DNA studies reveal that the First Americans came from Asia in 3 main groups. And then they mingled and merged. The oldest American human remains, from Oregon, are now dated at 14,500 years ago. They are not bones. Tools from this site are different from Clovis, and maybe older. SCOTUSblog presents a tick-tock explaining how and why CNN and Fox News messed up the Supreme Court's Obamacare decision so badly. Is "Obamacare" a dirty word?
Science writing news
Bora Zivkovic is Scientific American's blog editor and a blogger himself. In this SciAm post, he talks about how blogging has changed and where it is going: "Many people used blogging software to do very brief updates back when that was the only game in town. Today, quick updates, links etc. are done mainly on social media and many bloggers use the traditional blogging software only for longer, more thorough, one could even say more “professional” writing."
"Technical writing sheds truth; science writing breeds understanding," Kristina Bjoran writes on her blog, where she gives examples of both (a pharmaceutical insert for the former; a CDC web page for the latter). She also offers tips for beginners who want to break into either field: Get an education, get experience, and network. "Science and technical writing exist on a spectrum — sometimes it’s the stuff in between in which you’ll find your perfect happy place."
Ivan Oransky's Embargo Watch has some interesting detail about what went on behind the scenes before Sunday night's release of two Science papers on the Mono Lake bacteria that allegedly uses arsenic instead of phosphorus for growth. According to Oransky, some reporters were advised of the early release but others were not: "This paper wasn’t really 'for immediate release' — it was 'for immediate release if you didn’t know to ask for it in advance,'" he writes.
Adam Feuerstein of TheStreet.com seems to think so, in an analysis flagged on Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview.org. Feuerstein dissects an Osiris Therapeutics press release from last week and accuses the company of falsely claiming success in a study of its stem cell therapy Prochymal: "Figuring out Osiris' deception wasn't that difficult if you know how to parse the language of clinical trial results and look at independent sources of information for the truth."
A writer for Britain's The Guardian appears ready to award that title to ProPublica, barely four years after the non-profit newsroom began life. Frédéric Filloux writes, "Not only did ProPublica put itself at the forefront of the public interest, high quality, digitally boosted, modern journalism, but it also created a sustainable way to support it." Filloux intersperses his comments with quotes from Paul Steiger, ProPublica's editor-in-chief, CEO and president.
When the Supreme Court's health care ruling was announced, it was almost a full day before the next morning's newspaper was published. Yet most papers played the day-old news as if it were fresh. Sam Kirkland, a copy desk intern at a Florida newspaper, offers a theory: "Here’s my hunch: We went through the motions because it’s how we’ve always done it — and because it makes us feel important ... But newspapers don’t write the first drafts of history any more."
New record for retractions from a single author: 172. 13% of retractions come from anesthesiologists: Is there something in the air? The Higgs boson: Theology, epistemology, pedagogy, multimedia, and science writing. Sidebar on Jonah Lehrer, Malcolm Gladwell, and how to avoid accidental plagiarism.
If you thought Jonah Lehrer was bad — and Jayson Blair was worse — then what about that Clark Kent guy? Ed Yong reviews the mild-mannered reporter's many misdeeds in a post on his Not Exactly Rocket Science blog: "He regularly reports about himself without disclosing as much. He deceives his employers by moonlighting during working hours as a doer of derring, leaping his contractual obligations in a single bound." And how about Lois Lane's affair with her best source?