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Scientific studies are a first-class source of knowledge. However, the studies are plagued by biases, both when published and when disseminated and disseminated, which slows down progress.
In the field of social sciences we have witnessed major scandals, such as Sokal's. Or more recently, the so-called ya Sokal squared, regarding gender studies. But these problems, to a greater or lesser extent, have been detected in all areas of scientific literature.
Loss of trust in science
In short, the problem of disseminating good quality scientific knowledge is fueled by:
- Publication bias: publishing only positive studies
- Citation bias: citing only positive studies. In 2012, Anne-Sophie Jannot and a team examined 242 meta-analyses published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews between January and March 2010 that confirmed this.
- Distortion quotes. In 2010, Andreas Stang posted a review of the Newcastle-Ottawa scale, a scale used in meta-analysis to evaluate the quality of observational studies. Sometimes references are simply copied from one document to another. It's hard to know how common this is, but Pieter Kroonenberg, a Dutch statistician, discovered a nonexistent study that had been cited more than 400 times.
- Underutilization of evidence: not citing existing studies. The researchers Karen Robinson and Steven Goodman examined the frequency with which subsequent clinical trial authors reported similar clinical trials. They identified 1,523 essays and tracked how they had cited others on the same topic. Only about a quarter of the relevant trials were cited, which also constituted only about a quarter of the subjects enrolled in the relevant trials.
Within publication bias, in turn, different forms of bias have been identified:
- Time lag bias: in which trials with impressive positive results (large size, statistical significance) are published more quickly than trials with negative or equivocal results.
- Results reporting bias: reporting only statistically significant results or results that favor a particular claim, while other results have been measured but not reported.
- Location bias: publication of non-significant, equivocal, or unsupported findings in less prestigious journals, while studies reporting positive, statistically significant findings tend to be submitted to better-known journals.
A significant case was the one analyzed in 2015 by Michal Kicinski and colleagues, who examined 1,106 meta-analyses published by the Cochrane Collaboration on the effectiveness or safety of particular treatments. For meta-analyses that focused on efficacy, positive and significant trials were more likely to be included in the meta-analyses than other trials. In contrast, for meta-analyses that focused on safety, "results that provided no evidence of adverse effects were on average 78 percent more likely to enter the meta-analysis sample than statistically significant results that showed they existed." Adverse effects".
The existence of these biases is not only a problem that affects the quality of scientific literature, but is undermining the integrity of science, allowing myths or half-truths to flourish more easily. Once we have diagnosed the problem, it is imperative to get to work to mitigate it and, by extension, reinforce the foundations on which we build the edifice of science.
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The news
The dissemination of scientific knowledge is plagued by biases and that is a problem
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
A milestone has been achieved for planetary scientists and artificial intelligence researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL): identify craters on other planets thanks to machine learning algorithms.
The image had been captured by the HiRISE camera team aboard NASA's Mars orbiter MRO. AND, thanks to these algorithms, scientists could save the hours they spend each day studying images captured by the MRO.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
In the Mars orbiter's 14 years, scientists have relied on MRO data to find more than 1,000 new craters. But it is hard work. The process requires patience, requiring approximately 40 minutes for a researcher to carefully scan a single image from the context camera.
To save time, we now have the so-called automated fresh impact crater classifier, as part of a broader JPL effort called COSMIC (Capturing Onboard Summarization to Monitor Image Change) that develops technologies for future generations of Mars orbiters.
What takes a human 40 minutes, this classifier did it in 5 seconds.
To train the crater classifier, the researchers fed it 6,830 context camera images, including those from locations with previously discovered impacts that had already been confirmed through HiRISE. The tool was also fed images with no new hits to show the classifier what not to look for.
The first discovery of a crater made by artificial intelligence took place by exploring around 112,000 images.
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The news
This is the first discovery of a crater on Mars with the help of Artificial Intelligence
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
A group of researchers has created a superenzyme that degrades plastic bottles six times faster than before and that could be used for recycling in one or two years.
The superenzyme, derived from bacteria that naturally developed the ability to eat plastic, allows the complete recycling of bottles. In addition, they maintain that by combining it with enzymes that decompose cotton clothes could also be recycled.
We still recycle little
Barely 10 % of plastic is recycled in the United States. This is because recycling plastic is not easy. However, things could change thanks to this discovery. Plastics can take hundreds of years to degrade naturally in the environment, but this new combination of enzymes can do it in a matter of days.
These engineered enzymes, described in A study published this week in the magazine Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, were derived from plastic-eating bacteria discovered for the first time by Japanese scientists in 2016. This feat is impressive, but slow. Since its discovery, researchers have been working to improve the efficiency of their enzymes.
This illustration shows how the researchers were able to join the two enzymes (MHETase and PETase) to create a new super enzyme that breaks down plastic more efficiently than either enzyme alone.
Researchers claim their 'superenzyme' could be used to recycle plastic 'within a year or two' because it is 'still too slow' to be commercially viable.
The superenzyme can also deal with polyethylene furanoate (PEF), a bioplastic that is used in some beer bottles, but cannot break down other types of plastic such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
Environmental activists point out that reducing the use of plastic is key, but the truth is that alternatives to plastic pose other challenges. Strong and light materials like plastic are very useful and it is true recycling that can allow us to combat the problem of pollution.
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The news
New enzyme could enable infinite recycling of common PET plastic used in water bottles and clothing
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
The decrease in physical exercise, a sedentary lifestyle and sleep problems due to excessive use of mobile phones characterize the confinement of students.
Oral administration of the compound induces myelination of axons and protects neurons, in an animal model of multiple sclerosis.
California is developing its own generic drug label. This first measure in the country, according to its promoters, will remove the power of large pharmaceutical companies and will reduce prescription drug costs for Californians statewide.
The new law requires the California Health and Human Services Agency to create partnerships designed to increase competition, lower prices, and reduce shortages of generic prescription drugs.
The price problem
The most populous state in the United States has begun to identify certain medications and develop a plan to promote their manufacture and purchase. The agency will look for drugs that can produce the greatest cost savings.
California will shift all Medi-Cal pharmacy services next year from managed care to direct state payment, which will also increase the state's ability to negotiate better drug prices and take power away from drugmakers. The project of law SB-852 It also opens the door for California to make its own generic drugs in the future.
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which represents brand-name drug makers, has taken a neutral position on the bill: It could take years to bring a new California generic product to market and does not appear to be significant competition, yet.
It is unclear what drugs the state would manufacture or purchase, although it would focus on drugs that could produce the greatest cost savings for the state and consumers. But the bill specifically calls for the production of “at least one form of insulin, provided there is a viable avenue to manufacture a more affordable form of insulin at a price that results in savings.” Three major pharmaceutical companies, Eli Lilly and Co., Sanofi and Novo Nordisk, have long controlled the lucrative insulin market in the United States.
Regardless of whether these policies are correct or not, the truth is that a paradigm shift is urgently needed to avoid too wide inequalities in terms of health. Because the cost of medications It not only depends on the difficulty in developing them.
For example, as noted Javier Padilla in his book Who are we going to let die?, in Baltimore there is a 20.2-year difference in life expectancy between different neighborhoods; In Glasgow there is a 24-year difference between neighborhoods that are only 12 kilometers apart; In Catalonia the richest live 12 years longer than the poorest:
For decades, the explanation for these inequalities has been articulated around the so-called model of social determinants of health, according to which there are structural determinants, such as the economic system, the labor market or welfare policies, which, conditioned due to the existing power relations in society and the place that each person occupies in different variables (social class, gender, age, ethnic group, geographical location), will impact the intermediate determinants (working conditions, income, housing resources, domestic and care work, residential physical environment) and together with individual factors and the action of the health system to determine the health status of people and communities.
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The news
California is developing its own generic drug label and that is good for the consumer
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
There are fewer and fewer violent deaths, fewer accidents, fewer food poisonings, longer life expectancy, greater opportunities to connect with each other, less unattainable technological challenges, more empathy and tolerance, more equal rights, more dynamic and participatory democracy, fewer nauseating odors. , better quality food, healthier air, a sustained increase in IQ in all the countries where the mass media has been installed...
Yes, it is true that there is still a lot to improve. It is also true that the optimistic progression has its ups and downs, and also that the global financial crisis has partially slowed all these advances. But if we look back just half a century, we will see that everything previously listed has gotten better. That is the thesis of Perfect future, of Steve Johnson.
Rational optimism
Perfect future, of Steve Johnson, has come to remind us with data, statistics and a focus on how the Internet is turning individuals into a more intelligent and harmonious network or superorganism that, ultimately, things are getting better, and that the future, although distant If it is perfect, it is at least getting closer, step by step, towards perfection.
Perfect future. About Progress in the Network Age (Noema)
The arguments used by Johnson are hardly questionable, and are also endorsed by many other experts in areas as dissimilar as neuroscience, cognitive psychology, biotechnology or philosophy. But sometimes he seeks more spectacularity than rigor.. This, consequently, carries burdens, but it also produces positive effects, or at least worthy of admiration: that one can go further than anyone else, and provoke reflections that may illuminate ideas that, otherwise, would have taken decades or centuries to arrive. .
Most of the topics about the apocalypse that is looming over the planet are born, mainly, from fear of change, from the lack of perspective and the lack of readings in anthropology. Johnson also includes the birth of the Internet as the definitive technology, the one that will finally propel humanity beyond its individuality. We'll see if that's the case or not.
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The news
Books that inspire us: 'Future Perfect' by Steven Johnson
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
The power of placebo (and its counterpart, the nocebo) is so interesting that it can even affect our blood glucose levels if we are convinced that we are consuming a product with a lot of sugar even though it does not have it.
In it next studyFor example, two groups of people consumed drinks with identical ingredients (15 grams of sugar) but with misleading labels: those of one group indicated 31 g of sugar and those of another 0 g. The group that believed they had consumed more sugar experienced an increase in glucose.
Feeding
Specifically, 30 participants (a small sample size, it should be noted) who had type 2 diabetes consumed drinks that had identical ingredients but that displayed misleading nutrition labels.
At least three days before participants arrived at the lab, they received a packet of forms and instructions, including a brief survey about their medical conditions, a daily glucose diary, a glucose fluctuation chart, and fasting instructions. To ensure they were familiar with their own blood glucose fluctuations, participants were asked to record their blood glucose levels before and after each meal and to complete a chart of daily blood glucose changes for three days. before the experiment.
Throughout the study, blood glucose levels measured four times before and after consuming the beverages showed that blood glucose levels increased when participants believed the beverage was high in sugar, as shown on tags.
Furthermore, individual eating behaviors and nutritional satisfaction were related to changes in blood glucose levels.
These findings indicate that psychological processes can influence physiological levels, although the role of cognitive and perceptual processes in metabolism is still underestimated. The findings also suggest that psychological intervention programs may be important for diabetes control, beyond current programs in which type 2 diabetes is managed with diet, exercise and medications alone.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that diabetes rates have almost quadrupled worldwide over the last three decades, making diabetes one of the most important international public health challenges, causing approximately 1.6 million deaths in 2015 and a cost of approximately $825 billion per year worldwide.
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The news
The placebo also influences how you process what you eat: glucose rises if you think you ate more sugar
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
Avoiding foods high in certain carbohydrates and sugar alcohols may provide relief for people suffering from irritable bowel syndrome.