Six stories on the shady side of scholarship.
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Posted inNewsletter
Stories on Shady Science (and Our Top 5)
“On one hand, it’s critical to root out research fraud and serious errors. On the other hand, highlighting the most dramatic outliers risks creating the impression that science as a whole can’t be trusted.” When I told my 7-year-old daughter that the recent viral clip of bunnies jumping on a trampoline was fake, she looked […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
When Baseball Threw Physics a Curve
“Sports, science, and collective delusion.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
In Death, New Life: The Science And Symbolism of a Whale Fall
“When a whale dies, its body creates a new mini ecosystem on the ocean floor—a process full of biological and poetic lessons for those willing to learn them.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
An Act of Cosmic Sabotage
“How Donald Trump tried to ground NASA’s science missions.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Why One Geologist Thinks We Should All Pay More Attention to Rocks
“Professor Marcia Bjornerud urges us to understand rocks as records of earlier versions of the planet—and as a call to protect its future.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Editing Nature To Fix Our Failures
“Gene editing may enable us to prevent a species from ever becoming extinct in the first place. But should we?”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Burgeoning Science of Search and Rescue
“By analyzing reports of people who got off-track, researchers are advancing the science of ‘lost person behavior.'”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Vatican’s Secret Role in the Science of IVF
“More than half a century ago, men of science and men of faith gathered together to unlock the mysteries of female fertility. The answer: urine from the brides of Christ. And lo, those nuns gaveth.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Plate Tectonics Revolutionized Our Understanding of Earth
“And how scientist Tanya Atwater was at the center of it all.”
