I missed this earlier and, at the risk of getting myself into trouble, I’d like to say a few words. Ben Goldacre in The Guardian turned his eye toward a recent study about the quality of press releases from major American medical research centers. Having worked in at least one top research institute [...]
Archive for the ‘PR Guy’ Category
Man, these viral movie promotions are going too far…
April 28th, 2009
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Robot attacked Swedish factory worker – The Local.
The incident took place in June 2007 at a factory in Bålsta, north of Stockholm, when the industrial worker was trying to carry out maintenance on a defective machine generally used to lift heavy rocks. Thinking he had cut off the power supply, the man approached the robot [...]
Fruitflies like the wind, time flies like a banana…
March 12th, 2009
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Stop. Wait, reverse that. OK…
Another neat Eurekalert! feed story, one that offers tips for catching flies:
Caltech scientists discover mechanism for wind detection in fruit flies
Tiny, lightweight fruit flies need to know when it’s windy out so they can steady themselves and avoid being knocked off their feet or blown off course. But how do they [...]
Two Studies on Vitamin D and Adolescents…take them together? (with a little water)
March 12th, 2009
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Below are two items I just gleaned from my Eurekalert! RSS feed, and they seem to fit together nicely:
1) One in seven US teens is vitamin D deficient
One in seven American adolescents is vitamin D deficient, according to a new study by researchers in the Department of Public Health at Weill Cornell Medical College. [...]
And Louie, Louie Gets Me Hot Just Thinking about It
February 24th, 2009
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Interesting press release in my morning Eurekalert! feed
In an article published in the April 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers found that teenagers who preferred popular songs with degrading sexual references were more likely to engage in intercourse or in pre-coital activities.
Already, with the euphemisms. What are pre-coital activities? Heavy petting? [...]
Eggs are awesome, says new scientific report from the egg board
February 17th, 2009
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Okay, its published in an actual journal — here’s the press release on Eurekalert! — and they do provide handy references to their claims…but it doesn’t mean I don’t think their enthusiasm is a little suspicious…
A research review published recently in Nutrition Today(1) affirms that the high-quality protein in eggs makes a valuable [...]
Hyping the holographic universe
February 3rd, 2009
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I write press releases for a living, I’m afraid. And, over the last decade, I figure I must have written nearly 1,000 of them (if you count tipsheets, which I am for the purpose of generating a nice round number). So when I saw this up on Eurekalert!, I figured that was a bold bit [...]
What couldn’t giant rockets revolutionize?
January 14th, 2009
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Giant Rockets Could Revolutionize Astronomy, is the headline of a NASA press release (check the link, if you don’t believe me, I wouldn’t lie about this) to which my inner, early-morning snarkbot says “well, duh.”
Giant rockets could revolutionize lots of things: ice hockey, Buddhism, my daughter’s time outs for poking her little brother…
The release [...]
This would be great for teeny, tiny superheroes
January 8th, 2009
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In a recent Nature paper, Harvard engineers describe how to levitate microscopic objects using the Casimir effect.
Of course, if you read the headline to the Tech Herald piece (first link), you’d think they’ve already done it. Need to find the press release to see how much they cribbed and how much they [...]
A Very Necessary Primer on How to Read Health Science Studies Or, at Least, Reports On Health Science Studies
September 30th, 2008
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…in the New York Times today.
I like the lede here, comparing how scientists view their own research versus, oh, say, Frankie Avalon shilling for vitamin supplements:
Then came three large, rigorous clinical trials that randomly assigned people to take beta carotene pills or a placebo. And the beta carotene hypothesis crumbled. The trials concluded that not [...]
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