scientific

There is a word that has multiplied exaggeratedly in scientific articles for a reason: ChatGPT likes it

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That there are academic articles written by AI is something that has been proven beforethe question is how serious it is. To know the magnitude of this practice, a group of researchers has reviewed millions of paper abstracts published in PubMed and have found something interesting: there is a word that the AI ​​loves and the reason why it likes it so much is quite murky. Delve. Its translation is ‘go deeper’ and its use multiplied by 28 between 2022 and 2024, which coincidentally coincides with the boom of ChatGPT and language models. Other words such as ‘underscore’ or ‘showcasing’ are also cited, with a frequency increase of x13.8 and x10.7 respectively. None of them are a noun or a word related to the content, but rather have more to do with the style of writing and are very characteristic of the flowery language that LLMs usually use. flowery language. Does this mean that if we see one of these words in a paper it was written with AI? Not necessarily, but the increase is brutal. Researchers have compared the rise of ‘delve’ to other keywords, such as pandemic, which had a huge peak in 2020 and began to decline in 2021. The increase in the frequency of use of ‘delve’ is much more pronounced than all the others. It’s not coincidental. There is a stage in the process of creating a chatbot like ChatGPT that requires human intervention to fine-tune the responses; This is what is known as reinforcement learning from human feedback (for its acronym in English). RLHF). It turns out that most of the workers who are dedicated to this refining work are in African countries, such as Nigeria. guess where The use of these words in formal English is quite common. Exactly, in Nigeria. African style. ‘Delve’ is a fairly common word in business English in Africa, especially in Nigeria, and it is not the only one. There are also others like ‘leverage’, ‘explore’ or ‘tapestry’ that are more common in African English. According to 311institutealthough human feedback is very small compared to the enormous amounts of training data, it has a great impact since it is what defines the tone of the model when responding to us. Data labeling. It is a key step for training large language models and requires humans to be behind it. The problem is that the majority of workers who dedicate themselves to this are from impoverished countries such as Nigeria, Kenya or India, among others. In case the endless days and the ridiculous salaries were not enough, many times workers must review violent and very explicit imagesall without any type of psychological support. In Xataka | Being a porn moderator is not fun at all. He was exposed to “extreme, violent, graphic and sexually explicit content” Image | National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Unsplash

The best science comedian does not have any scientific training. And that’s the key to your success.

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Tom Gauld is one of the most accessible and yet peculiar cartoonists of today. His vignettes are a mixture of a wink for the initiated and simple, white humor.which often makes his cartoons a mix of “everyone can understand them” and “if you’re interested in science and literature, sure.” A real rarity in these times when you have to show up at franchise fan clubs with a very clear identification and resume. Because Gauld may talk about quantum physics, multiverses and the secrets of the cosmos, but he doesn’t leave anyone out either, all thanks to deceptively simple, but highly expressive graphics. Able to make an Escherian architectural nonsense believable or to perfectly portray the interior of an impossible dimension with just a couple of lines, Gauld reduces the complex to a couple of gentle strokes, and hence his popularity on the internet and in media of indisputable prestige such as ‘The Guardian’where he makes literary jokes, or ‘New Scientist‘, where it focuses more on science and technology. It is precisely a compilation of jokes of this last type, ‘Physics for cats’, which Salamandra is now publishing. Thanks to this brand new volume we have had the opportunity to speak with him and have him explain his creative processes and his career as a scientific comedian… who does not have much knowledge of science. We started, of course, by asking him how his collaboration with ‘New Scientist’ began and what impact it has had on the way he approaches scientific topics in his comics. It tells us that we have to go back very far in time. “My grandfather was a scientist, a marine biologist, and he always read the ‘New Scientist’. So when he went home, the magazine was always there, and when he finished reading the magazine, he would give it to my father, who was also interested in science. When I was little, I would look at the pictures and diagrams and, from time to time, I would read a little bit of the text.” And from there, a few years later and now a professional cartoonist, he began to collaborate with them. Gauld states that a magazine of this type is a splendid workplace for an illustrator: “Some concepts about reality or other universes cannot be photographed, so in These types of magazines have a good tradition of using illustrationsand in fact most of its covers are illustrations rather than photographs. Then, I don’t remember exactly why, I thought it was strange that they didn’t have a comic strip in the magazine.” He proposed it a decade ago and it was accepted, but, he says, “I got a little scared because I stopped studying science when I was about 16, so I’m not an expert at all.” How to draw science It is obvious that this approach to science from a non-scientist perspective will entail difficulties. But contrary to what it might seem, “the really difficult thing with vignettes is not getting the scientific details right.” His process is: “I read the magazine, I follow scientists on social media, I listen to podcasts and radio shows about science, and anything that I think could make a joke I write down in my notebook.” And his approach is clear: “I’m giving my own light-hearted, fun take on something that’s quite serious and thoughtful. I try to do it without being derogatory, like when you make fun of a friend you respect.” Which inevitably brings us to the next question: how do you balance scientific precision with the artistic freedom to create such abstract concepts? And in fact, here the lack of scientific training is revealed as an advantage: “When creating the strips, the fact that I have no scientific training, that I am an ordinary person, not a professional, perhaps helps me judge the level of knowledge at which the jokes should be.” And he adds: “I never want to make a cartoon that makes people feel stupid.which makes one think that a doctorate is needed to understand it”. What happens then when he stumbles upon concepts that even he can’t understand? “When some real science is mentioned in the cartoon, I like to get it right, so I do some research on the Internet or ask someone at New Scientist to check my formulas or whatever. Or I do it so badly that it’s obvious I’m not trying to get it right. In fact, last night an astrophysicist mentioned that one of the formulas in the background of one of my strips was correct and that he liked it, which I was very happy about.” When we ask him if there are any scientific ideas or theories related to physics that he finds especially inspiring, he tells us that two come to mind. “One that I think I keep coming back to in the cartoons is, and I guess this is more of a philosophical question than a physical one: What is reality? That and the idea of ​​many worlds. The other is quantum theory, which I still don’t understand. I’ve made some jokes about it and I’m proud of them, but I think they could be improved if I ever managed to understand all of quantum theory. Which may never happen, but I keep trying.” And here we enter into a personal question, but we couldn’t help but ask him: does Tom Gauld like Gary Larson’s humor? (Larson, for those who don’t know, is the creator of ‘The Far Side’, absolute master of comics with background geeka mix of surreal humor and deep knowledge of biology and science absolutely unmatched). “I’ve mentioned Gary Larson as an influence in almost every interview I’ve done today,” he confesses, “so I’m glad you brought it up.” Typical Gary Larson: “‘Hey! What is this, Higgins? Physics equations?… Do you like your job as a cartoonist, Higgins?” And he adds: “The cartoons from ‘The Far Side’ appeared in my local newspaper when I was a teenager and I have … Read more

Today we know how to solve crimes with scientific precision. And we owe it all to a lady with a dollhouse

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You imagine the scene and smile. It is perfect to become the seed of a script that ends up winning an Oscar. You, along with dozens of other male criminology students in the room, are greeted by a woman in her 50s who looks like an endearing grandmother. You go to the next room and in it you find a doll house which, they order you, you have 90 minutes to examine. “They sent me here because they told me it would be a training visit,” you protest internally. When you look at the recreation you begin to perceive the macabre aura of the event. The mental image of what a toy house must be is broken inside you when you see that the cloth and porcelain romper is a headless prostitute thrown on the bathroom of a room to which over the years, you notice, the same squalor that has characterized the life of its guest has been attached. There’s more: one thing catches your attention, just one of hundreds. Some lines drawn in chalk on the miniature ironing board in the corner of the room. They mark the price that the utensil must have had when they bought it several years ago. You look at the whole and the level of detail The entire room is such that you start to get dizzy from the puzzle you have to solve. But there is no room to be stunned. The strange grandmother at the beginning had already warned you: you have 90 minutes and there is not a single one to lose. Frances Glessner Lee, dollhouses and the true origin of CSI Frances Glessner Lee, whom we know today as “the mother of forensic science,” he didn’t have it easy to get to where he did. If it were not for a concatenation of circumstances, it is likely that this police branch would have lost one of its most valuable and, of course, curious pedagogical milestones that we have known. Born in Chicago in 1878, Lee was the daughter of John Jacob Glessner, owner of the successful International Harvester company. Motivated by her childhood and teenage readings of Sherlock Holmes, she longed to dedicate herself to the exciting world of homicide investigation. At the end of the 19th century, the typical thing for society ladies was not to go to Harvard and then dedicate themselves to solving crimes, but get married and start a family. They forced this on him when he was 20 years old. He divorced and waited for his father and brother to die so he could inherit the family fortune and finally be able to make his own decisions. In all that time his concerns never went away. He studied criminology in Boston, He donated part of his inheritance to Harvard to open a brand new forensic medicine department there and he got to work. At 52 years old. Throughout her life, Lee founded the Harvard Medical School and served as an advocate for absolute rationalization in police investigation. among many other thingsbut the great work of his life was another: his Limited studies of unexplained deathsa series of 19 dioramas or small miniature doll houses that represented complex crime scenarios that would be analyzed by future students of Criminology or Forensic Investigation. As a socialite, Lee used her money and social skills to make your way into the world of men and convince them to participate in your proposal. The cottage seminar by day, opulent parties at the Ritz Carlton by night. Fourteenth State Police Homicide Investigation Seminar, November 17-22, 1952, at the Department of Forensic Medicine, Harvard Medical School. Read to the right. Harvard Medical Library and Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine. Complete photograph of your death: every object around you counts If something stands out all the biographies of Lee It is his unhealthy passion for detail. The passages about his works are an endless collection of nouns and adjectives. The cans of food in the cupboards, the fogged-up mirrors, the half-peeled potatoes, the overflowing ashtrays, the unmade beds, the open oven faucets, the pieces of wood under the nails, the violet stains observable on the subject’s face. The backyards and fire escapes hidden from view of investigators and that Mrs. Lee ordered from specialized carpenters just so that no element of the room imagined in her mind escaped her control. Only one thing escaped him: it is not possible to distinguish rigor mortis in a doll. For all this only Lee can know how many months or years was able to dedicate to each of the jewels in his gloomy collection, which cost as a result of 3,000 or 4,000 dollars of those of that time piece by piece and that involved both work and love: all the textile elements that we see in the dioramas were made by her herself. The Bounded Studies are not only a pedagogical tool, but also a theoretical proposal on the tangible, material aspect that surrounds the reality of human death. As if each object, each frayed blanket and each photograph on the front page of the newspaper that has the figure of a murdered man at its feet, also became part of the same concatenation of events that led to his death. Pure chaos theory applied to forensic architecture. As we have learned later, the houses became so complicated that many students were not able to find the appropriate solution as to how the hypothetical crime had occurred, but rather that they were simply left unable to give a single answer. A pedagogical legacy still to be resolved Of the 18 dioramas that Mrs. Lee made, we only know the answer to 13 of them. Over the years, no one has been able to solve five of these simulations that are still considered some of the most arduous homicide scenes in history. Its creator took the secret of those five rooms to the grave: she agreed if the participant proposed the correct … Read more

Behind this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine there is a whole lesson in scientific policy for Spain and it does not seem that we are going to learn it

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The Nobel Prizes arrive and, like every year, the media they are filled with reports on why Spain resists the great scientific awards of the contemporary world. And it is not a lie: the last Spaniard to win one in science, Severo Ochoa, did so 66 years ago. Being a relatively important country internationally, it is a real problem. What we did not suspect is that the Karolisnka Institute was going to make it so clear how ‘real’ this problem is. A little highlighted detail. At this point in the week, the history of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine It has been counted as active and passive; But there is a detail that is worth dwelling on. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Shimon Sakaguchi discovered a subset of T lymphocytes that did not attack anyone or anything. They were a kind of “riot police” of the immune system: they suppressed the activity of other T lymphocytes. The discovery was momentous, but what came next was an enormous silence. Silence? But they just gave him the Nobel Prize! They just gave it to him now, but it was not a bed of roses. Sakaguchi’s idea made sense, but no one was quite clear why that was happening. And, in fact, many people were vehemently against his theses. It took almost a decade for two different teams to reach the same conclusion: the Japanese researcher was right and the key to everything. the problem was in the FOXP3 gene. It seems like a minor issue, but “this double discovery, the cellular discovery of Sakaguchi and the genetic discovery of Brunkow and Ramsdell, has completely changed the paradigm of immunology and has opened two great therapeutic avenues with immense potential.” The relevant question in Spain. This is all very well, but the really relevant question for our country is why in 2020, when the Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded CRISPR, it did not follow the same logic. Because yes, there are big differences between one discovery and the other: while the former rewarded the technological tool, this one has rewarded the discovery of the fundamental scientific bases. But it is not lost on anyone that the narrative of the award is not just an explanation: it is a framework that justifies inclusions and exclusions. The “forgetfulness” of the 2020 Nobel Prize. Francis Mojica himself he explained to us that “when we discovered CRISPR, I said to myself: “this is going to be crazy in biology” and then absolutely nothing happened.” In fact, that “nothing” lasted for many years. Years in which CRISPR seemed like a scientific curiosity without much importance and working on the subject, as Mojica did, was seen as an eccentricity. And finally, when the award came, it focused on “the development of a gene editing method (CRISPR-Cas9)” and was awarded to the two researchers who discovered that we could use the mechanism to our advantage; but no one remembered the person who discovered this mechanism. And it would be naive not to ask ourselves why. Even if we cannot know what really happened (the prize selection process has been hidden for 50 years), it is a good time to compare the abysmal differences between the research policy of Spain and that of Japan. While in the country of the rising sun, it has been investing in “scientific diplomacy” since the 90s; while Spain has made some isolated effort, yes; but insufficient. This is not about creating intricate conspiracy theories. It is clear that we will not be able to say what would have happened if Francis Mojica were Japanese, but we can ask ourselves what extra-scientific factors intervene in this type of awards and what Spain is doing to value its contribution to current contemporary science. That is, not only what resources are dedicated to research; but what is Spain’s ‘soft-power’, what resources does it put to make our researchers visible, to spread favorable stories or to amplify the work of our teams. The answer to all this, I’m afraid, is “too little.” Image | Ryan Faulkner | Daniel Prado In Xataka | A Nobel with 30 years of history: the discovery of the “peacekeeping gene” that controls our defenses is the 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine

May your cat ignore that appetizing food has a scientific explanation. Is called neophobia and it’s life insurance

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You open one of the littleirs that you have bought your cat and flips with the good f see, it almost makes you want to try it, but when you offer it, all bad. It smells it, looks at you with contempt and leaves. Yes, it has happened to me and I have thought that my cat enjoyed watching me money on food that was not going to eat. Your cat does not hate you, it is its nature. Food neopobia in cats A search on the subject returns hundreds of results of Tutors asking for advice to get their cat to eat something new and tips to get it. The most common are usually cats that reject wet food and They just want to eat their feedwhich is not recommended because it can lead to the dreaded kidney disease. What happens to cats? Neophobia is the fear of something new, in this case new foods. Although food neophabia is not exclusive to cats (It also happens in humans), it is a fairly common behavior in cats and one of the reasons that have made them win the Fame of Sibaritas. It is not a feline whim, it is pure instinct, An adaptation strategy to protect yourself from possible poisoning. It is not a feline whim, it is pure instinct, an adaptation strategy to protect itself from possible intoxication. Beyond the inheritance of its wild ancestors, neophy and domestic cats may appear for other causes and one of them is stress. Cats are very sensitive to changes. In This study They analyzed stress in cats and the consequences it can have on their behavior and health. A stressed cat tends to eat less, but it is also more prone to develop neophobia. If a new meal is offered in a stress situation, it is more likely to reject it. Cat’s food preferences In This complete article of Vet Times magazinedelve into the mechanisms that form the food preferences of cats. In his first months of life he is strongly influenced by his mother’s. In fact, this influence begins even before birth, by transfer of flavors through amniotic fluid and milk. It has been proven That the kittens whose mother ate unusual foods in the cat such as milk or banana, showed inclination for these foods. “Eat it” Genetics only plays a small role, but the food to which the cat is exposed in their first months of life will be decisive when forming their adult preferences. In this sense, a kitten that only eats a type of food is more likely to develop neophobia towards unknown foods, while A more varied diet will become familiar with more flavors and textures. Experience is another decisive factor and is the one that is defining how the cat selects food during your life. For example if they eat something and feel bad, they will create a negative association and will not eat it again. The food to which the cat is exposed in their first months of life are decisive when forming their adult preferences. Of course it also influences palatability, that is to say, how nice the smell, taste and texture find of a specific food. As strict carnivores, they are attracted to protein -rich foods and tend to reject bitter or sweet flavors. In the case of feed addicted cats several factors come together and palatability is one of them. Feed manufacturers have “hacked” the feline palate with flavor enhancers (palatal) to make them more attractive and want to eat it all the time. If we add that we usually have the feed at the disposal of the animal, the habit is reinforced to the point that some cats do not want to eat anything else. In addition, the crunchy texture of the feed further reinforces that preference, making wet food something strange to them. My cat rejects food. What I do? The first, be patient. Getting a cat with a very strong neopobia start eating new foods is a background race. The first step is Get familiar with the new food. In This study He gathered fourteen adult cats that showed neophobia towards a lamb flavor food. What they did was vaporize the smell of food while cats ate their usual food. The result was that neophobia was reduced considerably. I like this. You can start by putting A bowl with wet food by feedso that I associate that it is a safe food. It is important to offer variety, because it can be the case that we are determined to eat a single option and that it turns out that you simply do not like. If your cat does not eat any wet food, there are Nutritionists who advise starting with little cans that are unhealthy. The reason is that they usually have a very attractive and flavoring smell more similar to those of the feed. In this way, it is first familiar with wet food and little by little you can introduce healthier cans. It is also recommended slightly heat the fooddo not give it directly from the fridge because it will almost certainly reject it. To start eating something new, the obvious is important: to be hungry. I think freely is not recommended. To start eating something new, the obvious is important: to be hungry. In this sense, I think freely 24 hours is not the most recommended. You can serve food three or four times a day or use An automatic feeder. Yes indeed, A cat should never be more than a whole day without eating since it can develop Hepatic lipidosis and even die. Each cat is a world and There are many more tricks That you can use, such as soaking or crushing the feed and putting a little on wet food. Also You can use others TOPPINGS like a churu -type liquid snack and sprinkle supplements such as Fortiflora (is a probiotic) or Green lip mussel powder. In Xataka | Genetics offers … Read more

No one in the world knows what the hell do with mobile phones in classrooms. Not even scientific research

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Imagine two students of a similar level doing exactly the same attention and memory test. Imagine, in fact, there is only one difference between them: one has the mobile in sight. It is silent, in a corner of the table, with the sound off; But it is in sight. The other student, before starting the test, had left it in the next room. I would ask you to imagine who would get better results, but it doesn’t make too much sense. A team from the University of Chicago and He studied it in detail. There is nothing surprising in this mental experiment, the results coincide with our prejudices: The student who sees the mobile will get worse results. It is something, also that connect directly to our experience real, with Our Fomowith Our “dependence” to mobile. How are we not going to worry about the damage made by these technologies in the classroom? How will the smartphone not become a first -order educational problem? And that is precisely the problem: that if we stay on the surface of the problem, in the social and political debate, we find a Spectacular political consensus (with several Autonomous communities prohibiting them from hype and saucer); But if we deepen the scientific fund, the problems begin. Life is not summarized in an experiment from the University of Chicago. So, we have wondered what really happens in a school when we prohibit mobile phones? What experiences have other countries and colleges that have already taken measures? Why is there no clear consensus about what to do? What does the experience say? Verkeorg The scenes are almost a cliché: kids looking at the mobile phone, notifications that interrupt classes, parallel chats commenting on what happens in the classroom, bullying, anonymous messages, worried families, decentralized students … With all this in mind, it is not surprising that dozens of experts, activists and parents warn of the negative consequences for learning associated with mobile use. In fact, with all this in mind, it is not strange that Many countries have begun to take letters In the matter: one in four countries It has regulated the use of mobiles in school. The list is very long. If we only focus on our geographical, cultural or development environment: they have done so places like France, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Canada or Australia. The first country to do so, in fact, was Italy. In late 2006 and early 2007, several incidents impacted fully on the country’s public opinion: from a group of students who recorded bulling another student with disabilities to another in which several students were recorded sexually harassing a teacher. That led the government to prohibit mobile in class. Unfortunately, its implementation was complex and there are not many data on its impact. What we do know is that in 2022 the Ministry of Education announced its prohibition againRecoding that (although no one paid attention to him) the measure had been in force for 15 years. We also know that by then, many more Páisses had regulated the matter. France approved its prohibition In 2018. In a similar situation are Luxembourg, Portugal and Sweden. In addition to Bavaria, the Swiss vaud canton, Ontario, Various states of Australia and dozens of school districts in the United States They have done the same. In 2023, Holland and the United Kingdom They said that it would also implement prohibitions From the following year. How have they done it? As we will see, this is the central question. First because, as Maria del Mar Sánchez pointed outProfessor of Educational Technology at the University of Murcia, none of these regulations has managed to homogenize the situation. If we approach what really happens in schools, “We will find great diversity“ Sánchez says. And this makes it difficult to apply, measure and study the consequences. The best example of this is Norway. In 2024, a report He explained That the prohibition of mobiles in classes had achieved a 60% reduction in consultations by psychological symptoms in adolescents, the decrease in cases of bulling and a significant improvement in the academic results of the girls. In addition, the effects it shows are much more intense on the low -income population. The curious thing, however, is that Norway I was not doing anything nationally with mobile phones. What was doing something was with bullying. Just coinciding with the period studied, the Nordic country was underway A series of changes To reduce bulling. The result is that, little by we are realistic, we will have to recognize that confusion is enormous. And is Spain? Being an autonomous competition, until recently each autonomous community and each educational center has decided on its own. As it seems, Galicia was a pioneer: In 2015 he published a decree prohibiting phones in class and, at the end of 2023, he also took a more vet during recess, dining room and entries or outputs of the center. Behind her (and in recent years) almost all communities have gone behind. But, again“one thing is the political and the holder and another the reality that he reaches the centers.” To the point that while Autonomic decrees were reformed To accommodate more hard disciplinary approaches, in others pilot projects to use mobiles were introduced as didactic tools. In short, Spain has been one more. Of course, it is important to note, however, that as Jose César Perales, professor at the University of Granada, explained in practice “the prohibition of mobile phones for non -educational use during school hours It was already the usual In most centers “that is, the most important change in recent years is that this prohibition is being made in a generalized way. In experts like Laura Canois part of a political response to the ‘state of opinion’ on the impact of technology rather than a clear will to intervene educationally in the huge list of problems That has contemporary youth. What does science say about all this? Let’s talk about academic performance Pabak … Read more

The White House will try to reduce NASA’s scientific budget by 50%. It is so devastating that Elon Musk has separated

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The White House has presented a preliminary proposal of its budgets by 2026. If the United States Congress approved them, NASA would see 20% less money next year, but with an especially controversial turn, because they would be cuts centered on science. A devastating loss. NASA is the largest and most influential space agency in the world. Its direction of scientific missions finances some of the most important research for the advancement of astrophysics, planetary science, terrestrial science and heliophysics. Studies in which international entities such as the European Space Agency often participate. The White House budget in half reduces the resources of the Directorate of Scientific Missions. It would go from 7.5 billion dollars in the fiscal year from 2025 to 3.9 billion in 2026. The consequences are so devastating for the scientific community that Elon Musk has described it as “worrying” and It has come out to clarify that has not had anything to do: “I am very in favor of science, but unfortunately I cannot participate in the discussions about NASA’s budget because Spacex is an important NASA contractor.” Affected missions. While the proposal maintains the financing of HUBBLE observatories and James Webb, explicitly cancels other space telescopes, including the Nancy Grace Romanwhich is already completely assembled waiting for its launch. The two most important planetary missions that would not continue with the White House Budgets are, on the one hand, Mars Sample Returnthe recovery of Martian soil samples that has been collecting the Rover Perseverance, and the Davinci mission to explore Venus. Both milestones would be in the hands of China, which It has similar missions in your scientific roadmap. Goodbye to the Goddard? According to Ars Technicathe cuts seem designed to force the closure of the Goddard Space Flight Center, the NASA headquarters in Maryland, which uses 10,000 officials and contractors, and from where iconic cosmological, land and sun observation missions are operated. Astrophysics: it would reduce its budget by two thirds, leaving 487 million dollars. Heliophysics: it would reduce its budget by more than two thirds, leaving 455 million dollars. Terrestrial science: would reduce its budget in more than half, remaining at 1,033 million dollars. Planetary Science: would reduce its budget by one third, being at 1,929 million dollars NOAA is even worse stop. Donald Trump’s administration also seeks Complaint the magazine Science. Like NASA, NOAA is one of the world’s main scientific agencies, but in the weather, climate and space climate. The cuts would close the Ocean and Atmospheric Research Office (OAR), and would leave hundreds of scientists who study global warming. Waiting for Congress. NASA has a period of 72 hours to appeal these figures before they are incorporated into the final budgets. Ultimately, it will be the United States Congress who approves them. It is likely that the cuts are with strong opposition in Congress, Very sensitized With the idea of ​​losing ground in front of China. “This would tithe the American leadership in space and inflict great damage to NASA centers throughout the country,” Congressman George Whitesides, from the Science Committee, told Ars Technica. It would be like an “extinction event.” Image | POT In Xataka | 12 years after making fun of Spacex and his idea of ​​landing rockets, Arianegroup is creating a European mini-falcon 9

Some researchers have analyzed what the summaries of scientific papers say. There is enough “clickbait”

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Academic articles, Papers reviewed by pairs published in scientific journals, they are One of the pillars of science nowadays. These articles usually have a more or less defined structure, with introduction, results, conclusions and discussion, in addition to a section dedicated to the methodology used. An element that never (or practically ever) is missing in this type of articles is abstract. Abstract It is the term with which a kind of summary of the content of the article is known. It is a key piece that has the objective of serving as a bibliographic guide to those who are looking for a study, so this short text must answer properly to the question What is this article going? But beyond this basic function, the abstract Often fulfills the function of Summary of the articleincluding information on methods, results and conclusions of the experiment or study. Many of the scientific articles are limited access, protected by a Paywallthe price of a single article can be several tens of eurosbut summaries are available in open. Scientific articles, including this short introductory text, are subjected to several editorial and scientific reviews, so it would be expected that the abstracts be faithful representations of what the article and the study carried out. The problem is that sometimes, They are not so much. In the late 90s, a group of researchers analyzed the existence of discrepancies between the summaries of the articles and their content. The team analyzed more than 260 articles (44 pieces by six scientific relief journals) published in 1996 and 1997. They studied two ways in which these summaries could be incorrect, or by inconsistencies with the body of the article, or by the omission of relevant information. The results showed variation in the results according to the magazine (they found that between 18% and 68% of the articles presented problems). They concluded, in their own abstractthat the inconsistent or absent data in these summaries were “common, even in the medical magazines of great circulation.” The study was published in 1999 the magazine Jamaone of the publications analyzed in it. 25 years have passed since the publication of the magazine’s study Jama and almost 30 since the publication of some of the articles analyzed. Science has changed a lot in those 25 years. However some subsequent studies They indicate that this problem persists. In 2016, a group of researchers made a compilation and analysis of the studies carried out in this field. This literature review, published in the magazine BMC Medical Research Methodologyhe found that the median “level of inconsistency found these studies was In 39%although the variability was high: it ranged between 4% and 78%. Since not all errors are equally severe, this review was fixed on the studies that discriminated against the serious inconsistencies of the milder. They observed that the median in this case was somewhat lower, but still considerable, of 19%. Subsequent studies, like one posted this year In The magazine American Journal of SurgeryThey continue to show the existence of this trend in scientific literature. What happens then? Are scientists falsifying your data? Or are we simply witnessing an important accumulation of errors? We know that the summaries of the articles are determinants when receiving quotes of other academic articles and that This metric is key for the evaluation of scientific work for the authors. But the publication of an article may sometimes depend on its results being novel. That is why there is an incentive to emphasize some results and clarify them later. A non -significant result can cause the editors of the magazine or future readers to lose interest in the article, regardless of the real quality of the study. The call publication bias (which refers to the fact that studies with different results are overrepresented in scientific literature) is also the result of this interest in the novelty. Clickbait academic The titles of the articles have also been subject to scrutiny in recent years. Consciously or unconsciously, a striking holder can be decisive when we are more or less interested in a study. In 2016, A study Posted in the magazine Frontiers in Psychology It echoed this phenomenon. The analysis observed how the way in which the headlines affected were affected within reach of the study. Gwilym Lockwood, author of the study, analyzed More than 2,000 academic articles And he observed that the titles that enunciated something in a positive frame had better metrics than the average. On the other hand, he also found that the works that resorted to speech games showed a worse performance. The titles containing questions, meanwhile, did not deviate from the average significantly. The problem of abstractsIt is one of many to which the scientific publishers. Some publishers pressed By scandals of various typesfrom the “Mills of scientific articles”Even the problems with rates charged by publication or access to their contents. The artificial intelligence It is one of these problems, but perhaps also a potential solution. In recent months, and after the occasional scandal, scientific publishers They have been integrating The artificial intelligence tools in the scientific publication, beyond the work that these tools may have developed in the development of research itself. Artificial intelligence has the capacity, among other things, to generate more “objectives” summaries or to detect and correct possible errors and discrepancies between texts and summaries. In Xataka | This is how bad science infiltrates the international scientific debate: they are not just the great scandals, more than 50,000 questionable articles are incorporated every year Image | Sonia Radosz

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