Tag: Science Journalism

Venomous Frogs Are Super-Awesome, But They Are Not Going To Kill You (I Promise)

In the first chapter for my upcoming book Venomous (due out in 2016), I excitedly explain how nearly all the sundry branches of the tree of life have venomous leaves. I’m simply enthralled by the incredible diversity of venomous animals (and plants!) on this planet, from the tentacle-wielding jellies to the spiny scorpionfishes and, of course, the oft-feared and misunderstood snakes, spiders, and scorpions. But until today, there is one group that could not boast a single venomous member: the anurans, commonly known as frogs and toads. While there are plenty of poisonous ones, no one has ever found a venomous frog — that is, until now.

I know scientists are brazen, but I'm pretty sure that lead author Carlos Jared wouldn't hold this venomous Corythomantis greeningi with his bare hands if it were indeed "deadly". Photo by Carlos Jared c/o Current Biology 2015
I know scientists are brazen, but I’m pretty sure that lead author Carlos Jared wouldn’t hold this venomous Corythomantis greeningi with his bare hands if it were indeed “deadly.” 
Photo by Carlos Jared / Current Biology

Venomous animals are natural biochemists that take toxic to a whole new level. While it is true that venoms and poisons are both toxins, the two terms are not interchangeable. All toxins cause harm in low doses; Poisons are substances that cause such harm through ingestion, inhalation or absorption. To earn the title of venomous, on the other hand, an animal has to do more than just have toxins — they have to have a means of wounding their intended victims to force those toxins upon them. That “wounding” can be caused by any weapon of choice; jellies and other members of the phylum Cnidaria use specialized stinging cells that shoot out hollow tubes in less than a microsecond to deliver their potent venom. Snakes and spiders use fangs, the venomous fishes use spines, and the newest members of the venomous  family — the frogs Aparasphenodon brunoi and Corythomantis greeningi — use their spiky heads. Continue reading “Venomous Frogs Are Super-Awesome, But They Are Not Going To Kill You (I Promise)”

Believe in the chocolate diet? I have a box jelly antivenom to sell you.

On Wednesday, journalist John Bohannon revealed to the world how he “fooled millions into thinking chocolate helps weight loss.” In a boastful piece for i09, he details how he and German television reporter Peter Onneken performed a faulty clinical trial and used flawed statistics to make it seem like chocolate was a weight loss wonder. The team then wrote a bad paper and managed to publish it in a (non-peer-reviewed) journal. They intentionally concocted an enticing press release to tell the world about their not-so-reliable results, and managed to get a few large sites to bite the hook they carefully baited. “For far too long, the people who cover this beat have treated it like gossip, echoing whatever they find in press releases,” Bohannon wrote to explain why he agreed to the elaborate sting. He hopes that the shame of being called out for bad journalism will be enough to get reporters and the public to be a bit more skeptical of science news.

Of course, some were quick to point out that Bohannon mostly fooled the most well-known churnalistic sites, and that overall, science journalists didn’t fall for the ruse. I’m inclined to agree with their criticisms both of ethics of how the sting was conducted and the bold conclusions about the lazy nature of science journalists drawn from it. But it’s hard to stand on my soapbox, fist in the air, when it seems like every week there’s another example of just how shoddy science journalism often is, even when the studies reported on are actually quite wonderful.

Diane Brinkman is firat author on a new paper that tells us more about the venom of the deadly box jelly Chironex fleckeri than ever before — too bad the news media has reported it so poorly.
Diane Brinkman is first author on a new paper that tells us more about the venom of the deadly box jelly Chironex fleckeri than ever before — too bad the news media has done such a shoddy job of reporting about it. Image from Wikipedia.

You see, I’m in a particularly sour mood because I didn’t want to bring up John Bohannon or the failings of science journalists today. Instead, I had planned to write this awesome post about a fascinating new paper published in BMC Genomics. I wanted to talk about how this research (which details the venom transcriptome and proteome of the largest of the deadliest class of invertebrates in the world, the box jellyfish Chironex fleckeri) is an incredible, fresh look at an evolutionarily old venom. I wanted to expound extravagantly on the novel toxin types Diane Brinkman and her colleagues from Queensland found in the terrifying tentacles of a species that has killed more than 60 people and caused serious injury in multitudes more. Most importantly, I would have loved to dive deeply into the study’s methods and results, discuss what this new information tells us about some of my favorite venomous animals, and how it builds the foundation for future studies.

But instead, I was so nauseated by the coverage of this study that I feel obligated to take the time to correct the lazy reporting of others. Bohannon’s chocolate fake-out may not have been right, but it’s hard to say he’s wrong about science news coverage.

Continue reading “Believe in the chocolate diet? I have a box jelly antivenom to sell you.”

Scientists play a large role in bad medical reporting

If you read the headlines, medical scientists are amazing. It seems every day, they discover a new cure for cancer or the genetic basis of some prominent disease. With all the cures, keys, breakthroughs and discoveries, it’s a wonder anyone still gets sick.

Of course, readers soon learn the truth: a lot of science reporting is sensationalized nonsense. Hyping science a vicious cycle. Scientists work hard, get results, and publish. Press officers try to publicize these results, then journalists build off the press releases, and before you know it, your grandmother is wearing a tin foil hat. This is predictably followed by angry scientists and science writers with their rolled up newspapers swatting the noses of the “churnalists” for their bad reporting. People like Ed Yong and I feel forced to don our latex gloves and clean up the crap left on the carpet, all the while sternly saying “Bad, journalist. BAD!”.

But are journalists, as a whole, really that bad at their jobs? No, actually, says a new paper published today in PLoS Medicine. It’s not all the writers’ fault: when they examined the language used in press releases and the studies themselves, instead, it was the scientists and their press offices that were largely to blame.

A team of French scientists led by Isabelle Boutron from the Université Paris Descartes sought to get to the bottom of why medical news is so over-spun. They examined the language in clinical trials along with their associated press releases and news reports for spin—defined as specific reporting strategies emphasizing the beneficial effect of the experimental treatment—to see exactly where the hype comes from.

As expected, they found that the media’s portrayal of results was often sensationalistic. More than half of the news items they examined contained spin. But, while the researchers found a lot of over-reporting, they concluded that most of it was “probably related to the presence of ‘‘spin’’ in conclusions of the scientific article’s abstract.”

It turned out that 47% of the press releases contained spin. Even more importantly, of the studies they examined, 40% of the study abstracts or conclusions did, too. When the study itself didn’t contain spin to begin with, only 17% of the news items were sensationalistic, and of those, 3/4 got their hype from the press release.

In the journal articles themselves, they found that authors spun their own results a variety of ways. Most didn’t acknowledge that their results were not significant or chose to focus on smaller, significant findings instead of overall non-significant ones in their abstracts and conclusions, though some contained outright inappropriate interpretations of their data.

The press releases often built off of the spin in the studies. Of the press releases that contained spin, 93% were from studies that had spin in their abstracts. In fact, spin present in the study was the only significant factor associated with spin in the press release. A whopping 31% of press releases misinterpreted the scientists’ findings, with the vast majority conflating the benefits of the study’s tested treatment.

It’s not news that press releases are skewed. Previous research found that most press releases left out important caveats on safety or applicability of the research, and many flat out exaggerated the importance of results. “Our study adds to these results showing that ‘‘spin’’ in press releases and the news is related to the presence of ‘‘spin’’ in the published article,” say the authors. In other words – the root of the problem lies in how we write up research results in the first place.

The authors were sure to note that while their results are striking, their study has limitations. They ended up with only 41 trials paired with press releases and news articles—a small sample size with which to examine the whole of medical news reporting. They also focused solely on randomized controlled trials, a small subset of all medical research. Still, they feel that their results require further investigation, and that the burden of ensuring scientific rigor in reporting falls on the peer review system. “Reviewers and editors of published articles have an important role to play in the dissemination of research findings and should be particularly aware of the need to ensure that the conclusions reported are an appropriate reflection of the trial findings and do not overinterpret or misinterpret the results.”

All of this is not to say journalists are entirely innocent. Good journalism requires that you look beyond the press release to get at the heart of the study, and great science journalists know to take anything that comes out of a press office with a grain of salt. They read the study itself, and talk to not only the scientists who wrote the study but also other scientists in the field to really understand the importance of the research involved. Churnalism is definitely a problem that needs to be addressed alongside concerns of scientist bias and hyped press releases. Researchers, press officers and journalists all need to take responsibility for accurate and informative science communication.

Citation: Yavchitz A, Boutron I, Bafeta A, Marroun I, Charles P, et al. (2012) Misrepresentation of Randomized Controlled Trials in Press Releases and News Coverage: A Cohort Study. PLoS Med 9(9): e1001308. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001308.t004