Experimenting with science blogging, jargon and.. parents

Word cloud, based on Ed Yong's "Jumping genes mobilise in the brains of people with Rett syndrome"

A few days ago, Colin Schultz proposed to do an experiment to investigate to what degree scientific terms used in scientific news can form barriers to understanding by laypersons. Colin suggested to go through a science story and list all scientific terms that “might be a road block to an interested reader’s understanding”. Instead of following [...]

Bad science journalism the fault of chickens or eggs?

Ovocleidin-17 coordinates the carbon carbonate particles with its argenine residues, inducing crystallization.

News sites left and right are picking up a story that “Scientists solved the chicken or egg problem”. Google News aggregated 164 news articles at the time of writing, with more being added every minute. The typical introduction runs like this: It is the age-old question that has stumped the finest minds for thousands of [...]