Ideas / Findings
Industrial-Strength Bias
Research Blogging / by / November 18, 2009
The pharmaceutical industry spends millions of dollars developing drugs and millions more swaying the opinions of physicians and the public. Can this imperfect system be reformed?
Now In Findings
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A Writing Revolution
Nearly universal literacy is a defining characteristic of today’s modern civilization; nearly universal authorship will shape tomorrow's.
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Up the Cosmic Distance Ladder
The development of astronomy can be seen as a millennia-long quest to measure and know the true scale of the natural world.
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Evolved for Extinction?
Could the novel evolutionary adaptations of animals like the Galapagos tortoise and the Komodo dragon actually leave these species more vulnerable to extinction?
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Microbial Warfare
Antibiotic resistance is more than just a medical scourge; it’s also a window into a war microbes have been waging against each other for hundreds of millions of years.
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Uncovering Ardi
Anthropologist John Hawks explains why Ardi, the oldest known skeleton of a human-like primate, matters so much to the science of human origins.
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The Dead Zone Dilemma
Is saving our atmosphere killing our seas? Biofuels may stifle global warming, but scientists warn that agricultural runoff causes new problems.
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Rethinking Addiction
What makes someone an addict? The clinical definition of drug “dependence” is flexible, but may still mislabel individual choices as disorders.
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This Image Is Not Moving
Optical illusions may seem to deceive, but they actually reveal truths about how our brains construct reality.
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Molecular Mimicry
New biological research has revealed mimicry at the molecular scale that could have profound implications for medicine and industry.
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Acupuncture: Real or Sham?
Controls for acupuncture studies are improving. Their results are not. How are peer reviewers reacting?
Research Blogging
Probing into Depression
Deep brain stimulation, already established as a treatment for stubborn Parkinson’s disease, may also be useful as a therapy for drug-resistant clinical depression.
Research Blogging
Sweet Obesity
As obesity rates soar, Americans are consuming more low-calorie artificial sweeteners. But do artificial sweeteners actually help people lose weight?
Research Blogging
Dave Munger
Overhyped Placebos of Doom?
Despite centuries of investigation, scientists still have much to learn about the origins and meaning of the placebo effect.
Research Blogging
Dave Munger
Saturn’s Strange Children
Spacecraft observations of giant tenuous rings, two-toned moons, and methane fogs are showing Saturn’s moons to be even more alien than previously believed.
Now on SEEDMAGAZINE.COM
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Innovation
Let There Be Light
Astronomers will soon find scores of Earth-sized exoplanets, but imaging them may be decades away. That is, unless NASA decides to build a starshade.
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Ideas
Into the Uncanny Valley
New findings shed light on a century’s worth of bizarre explanations for the eerie feeling we get around lifelike robots.
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World
Signs from Above
The release of an apocalyptic movie prompts NASA to debunk planetary rumors, fowl play shuts down the LHC, and the Catholic Church discusses alien life.
