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+31 +1
A Whole Field of Psychology Research May Be Bunk. Scientists Should Be Terrified.
Nearly 20 years ago, psychologists Roy Baumeister and Dianne Tice, a married couple at Case Western Reserve University, devised a foundational experiment on self-control. “Chocolate chip cookies were baked in the room in a small oven,” they wrote in a paper that has been cited more than 3,000 times. “As a result, the laboratory was filled with the delicious aroma of fresh chocolate and baking.”
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+30 +1
Scientists can’t agree whether salt is killing us. Here’s why.
The debate over the perils of salty diets may be one of the most polarized in all of science. On one side, scientists warn ominously that most Americans are killing themselves with salt. On the other, scientists insist most Americans are fine. The inability to resolve this question may seem puzzling. It is a question with deadly consequences, at least potentially. How much salt is healthy? Given the marvels of technology, it seems like that ought to be an easy one.
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+33 +1
Google Aims a $50 Million Moonshot at Curing Heart Disease
Cardiovascular disease kills more people on Earth than anything else—over 17 million a year, and the number keeps going up. Of those deaths, more than 40 percent is due to coronary heart disease. Medicine has drugs that can treat it and practices that can help prevent it, but nobody really knows what causes it or how to cure it. Now, Google and the American Heart Association aim to change that by dropping a $50 million funding bomb on the problem.
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+27 +1
In Memory of Sheldon Wolin (1922–2015)
“Listening to Wolin put one in the presence of the past, a past sheltering the future, a past sheltered in the present, a past yet to be fulfilled.” By Anne Norton.
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+32 +1
Naturalistic Traditions: Were the ancient Skeptics naturalistic?
If ancient Skepticism was so influential in the development of modern science, it stands to reason that it might be a good place to look for the philosophy that underpins it: naturalism. By B.T. Newberg.
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+28 +1
Academics have found a way to access insanely expensive research papers—for free
The biggest rule is that you don’t thank people.
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+35 +1
Is Money Corrupting Research?
Elizabeth Warren was right to expose the academic-financial complex.
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+40 +1
Drunken Antarctica scientists have been 'fighting and exposing themselves'
Scientists at American bases in Antarctica should be subject to regular breathalyser tests because they are prone to alcohol abuse, a report has said. The audit carried out by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Office of the Inspector General of the US Antarctic Program (USAP) warned of the “unpredictable behaviour” created by scientists consuming alcohol. According to the report, had “led to fights, indecent exposure, and employees arriving to work under the influence”.
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+40 +1
Why the Human Brain Project Went Wrong--and How to Fix It
For decades Henry Markram has dreamed of reverse engineering the human brain. In 1994, as a postdoctoral researcher then at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany, he became the first scientist to “patch” two living neurons simultaneously—to apply microscopic pipettes to freshly harvested rat neurons to measure the electrical signals fired between them. The work demonstrated the process by which...
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+23 +1
67% of Europeans and 93% of Chinese don't believe women have the skills to be scientists
A new survey from L’Oreal looks at the public’s perception of female scientists with shocking results. Particularly if you live in China
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+28 +1
Participation in the Arts Is Driven by Education, Not Class
New research from England finds the wealthy are more likely to attend arts events, but less likely to spend their spare time painting, singing, or dancing.
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+19 +1
Wikipedians reach out to academics
London conference discusses efforts by the online encyclopaedia to enlist the help of scientists. By Richard Hodson.
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+27 +1
The Best Jobs Now Require You To Be A People Person
Are you good at math? A computer whiz? Well, great! Presumably your “hard skills” are a surefire ticket to a high-paying job. Well, maybe that used to be the case. But it’s not necessarily so anymore. To land a lucrative job today, hard skills in math and engineering, for instance, may not be enough. As technology allows us to automate more technical jobs, new research shows that people skills — communicating clearly, being a team player...
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+26 +1
Food Industry Enlisted Academics in G.M.O. Lobbying War, Emails Show
At Monsanto, sales of genetically modified seeds were steadily rising. But executives at the company’s St. Louis headquarters were privately worried about attacks on the safety of their products. So Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, and its industry partners retooled their lobbying and public relations strategy to spotlight a rarefied group of advocates: academics, brought in for the gloss of impartiality and weight of authority that come with a professor’s pedigree.
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+21 +1
Scientists replicated 100 recent psychology experiments. More than half of them failed.
Replication is one of the foundational ideas behind science. It's when researchers take older studies and reproduce them to see if the findings hold up. Testing, validating, retesting: It's all part of the slow and grinding process to arrive at some semblance of scientific truth. Yet it seems that way too often, when we hear about researchers trying to replicate studies, they simply flop or flounder. Some have even called this a "crisis of irreproducibility."
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+27 +1
Science Isn’t Broken
If you follow the headlines, your confidence in science may have taken a hit lately. Peer review? More like self-review. An investigation in November uncovered a scam in which researchers were rubber-stamping their own work, circumventing peer review at five high-profile publishers.
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+37 +1
Major publisher retracts 64 scientific papers in fake peer review outbreak
Made-up identities assigned to fake e-mail addresses. Real identities stolen for fraudulent reviews. Study authors who write glowing reviews of their own research, then pass them off as an independent report. These are the tactics of peer review manipulators, an apparently growing problem in the world of academic publishing.
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+18 +1
Diederik Stapel’s Audacious Academic Fraud
Diederik Stapel, a Dutch social psychologist, perpetrated an audacious academic fraud by making up studies that told the world what it wanted to hear about human nature. Article dates from 2013.
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+9 +1
The Web Will Either Kill Science Journals or Save Them
More than 50 percent of academic papers published are owned by five major publishers.
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+18 +1
Conflict Over Sociologist's Narrative Puts Spotlight on Ethnography
Did Alice Goffman commit a felony while researching her book on young black men in the criminal-justice system?
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