#Science journalism

[geekysteven]

oh dang, it's gonna take them even longer to get home in that

[Image description a news screenshot reading "Physicists make tiny model of Star Trek's USS Voyager that's smaller than a human hair"]

[pandemic-info]

Seriously excellent and even uplifting talk by Ed Yong. HIGHLY worth your time!

Yong is a Pulitzer-winning science journalist who's written (among other great things) some of the best, well-informed and empathetic coverage of COVID and Long COVID since 2020.

—

I can't highlight any one part; the whole thing is great. But one thought I had was that he shares this important anger that's often present in empathetic, deeply caring people — Terry Pratchett comes to mind, for example. Sagan, Miyazaki and others, in other ways. It's an anger that's difficult to carry and should not be romanticized. But I feel grateful to people like this, who are able to funnel into work that helps others and enriches all of our lives.

[strangebiology]

Censored version of this video (FB, IG, or the censored one on TT)

Why look at dead animals? Just to be edgy?

There are many reasons to find, photograph, and study animal carcasses. One of them is for conservation, to help live animals.

The reason I love dead animals is because I love live animals! But the dead ones are much easier to catch, and they’re not bothered by it.

What are some other things you’ve learned from carcasses you’ve found?

Check out the @migrationinitiative and the @thewyldlifefund for more on reducing animals getting caught on fences!

*CITES=the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Music: Sunrise. Musician: Ilya Marfin. Site: https://icons8.com/music/

[bowlerhatscience]

Open Letter to Anti-Trans Science Journalists

To my science journalist colleagues at the New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and elsewhere: I write this open letter on the day the New York Times begins a podcast series about healthcare for transgender children, which based on that publication’s track record on the subject, I do not anticipate will go well. One producer of the podcast is science journalist Azeen…

[frc-ambaradan]

And nothing... you see Alberto Angela starting a new science tv program which is the direct heir to his father's Quark and suddenly everything is perfectly fine. Piero Angela never died. Quark never stopped. And everything is just the way it should be ❤️❤️

And he called it "Noos" which was the name of the spaceship Piero used to explore the cosmos in "Viaggio nel cosmo" as if that ship never stopped its journey.

Bless you, Alberto! Bless you! 🥺

[bethanythebogwitch]

There should be a law that says if a headline ever says that "a new discovery has completely changed everything we know about some scientific field" that it hasn't actually.

Turns out "new discovery expands our knowledge of this field but does not fundamentally change our understanding of it" isn't as catchy a headline

[selfconstructiontheblog]

Shouting Over the Chaos of Industry: The Life of the Modern Dolphin 

The peaceful oceans that have historically preserved life since their conception have turned tumultuous due to growing industrial and military activities. War and entrepreneurial ventures have caused great harm to an abundance of marine species. However, the obstacle of noise pollution that dolphins face today is particularly morose in nature. Noise pollution refers to when the inhabitants of an environment are exposed to loud sounds that can negatively impact their well-being (National Geographic). This pollution is of particular harm to dolphins, who rely heavily upon communication for survival. One scientific investigation highlights this; a team of researchers led by marine biologist Hellen Bailey discovered that dolphins were whistling at higher frequencies and with less complexity (McCarthy). As activities conducted within or surrounding the oceans become more prominent in their intensity and quantity, the waters become less of a home and more of a factory that feeds human greed. 

There are a multitude of industrial activities that cause noise pollution. Some of the undertakings with the most disastrous effects upon the dolphin population include shipping, sonar devices, and seismic surveys. Noise is measured with a unit of sound called the decibel. A sound of over 90 decibels can cause harm to a person’s hearing (with prolonged exposure). Supply ships produce 174 decibels on average - well above the suitable amount to maintain proper hearing. Sounds of this intensity don’t just stop a dolphin’s ability to communicate. They can cause damage to their physical and emotional well-being. Sonar devices replicate the echolocation ability of the dolphin, sending pulses into the depths of the ocean. Those pulses bounce off the object(s) that they hit and travel back to the device from whence they came. Finally, they send an alert of any large objects that were detected. Sonar devices are used by the military and can be as loud as 235 decibels. In such extreme cases of high decibel noises, fatality results. Seismic surveys are similar to sonars. They come from compressed air guns and are used to search for natural resources. Although research has proved the harmful effects of such technology, these industrial activities are often conducted without care or concern for wildlife. 

Bibliography 

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/dolphins-noise-pollution-speaking/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/marine-life-needs-protection-from-noise-pollution/ 

https://us.whales.org/our-4-goals/create-healthy-seas/ocean-pollution/#:~:text=Noise%20pollutio n%20threatens%20whale%20and,of%20some%20whales%20and%20dolphins. 

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/dolphins-noise-pollution-speaking/

https://www.oceancare.org/en/our-work/ocean-conservation/underwater-noise/underwater-noise -consequences/

https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/hearing_loss/what_noises_cause_hearing_loss.html#:~:text=Sound% 20is%20measured%20in%20decibels,immediate%20harm%20to%20your%20ears. 

https://www.shoreline.bm/environment/effects-of-the-shipping-industry-of-sound-in-the-sea/#:~:t ext=Some%20ships%20are%20quieter%20than,of%20a%20loud%20rock%20concert.

[violetfractal]

bad headline :(

The new study confirms this diagram, with insects in the allotriocarida. Shrimp belong to multicrustacea (along with lobsters and crabs), which is the sister group to allotriocarida.

So bugs is not shrimp. Bugs is only distant relative of shrimp. Bugs is most closely related to the following crustaceans, from closest to most distant:

Remipedes:

Branchiopods:

and Cephalocaridans:

bugs is…. shrimp????

[sleepy-bebby]

There’s a scientific journal called “Get me off Your Fucking Mailing List”.

In 2005, computer scientists David Mazières and Eddie Kohler created this highly profane ten-page paper as a joke, to send in replying to unwanted conference invitations. It literally just contains that seven-word phrase over and over, along with a nice flow chart and scatter-plot graph.

An Australian computer scientist named Peter Vamplew sent it to the International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology in response to spam from the journal. Apparently, he thought the editors might simply open and read it.

Instead, they automatically accepted the paper — with an anonymous reviewer rating it as “excellent” — and requested a fee of $150. While this incident is pretty hilarious, it’s a sign of a bigger problem in science publishing. This journal is one of many online-only, for-profit operations that take advantage of inexperienced researchers under pressure to publish their work in any outlet that seems superficially legitimate.

[nuggetbot]

SciTechDaily has joined the “End of the Universe” fear-hype club.

Why are we not surprised that science journalism is overblown? Once again, they’re treating a long-range theory (like Hawking radiation slowly eating neutron stars) as if it’s breaking news. Let’s be clear:

Hawking radiation is unconfirmed.

Vacuum decay is a hypothetical model.

None of these things are going to affect the cosmos for tens of trillions of trillions of years, if ever.

This kind of writing might sound deep and poetic, but it’s closer to science fiction than science fact. Fear sells. Don’t buy it. 🔭🧃

#sciencefacts #notdoom #scienceliteracy #debunking

[pandemic-info]

It’s likely you know someone dealing with long COVID | WBEZ Chicago

Severe fatigue, cognitive impairment and post-exertional malaise are just a few of the many symptoms associated with long COVID. It can last weeks, months and even years. Having this condition is also somewhat common. “It’s generally a minimum of 10% of COVID infections lead to long COVID,” said Hannah Davis, the co-founder of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative. With COVID hospitalizations on the rise for the first time this year, we speak with Davis and Pulitzer-winning science journalist Ed Yong. They both say that what frustrates a lot of COVID long-haulers is the lack of public knowledge about the condition… and the misconceptions surrounding it. “If you are listening to this and you find yourself thinking, ‘I don’t know anyone with long COVID,’ I guarantee that you do,” Yong said.

[dwarvendiaries]

Article with sloppy research "A study by Amazon Web Services (AWS) researchers suggests 57% of content published online is AI-generated or translated using an AI algorithim (via Forbes)."

Which cites, the Forbes article below, "57% of content translated into a different language on the internet has been done so through AI algorithms."(according to the PS added to the articlenthis has since been corrected to make the claim less definitive)

The original research, instead is saying that 57.1% of the text sample 's sentences they used existed in 3 or more languages, and that given that the number of languages a text is translated into on the internet is strongly correlated with lower quality(based on CometQE), and hence prevalence of Machine Translation.

A news site called WindowsCentral just posted a headline: "57% of all content on the web is AI-generated."

They're misquoting a Forbes article that said, "57% of all text-based content on the web is AI-generated."

Which itself was also a misquote of a study saying "57% of all text translations on the web are machine generated."

Figured I should give everyone a heads up

for all the "OMG dead Internet theory is real!" posting coming up.

[strangebiology]

journalism advice on the Internet: *takes drag of cigarette* never bring a phone with you to an interview because the government is tracking your every move. Delete all apps and only use end-to-end encryption and ciphers. scrub all your information from the internet (the assassins can use it!) don't join any professional journalism groups; that makes it easier for the assassins to get you. if you let a source see and confirm their quotes for accuracy, they will become enraged and remotely delete your article. Destroy all recordings and notes. everyone you talk to is a hardened war criminal, and you are at constant, extreme risk of being murdered by both your sources and the law enforcement from whom they are on the run my actual job in journalism: "Hello, Dr. Smith, I understand you discovered a new stick bug! Can you tell me why this little guy is special?"

[viola-sororia]

first class news paleontologists never disappoint

[onlyslys]

My first pokedex... i mean space-dex entry! Looking at everything from nebulae to jets bigger than our galaxy.

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

SciAm: "What to Know about #Project2025 ’s Dangers to Science

"The [#Project2025] policy handbook is not a light read. It is at turns wonkish, militant and sneering (and sometimes all three at once, such as when it calls for transforming federal institutions into “hard targets” for “woke culture warriors”). It tears down policies to curb climate change, even though a majority of Americans endorse climate action.

“The independence of science is being attacked across the board in this document,” says Rachel Cleetus…"