Science Journalism

A claim that scientists need to quit making: I've written about these types of claims before. The first one--a claim that antimicrobial peptides were essentially "resistance proof," was proven to be embarrassingly wrong in a laboratory test. Resistance not only evolved, but it evolved independently in almost every instance they tested (using E. coli and Pseudomonas species), taking only 600-700 generations--a relative blip in microbial time. Oops. A very similar claim made the rounds in 2014, and the newest one is out today--a report of a "super vancomycin" that, as noted above, could be…

The news over the past 24 hours has exclaimed over and over: HIV's Patient Zero Exonerated How scientists proved the wrong man was blamed for bringing HIV to the U.S. Researchers Clear "Patient Zero" from AIDS Origin Story H.I.V. Arrived in the U.S. Long Before ‘Patient Zero’ Gaetan Dugas: "patient zero" not source of HIV/AIDS outbreak, study confirms HIV's supposed "Patient Zero" in the U.S., Gaetan Dugas, is off the hook! He wasn't responsible for our outbreak! This is presented as new information. Gaetan Dugas, from Wikipedia. It is not, and I think by focusing on the "exoneration" of…

Happy New Year! I heard that Killing The Internet is a Thing, and apparently keeping more than a few hundred tabs open in Firefox will do the trick, so I'm doing some blog dumps to get the year kicked off: Quanta Magazine is an (editorially independent) publication of the Simons Foundation which has been doing some interesting science journalism, beyond the usual channeling or press releases and artificial dichotomy that plagues much of the media: These are some of the stories they ran that caught my attention: Seeing Cats and Cosmos Why RNA is Right Handed A New Physics Theory of Life Fluid…

The Hot Zone was first released in 1994, the year I graduated high school. Like many readers, that book and Laurie Garrett's The Coming Plague* really sparked my interest in infectious diseases. In some sense, I have those books to thank (or blame?) for my career. But I'm still going to criticize The Hot Zone, because as a mature infectious disease epidemiologist and a science communicator in the midst of the biggest Ebola outbreak in history, The Hot Zone is now one of the banes of my existence. A recent article noted that the book is back on the bestseller list, going as high as #7 on the…

Regular readers keeping up on infectious disease issues might have seen Seth Mnookin's post yesterday, warning of an upcoming episode of the Katie Couric show  focusing on the HPV vaccine. Even though Mnookin previously spoke with a producer at length regarding this topic, the promo for the show certainly did not look promising: "The HPV vaccine is considered a life-saving cancer preventer … but is it a potentially deadly dose for girls? Meet a mom who claims her daughter died after getting the HPV vaccine, and hear all sides of the HPV vaccine controversy." And indeed, reviews thus far show…

Ivan Oransky and I moderated a session last week at ScienceOnline, the yearly conference covering all things at the intersection of science and the internets. We discussed the topic ""How to make sure you're being appropriately skeptical when covering scientific and medical studies." We started out discussing some of the resources we'd put up at the Wiki link. Ivan teaches medical journalism at NYU, and noted that he recommends these criteria when evaluating medical studies. I noted I use similar guidelines, and as a scientist, think about papers in a journal club format before I cover them…

Oh, Discover. You're such a tease. You have Ed and Carl and Razib and Phil and Sean, an (all-male, ahem) cluster of science bloggy goodness. But then you also fawn over HIV deniers Lynn Margulis and Peter Duesberg. Why can't you just stick with the science and keep the denial out?* But no, now they've let it spill into their esteemed blogs. I was interested to see a new blog pop up there, The Crux, a group blog "on big ideas in science and how these ideas are playing out in the world. The blog is written by an outstanding group of writer/bloggers and scientist/writers who will bring you the…

I have written and deleted this post. Twice. But damn it, it needs to be said. I'm here in charming Montreal for the North American Congress of Epidemiology. It's a good-sized meeting, as far as epi meetings go. The site notes that it's a joint effort between four major Epi organizations: The American College of Epidemiology (ACE); The Society for Epidemiologic Research; the Epi section of the American Public Health Association, and The Canadian Society for Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Collectively, those associations represent a lot of epidemiologists. The conference started off well.…

It's been an exciting week for me. On Monday I successfully defended my thesis! Now that I have established my scientific credibility to you all, here is a picture of me at my defense party wearing my "Trust me I'm a Dr" Dr. Pepper t-shirt and hitting my SpongeBob SquarePants piñata. And on Tuesday I went to two really interesting events/talks/discussions about science and scientists. First up was Debbie Chachra's awesome seminar "Unpacking Gender: Men and Women in Science, Technology, and More," sponsored by the Harvard Graduate Women in Science and Engineering. She described her seminar…

We all know of once-respected scientists who ended up going off the deep end, adhering to an unproven idea despite massive evidence to the contrary. Linus Pauling and his advocacy of megadoses of Vitamin C, or Peter Duesberg's descent into HIV denial. It's all the more disappointing when the one taking a dive is a woman, since there are, compared to men, relatively fewer female "big names" in the sciences. So when one goes from views that were, perhaps, outside of the mainstream (but later proven largely correct) to complete science denialism, it makes it all the more depressing. Even worse,…

There has been a surge of interest recently in science denial, particularly revolving around the issue of vaccines. Last year saw the release of Michael Specter's Denialism; in the last few months, three others have been released: Seth Mnookin's Panic Virus, Robert Goldberg's Tabloid Medicine, and Paul Offit's "Deadly Choices." More about each of them after the jump. "The Panic Virus" by Seth Mnookin focuses on the general topic of media-fueled science denial, using vaccines as the case study. Like Offit's recent "Autism's False Prophets, Mnookin details a bit of the history of the anti-…

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is holding its annual meeting in DC this week, and the organization is presenting awards to "professional journalists for distinguished reporting for a general audience." An endowment from the Kavli Foundation funds the awards program, which gives $3,000 and a plaque to each winner. I wasn't surprised to see that the winners included Charles Duhigg's New York Times "Toxic Waters" series and Richard Harris and Alison Richards' NPR series "Follow the Science: Calculating the Amount of Oil and Gas in the Gulf Oil Spill" (here and here, too…

The second edition of the Rock Stars of Science is now out online, and in the November 23rd ("Men of the Year") edition of GQ magazine. As Chris Mooney notes, this is a campaign funded by the Geoffery Beene Foundation, working to raise recognition of scientists' work (and scientists, period, since roughly half of the American population can't name a single living scientist). Part of the campaign is to make science noticeable and "cool;" I'll quote from the press release: ROCK S.O.S⢠aims to bridge a serious recognition gap for science, observes journalist Chris Mooney, co-author of the…

Interesting post today at juggle.com, showing the evolution of a conspiracy theory akin to a game of telephone. Interestingly, it starts with an article in Wired by author (and former Scienceblogger) Johah Lehrer. Lehrer wrote an article on the effects of chronic stress on health outcomes, and one researcher's work to develop something akin to a vaccine to mitigate the stress effects. Sounds reasonable, no? Next, the Daily Mail picked up the article, and focused on the "stress vaccine" angle. Finally, the folks at Alex Jones' Prison Planet--who've never met a conspiracy theory they didn't…

Eyjafjallajökull erupting in the spring of 2010. I have a request for all of you Eruptions readers! In a few weeks I will be giving a talk here at Denison on the Eyjafjallajökull eruption and especially the aspects of how the eruption unfolded on the web. I think the shared experience of the seismicity, fissure vent eruption and explosive eruption - along with all the ramifications of the air traffic stoppage over Europe - was a fascinating phenomenon. So, I ask you readers: How would you describe your experience on Eruptions during the Eyjafjallajökull events? By that I mean in terms of…

Kilauea lavas on the move near Kalapana. Image taken July 17, courtesy of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. Some news over the last few days: The lava flows from Kilauea are moving with a vengeance right now, damaging roads and heading for some structures. The lava flows near Kalapana have moved almost 200 meters since Sunday, closing within 100 yards of homes in the area. The lava is moving to the east along Highway 130 and 137 - and tourists are making it difficult to get around as they park to watch the lava - upwards of 2,000 people! A number of people (and dogs) have had to be…

Thanks for all the words/advice about Pepsigeddon here at SB. If you missed it, the powers that be have officially pulled the plug on the PepsiBlog. However, this crisis (as much as blogging can be a crisis) has reinforced a lot of long-standing problems with the management here at SB, so not to sound like Fox Mulder, there is a lot more going on than meets the eye. Now that PepsiBlog is down, I'll return to posting at SB (for the time being at least). However, SB has lost a lot of credibility and very good bloggers as well, so times, they are a'changin'. I strongly believe in keeping a…

If you haven't heard, ScienceBlogs HQ has put its foot squarely in its jaw thanks to a little poor decision-making. Now, Eruptions is a little outside the mainstream of ScienceBlogs - there aren't many corporations that might influence my posting (unless you suddenly see "Eruptions - brought to you by RyanAir" the next time an Icelandic volcano erupts), so I would hope that the credibility of this blog is hopefully not too threatening by the PepsiBlog, but I feel for my other ScienceBloggers who may be adversely effected for various reasons. In solidarity with them, Eruptions will be quiet…

Serpentine (as known as serpentinite), the current (and potentially soon-to-be ex-) state rock of California. This does not have a direct connection to volcanoes, but it sure is about geology and the science in the news. State Senator Gloria Romero of California has sponsored a bill to change the California state rock from serpentine because, as she claims: "[Serpentine] contains the deadly mineral chrysotile asbestos, a known carcinogen, exposure to which increases the risk of the cancer mesothelioma ... California should not designate a rock known to be toxic to the health of its residents…

Held in over 30 countries, the World Wide Views on Global Warming initiative represents the state-of-the-art in new approaches to public engagement, the subject of several recent reports and meetings. This video features a short documentary on the Australian event. Over the weekend, my friend Chris Mooney contributed an excellent op-ed to the Washington Post pegged to an American Academy of Arts and Sciences event yesterday. The op-ed previewed a longer essay by Chris released at the event in which he described some of the major themes expressed in the transcripts of three meetings convened…