Some scientists have been working to make the flu, SARS, and MERS viruses more infective to better study them. At least, Tabitha M. Powledge writes, that was the case until last week, when the U.S. government announced a "pause" on funding such "gain-of-function" studies: "Bioterrorism has been much less of a risk than accidents emanating from well-meant research efforts to protect ourselves," she writes. "Thus the White House has decided to err … on the side of safety."
Science blogs
Notwithstanding the "yuck factor," fecal transplants are winning favor as a treatment for an especially nasty intestinal infection, and now Tabitha M. Powledge writes about a way to get that treatment in pill form: "Regulatory agencies will doubtless have something to say about that. But they’re going to have to move fast." Meanwhile, Apple and Facebook offers women up to $20,000 to postpone reproduction by freezing their eggs, and the reception they get is not good.
Tabitha M. Powledge notes the discovery that Indonesian cave paintings are as old as those in Europe, and wonders if that means art arose long before humans reached those places: "Did we start getting arty sometime after we evolved in Africa but before we set out for parts unknown some 60,000 years ago? Did people arrive in France and Sulawesi already experienced at putting pigment to stone?" Also, some reasons for the demise of ScienceOnline.
Tabitha M. Powledge reports on the "discovery of not just a new species, but possibly a new phylum. Possibly even an animal remnant, thought to be extinct, from before the Cambrian Explosion that began about 542 million years ago and gave rise to most of today’s animal life." The preserved organisms were found off the southeastern Australia coast in 1986, Powledge writes. Also, why hasn't anybody covered the hospice care oversight bill recently passed by Congress?
Tabitha M. Powledge raises questions — her own and others — about the bloodstained shawl that supposedly proves Jack the Ripper was an immigrant Polish baker named Aaron Kosminski: "Any decent TV defense attorney would rip the shawl to shreds. It must contain dozens of DNA deposits from the many people who have handled it in the past century and a quarter." Also in her weekly blogs roundup, more bad stuff turns up in government labs, and picking a Rosetta landing site.
You probably saw the news early this week about the latest study touting a low-carb diet, but Tabitha M. Powledge writes that the results may not have justified some of the breathless coverage. In contrast, a second study comparing a wide range of diets, with mixed results, got considerably less media attention, Powledge writes. Also, what Thursday's Knight Science Journalism Tracker post on CJR means for the Tracker's future.
If PSA screening reduces the death rate from prostate cancer by 20%, why is there so much debate about the test's effectiveness? It's because that one number doesn't tell the whole story, Tabitha M. Powledge writes. A more realistic interpretation of the latest results from the European study of routine PSA screening, she writes, would describe the benefit for an average middle-aged man as a drop in risk from about 3% to about 2.4%. Also, hyping the human microbiome.
The Knight Science Journalism Tracker's demise prompts Tabitha M. Powledge to argue that if something has an editor, it's not a blog, it's journalism: "With blogging, there’s nobody backstopping you, nobody catching your errors, nobody urging caution and double-checking – but also nobody wrecking your carefully wrought structure and POV and beautifully honed phraseology. It can be a form of high-wire work without a net." Also, Robin Williams — depressed? Or bipolar?
Few recent stories about the so-called "hobbit" fossils have mentioned their long backstory, Tabitha M. Powledge writes: "Most news stories treated the new studies as an entirely novel and startling bolt from the blue. I know I should probably cut today's journalists a bit of slack because they are operating under frantic constraints of time and space. But it's distressing that hardly any bothered with the dead-simple step of googling LB1's history. Or even Wikipedia."
"The US is now launched remarkably casually on a vast experiment with several scary scientific unknowns," Tabitha M. Powledge writes in her weekly science blogs roundup. Even as one state after another legalizes marijuana for medical use — and more, in Colorado and Washington — not much is known about how, and whether, it works, because of "severe constraints on serious cannabis research." Also, Google's underwhelming new project, and Retraction Watch gets noticed.