Archive for category PR Guy
This would be great for teeny, tiny superheroes
Posted by Grg in Grg's Reference, PR Guy, Science/Geek on Thursday, January 8, 2009
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 fiddled with to sensationalize.
A Very Necessary Primer on How to Read Health Science Studies Or, at Least, Reports On Health Science Studies
Posted by Grg in PR Guy, Science Fandom, Science/Geek, Skeptic on Tuesday, September 30, 2008
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 only did beta carotene fail to protect against cancer and heart disease, but it might increase the risk of developing cancer.
It was “the biggest disappointment of my career,” said one of the study researchers, Dr. Charles Hennekens, then at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
But Frankie Avalon, a ’50s singer and actor turned supplement marketer, had another view. When the bad news was released, he appeared in an infomercial. On one side of him was a huge stack of papers. At his other side were a few lonely pages. What are you going to believe, he asked, all these studies saying beta carotene works or these saying it doesn’t?
Read the whole thing, it gives some great examples of how things that are reported in the media often fall apart in strong clinical trials. I wish it went a little deeper to provide casual readers with a few more tools on how to judge the strength of a study design. And It could use some graphics. Still, good stuff.
Elephants in Motion
Posted by Grg in Grg's Reference, PR Guy, Science/Geek on Friday, August 22, 2008
It has everything, elephants, baby elephants, and a lede that mentions both Shakespeare and Aristotle. Not to mention clear and unexaggerated reporting on an interesting topic. Brilliant. Well done, Kathryn Phillips.
Elephant legs are much bendier than Shakespeare thought
Throughout history, elephants have been thought of as ‘different’. Shakespeare, and even Aristotle, described them as walking on inflexible column-like legs. And this myth persists even today. Which made John Hutchinson from The Royal Veterinary College, London, want to find out more about elephants and the way they move. Are they really that different from other, more fleet-footed species? Are their legs as rigid and ‘columnar’ as people had thought? Traveling to Thailand and several UK zoos, Hutchinson and his team investigated how Asian Elephants move their legs as they walk and run and publishes his results in The Journal of Experimental Biology on August 22 2008 at http://jeb.biologists.orgStriking up collaborations with elephant keepers at Colchester and Whipsnade Zoo, Hutchinson explains that the keepers were keen to know more about the animals’ natural limb movements to develop training programmes and prevent the onset of arthritis. Fortunately for Hutchinson, the animals were fantastically cooperative when he turned their exercise enclosure into a film set to record their movements; ‘this is the same 3D capture technology used in Hollywood blockbusters,’ explains Hutchinson. After the team had stuck hemispheres covered in infrared reflecting tape to joints on the elephants’ fore and hind limbs, the animals were happy to walk and run in front of the arc of infrared detecting cameras as Hutchinson and his team filmed their steps at speeds ranging from 0.62 m/s to 4 92m/s. ‘The big problem was keeping the markers in place,’ says Hutchinson, ‘the little ones kept on pulling them off with their trunks.’ Having filmed animals ranging in size from 521 to 3512kg, Hutchinson, Lei Ren and Charlotte Miller travelled to Thailand to film the athletic elite; Thai racing elephants that easily outpaced the UK elephants at 6.8m/s.