loooooove hot papers? These top journals do want hot papers, they do, but apparently don’t want them as hot as this one. Both journals turned it down – on, it is said, ethical grounds."
They've been renamed "traumatic brain injuries," but there are still a lot of unknowns about concussions, their diagnosis, and the outlook for someone who suffers from one, Tabitha M. Powledge writes, And now, we have a presidential candidate (Hillary Clinton) who's had one. "I’m expecting rumors of permanent brain damage," Powledge writes. Also, HealthNewsReview.org and its new focus on press releases, plus another view from Kirk Englehardt.
Tabitha M. Powledge summarizes the state of the science of diagnosing, preventing, and treating Alzheimer’s disease. Unfortunately, she has little to report in the way of promising news: "One reason for the laggard pace is that there is still no consensus about how Alzheimer’s develops. Researchers have long been at war over which process is more important for destroying the brain in Alzheimer’s, the tau protein tangles or beta amyloid plaque accumulation in the brain."
Two news items about the quality and efficacy of herbal supplements and one about an FDA meeting on homeopathy prompt Tabitha M. Powledge to suggest that those questionable health products may reined in by regulators: "I wonder ever so tentatively if there’s a chance that we might possibly perhaps be creeping slowly toward improved regulation of the $33 billion supplement industry." Also, isn't it time to do away with April Fool's articles in scientific publishing?