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scientific misconduct
+ a behind-the-scenes look at how Brian Wansink’s Cornell Food and Brand Lab turned shoddy data into viral studies (anthologized in The Best American Food Writing) … and how it sought to do damage control when its errors started getting discovered … and the saga of a twice-retracted study about Elmo, apples, and cookies … and a $10,000 Kickstarter for a weight-loss program that never materialized … and more
+ the rise and fall of CrossFit’s science crusader
+ a fraudulent study about, of all things, honesty …
+ … that turned out, of all things, to be doubly fraudulent (more on that here, here, and here)
+ an experiment in paying science watchdogs

research controversies and society
+ how a fight over science and social media got messy, fast
+ AI scientists have a problem of their own making: AI bots are peer-reviewing them
+ a paper hailed as a win for science reform gets retracted
+ is a world-famous misinformation expert spreading misinformation?
+ a little museum’s big problem with looted antiquities
+ a Stanford professor’s divisive role in the math education wars
+ a new direction for climate-change research at Stanford, shaped with Big Oil input

the covid pandemic
+ a very controversial antibody study in California (noted in The Best American Science and Nature Writing) … and an email claiming it would reveal if participants could “return to work without fear” … and a whistleblower complaint alleging that the study was partly funded by the founder of JetBlue … and an elite group of scientists who tried to warn President Trump against lockdowns in March 2020 … and a controversial “herd immunity” plan
+ preprints in the era of viral outbreaks and viral misinformation
+ an ivermectin trial in Argentina that doesn’t add up (with Ken Bensinger)
+ a feud between a data sleuth and a powerful COVID scientist
+ studies that say it’s safe to fly during COVID (funded by airlines that would really like you to fly during COVID)

inequalities in health & science
+ an anatomy of a racial reckoning in medicine
+ hundreds of uncounted deaths caused by Texas’s winter storm (with Peter Aldhous and Zahra Hirji)
+ scholars boycotting a prestigious medical journal that said “no physician is racist”
+ Yale astronomers skeptical of systemic racism because they hired one Black employee 35 years ago

food
+ a never-browning apple and what it means for the future of food
+ an alleged giant avocado heist
+ the all-meat, all the time diet that supposedly cured Jordan Peterson and his daughter
+ a bogus food intolerance test plugged by B-list celebrities
+ apricot seeds can poison you — but are peddled online as a cancer cure
+ the salt industry’s secret involvement with a controversial prison study
+ pro-pasta science bankrolled by Big Pasta
+ a former dentist on a quest to excavate the secrets of Big Sugar

vaping
+ leaked Juul documents that undermine a former executive’s claim of “contaminated” pods
+ leaked audio and chats showing Juul staff morale to be at “an all-time low”
+ scoops on Juul executive moves and departures, and withdrawals from international markets
+ a Stanford professor who says Juul stole her anti-vaping PowerPoint slides

tech, health care & culture
+ real-life scientists who got to play scientists in Oppenheimer
+ a biotech startup CEO who didn’t actually have a PhD
+ the anti-science forces seeding doubt about climate change and vaccines online
+ dozens of people who went in for routine cataract surgery and left nearly blind
+ Silicon Valley’s obsession with sleep
+ secret DNA-analysis software sending people to prison
+ surrogacy in India

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