In an article being published in PLOS ONE, a leading social science research journal, two researchers (one from the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago and the other from Western University in London Ontario Canada) found that when anticipating a mathematical task or activity, persons with higher levels of mathematics anxiety experience brain activity in regions associated with threats and pain.
Some of the mathematical tasks that the subjects were asked to imagine include “Receiving a math textbook,” “Walking to a math class,” “Being given a set of addition problems to solve on paper”, and “Realizing you have
Continue reading Does math anxiety trigger pain networks in the brain?
It a ruling that has drawn international attention (and outrage), a judge in L’Aquila, Italy ruled that seven scientists and seismology experts were guilty of “manslaughter,” because on 31 Mar 2009 they assured local residents that there did not seem any imminent risk of danger from an earthquake, yet an earthquake struck a few days later, tragically killing 300 persons.
But as anyone familiar with earthquake science will attest, there is no known technology for predicting earthquakes, except in a general sense to warn that certain regions, based on regional geology and past patterns of earthquakes, appear to be more
Continue reading Italian judge rules scientists guilty of “manslaughter” for failing to predict earthquake
In an era when many critics of the scientific “establishment” claim that scientists are mostly concerned about circling the wagons to protect funding of their existing pet projects, and in the wake of the battle brewing in the U.S. over the funding of nuclear fusion research in particular, it is interesting to read comments by Robert Hirsch, a senior researcher in the fusion science field, in a speech he recently gave at a fusion workshop.
Here is a brief summary:
After decades of effort, and although a great deal has been learned and accomplished, the stark fact is no
Continue reading Fusion scientist suggests new direction for the field
Many of us were disappointed not to see any serious mention of scientific issues in the recent U.S. presidential debates. Global warming, for example, was never discussed at all, even in the last debate on foreign policy, where it would have naturally fit.
After all, even the U.S. military has now recognized the reality of global warming, and is preparing for a world where climate changes alter the geopolitical landscape in new and potentially very dangerous ways. Among the perils are increasing droughts and crop failures, as well as rising sea levels that render uninhabitable large swaths of currently
Continue reading Antiscience beliefs and U.S. politics
Recently there has been a rash of reports of scientific discoveries that, if the facts were fully known, should not have been publicized, to put it mildly. In most cases, the journalists reporting the work failed to rigorously investigate the background of the discovery to determine if it was real, sound and truly worthy of being reported in major news sources.
Some other upsetting examples are discussed in our 2011 Conversation article “When things don’t add up: statistics, maths and scientific fraud“. In addition, very recent analysis shows that deliberate scientific fraud in the biomedical areas — as
Continue reading The heart of the matter: do scientific journalists need ground rules?
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