In our latest study we found that samples taken from mothers and newborn babies younger than one week in Nigeria already had colistin-resistant bacteria present in their bodies. But neither the babies nor their mothers had been treated with colistin.

Colistin is one of the last remaining antibiotics that is still effective in killing bacteria and fighting infections such as pneumonia. It is deemed critically important for human medicine by the World Health Organization.

We surmise that mothers may have picked up these colistin resistant bacteria from the environment. We cannot speculate on the specific mechanism. The babies, meanwhile, could have picked up the bacteria from the hospital, the community, or from their mothers. It’s not yet known if these colistin-resistant bacteria stay in the mothers or babies – but if they do this may increase their chances of acquiring future drug-resistant infections.

Unions are joining the Biden administration’s campaign to promote scientific integrity and protect scientists from political interference

Earlier this month, the union representing thousands of scientists and engineers at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed a new contract that includes protections for government workers who stand up for scientific integrity. A similar provision was included in a union contract at the US Department of Agriculture last year, and negotiators for the union representing more than 5,000 early-career scientists at the National Institutes of Health are following suit. A contract could be signed in the next several months.

These collective bargaining agreements are the latest front in an ongoing effort to shield US science agencies from political interference. The administration of US President Joe Biden, who this week bowed out of the race for November’s presidential election, has already crafted legal protections for government scientists and other workers. It is now rushing to finalize scientific-integrity policies at dozens of federal agencies.

Political meddling in science has long been a bipartisan affair, but the current movement is fuelled by fears that former president Donald Trump will regain the office. Trump’s first term as president proved disastrous for scientists at the EPA and other science agencies, and many fear that a second term would be even worse.

If Trump wins November’s election, the next question is what will happen with the US Congress. If Republicans were to retain control over the House of Representatives and seize control of the Senate, Trump would have at least two years of free rein to reshape the government to his liking.

“People should not be confident that we have the legal tools to effectively respond to abuses of power in a second Trump administration,” says Blake Emerson, an administrative-law researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.

In a groundbreaking experiment, Japanese researchers transferred regenerative genes to fruit flies, leading to improved intestinal health and enhanced stem cell activity. This discovery opens new possibilities for anti-aging strategies in higher organisms, including humans, through targeted gene therapy.

ghost archive | Excerpts:

... findings with null or negative results — those that fail to find a relationship between variables or groups, or that go against the preconceived hypothesis — gather dust in favour of studies with positive or significant findings. A 2022 survey of scientists in France, for instance, found that 75% were willing to publish null results they had produced, but only 12.5% were able to do so2. Over time, this bias in publications distorts the scientific record, and a focus on significant results can encourage researchers to selectively report their data or exaggerate the statistical importance of their findings. It also wastes time and money, because researchers might duplicate studies that had already been conducted but not published. Some evidence suggests that the problem is getting worse, with fewer negative results seeing the light of day3 over time.

At the crux of both academic misconduct and publication bias is the same ‘publish or perish’ culture, perpetuated by academic institutions, research funders, scholarly journals and scientists themselves, that rewards researchers when they publish findings in prestigious venues, Scheel says.

But these academic gatekeepers have biases, say some critics, who argue that funders and top-tier journals often crave novelty and attention-grabbing findings. Journal editors worry that pages full of null results will attract fewer readers, says Simine Vazire, a psychologist at the University of Melbourne in Australia and editor of the journal Psychological Science.

One of the most significant changes to come out of the replication crisis is the expansion of preregistration (see ‘Registrations on the rise’), in which researchers must state their hypothesis and the outcomes they intend to measure in a public database at the outset of their study (this is already the norm in clinical trials). ... Preliminary data look promising: when Scheel and her colleagues compared the results of 71 registered reports with a random sample of 152 standard psychology manuscripts, they found that 44% of the registered reports had positive results, compared with 96% of the standard publications^7^ (see ‘Intent to publish’). And Nosek and his colleagues found that reviewers scored psychology and neuroscience registered reports higher on metrics of research rigour and quality compared with papers published under the standard model^8^.

A 98-year-old pioneering physicist who gave up her PhD 75 years ago to have a family has received an honorary doctorate from her old university.

In 1948, Rosemary Fowler's findings at the University of Bristol paved the way for critical discoveries that would rewrite the laws of physics.

Her discovery of the Kaon particle helped lead to a revolution in the theory of particle physics. But in a post-war Britain, she decided to leave academia when she married fellow physicist Peter Fowler in 1949 and went on to have three children.

Dr Fowler said she felt "very honoured", but added: "I haven't done anything since to deserve special respect."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/24292479

Abstract:

Although hundreds of dialogue programs geared towards conflict resolution are offered every year, there have been few scientific studies of their effectiveness.

Across 2 studies we examined the effect of controlled, dyadic interactions on attitudes towards the ‘other’ in members of groups involved in ideological conflict. Study 1 involved Mexican immigrants and White Americans in Arizona, and Study 2 involved Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East. Cross-group dyads interacted via video and text in a brief, structured, face-to-face exchange: one person was assigned to write about the difficulties of life in their society (‘perspective-giving’), and the second person was assigned to accurately summarize the statement of the first person (‘perspective-taking’).

Positive changes in attitudes towards the outgroup were greater for Mexican immigrants and Palestinians after perspective-giving and for White Americans and Israelis after perspective-taking. For Palestinians, perspective-giving to an Israeli effectively changed attitudes towards Israelis, while a control condition in which they wrote an essay on the same topic without interacting had no effect on attitudes, illustrating the critical role of being heard.

Thus, the effects of dialogue for conflict resolution depend on an interaction between dialogue condition and participants' group membership, which may reflect power asymmetries.

study and abstract:

A single dose of psilocybin, a psychedelic that acutely causes distortions of space–time perception and ego dissolution, produces rapid and persistent therapeutic effects in human clinical trials. In animal models, psilocybin induces neuroplasticity in cortex and hippocampus. It remains unclear how human brain network changes relate to subjective and lasting effects of psychedelics. Here we tracked individual-specific brain changes with longitudinal precision functional mapping (roughly 18 magnetic resonance imaging visits per participant). Healthy adults were tracked before, during and for 3 weeks after high-dose psilocybin (25 mg) and methylphenidate (40 mg), and brought back for an additional psilocybin dose 6–12 months later. Psilocybin massively disrupted functional connectivity (FC) in cortex and subcortex, acutely causing more than threefold greater change than methylphenidate. These FC changes were driven by brain desynchronization across spatial scales (areal, global), which dissolved network distinctions by reducing correlations within and anticorrelations between networks. Psilocybin-driven FC changes were strongest in the default mode network, which is connected to the anterior hippocampus and is thought to create our sense of space, time and self. Individual differences in FC changes were strongly linked to the subjective psychedelic experience. Performing a perceptual task reduced psilocybin-driven FC changes. Psilocybin caused persistent decrease in FC between the anterior hippocampus and default mode network, lasting for weeks. Persistent reduction of hippocampal-default mode network connectivity may represent a neuroanatomical and mechanistic correlate of the proplasticity and therapeutic effects of psychedelics.

Reading and writing articles published in academic journals and presented at conferences is a central part of being a researcher. When researchers write a scholarly article, they must cite the work of peers to provide context, detail sources of inspiration and explain differences in approaches and results. A positive citation by other researchers is a key measure of visibility for a researcher’s own work.

But what happens when this citation system is manipulated? A recent Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology articleby our team of academic sleuths – which includes information scientists, a computer scientist and a mathematician – has revealed an insidious method to artificially inflate citation counts through metadata manipulations: sneaked references.

Here is the study: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adn9310 (archived)

Spanish paleoanthropologists from the University of Alcala discovered that Neanderthals exhibited social behaviors such as compassion for seriously ill children. The research was published in the scientific journal magazine Science Advances (SciAdv).

The conclusions of scientists are based on the analysis of fossilized remains of a small group of representatives of this species, related to humans, who lived between 273 thousand and 146 thousand years ago in the Cova Negra cave in the province of Valencia, on the territory of modern Spain. Years ago.

Researchers discovered the skeleton of a young Neanderthal man who was about six years old when he died. Although researchers were not sure what the child’s gender was, she was named Tina.

As the analysis showed, Tina suffered from a severe inner ear pathology from birth, which caused complete deafness, attacks of severe dizziness and the inability to maintain balance. It was clear that he could not survive in the prehistoric world without the constant care of his adult relatives.

Scientists noted that Tina’s survival to the age of six indicates that her team provided the necessary care for the child and her mother throughout this period.

According to anthropologists, this discovery proves that Neanderthals felt compassion and did not act solely for pragmatic reasons.

“For decades, Neanderthals have been known to care for and protect their vulnerable companions. However, all known cases of grooming involved adults, leading some scientists to believe that such behavior is not true altruism but merely an exchange of mutual aid between equals,” said lead study author Mercedes Conde-Valverde.

Scientists also noted that Tina’s discovery represents the earliest known case of Down syndrome, as their pathology only occurs in people with the condition.

Previous researchers discovered The link between Neanderthal genes and autism.

Many male insects only get to mate once, even when they aren’t eaten by their partners. For example, male bees ejaculate with such explosive force that it is loud enough for humans to hear. This ensures the sperm is passed to the female, but it results in paralysis of the male, which kills him.

GeoGPT, a big-data artificial intelligence project aimed at geoscientists and researchers particularly in the global south and built by the Chinese tech company Alibaba, aims at helping develop their understanding of earth sciences by drawing on swaths of data and research on billions of years of the planet’s history.

Now, Professor Paul H Cleverley, Geologist and Computer Scientist at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland, says that he has found "serious issues around a lack of transparency, state censorship, and potential copyright infringement" that may not "align with the UNESCO’s recommendations on the ethics of AI".

Professir Cleverly writes:

During my testing, I found that the answers to some of my geoscience questions were state censored, which wasn’t always made clear. DDE [Deep-time Digital Earth, the first big-data project recognised by the International Union of Geological Sciences] is an international consortium with a governing body that includes geologists from across the globe, and aims to serve an international audience, yet virtually all DDE technology is developed, hosted and funded by sources in China [...], and the China Academy of Sciences cites DDE as critical for enhancing China’s capabilities of detecting and securing global resources [...]

Ethically, I argue strongly that any tool developed in the name of and for the international geological community should never be based on AI that could be subject to any government censorship.

GeoGPT does not currently attribute the source or authors for its answers., Professor Cleverley adds. "To not recognise the research contribution of geoscientists is unethical."

In a response to Professor Cleverley , DDE said that they "recognise that there are challenges in communication and governance that we are working to solve."

[Edit typo.]

Macaque monkeys got on better with others in their social groups after a devastating hurricane, according to researchers.

"There's still competition within your groups the way it was before [the hurricane], but the rules of the game have changed since then. What really seems to be important, are the risks of not living, heat, stress and getting access to shade," said Professor Lauren Brent, from the University of Exeter.--

Researchers studied the impacts of a hurricane on a population of Rhesus macaques on an island off Puerto Rico.

Temperatures are often around 40C so shade is a precious resource for macaques, since tree cover is still far below pre-hurricane levels.

Macaques, who are known for being aggressive and competitive, have become more tolerant of one another to get access to scarce shade.

"It's extremely hot, it's not just uncomfortable, but actually dangerous for one's health if you don't manage to lower your body temperature," said Dr Camille Testard, a neuroscience research fellow at Harvard.

In 2017 Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, killing more than 3,000 people and destroying 63% of the vegetation on Cayo Santiago.

The island is also known as Monkey Island and is home to the macaques studied by the researchers.

The study, which was led by the universities of Pennsylvania and Exeter and published in the journal Science, found that storm damage changed the evolutionary benefits of sharing shade and tolerating others.

"We expected that after the disaster in a more competitive landscape with less shade resources, you would have perhaps more aggression. But actually, that's really not what we found. We found the opposite pattern," said Dr Testard.

Using data collected before and after the hurricane, the researchers examined the strength and number of social ties among macaques.

Whether it's food or shade, macaques aren't known for being very good at sharing resources.

Due to the increased tolerance, more macaques were able to access scarce shade, which is crucial to their survival.

"There's still competition within your groups the way it was before, but the rules of the game have changed since then. What really seems to be important, are the risks of not living, heat, stress and getting access to shade," said Professor Lauren Brent, from the University of Exeter.

Researchers found that the macaques' increased tolerance spilled over into other aspects of their daily lives.

Macaques that had been sharing shade were also spending time together in the mornings, before the heat forced them to seek shade.

In effect, the hurricane changed the rules of the game in the monkeys’ society.

Scientists described their “detective work” in the forests of Uganda - observing animals that appeared injured or sick to work out whether they were self-medicating with plants.

When an injured animal sought out something specific from the forest to eat, the researchers collected samples of that plant and had it analysed. Most of the plants tested turned out to have antibacterial properties.

The scientists, who published their findings in the journal PLOS One, think the chimps could even help in the search for new medicines.

"We can't test everything in these forests for their medicinal properties, lead researcher Dr Elodie Freymann, from the University of Oxford, said. “So why not test the plants that we have this information about - plants the chimps are seeking out?”

Over the past four years, Dr Freymann has spent months at a time following and carefully observing two communities of wild chimpanzees in Budongo Central Forest Reserve.

As well as looking for signs of pain - an animal limping or holding its body in an unusual way - she and her colleagues collected samples of droppings and urine to check for illness and infection.

They paid particular attention when an injured or ill chimpanzee sought out something they do not normally eat - such as tree bark or fruit skin.

“We were looking for these behavioural clues that the plants might be medicinal,” Dr Freymann explained.

She described one particular chimp - a male - that had a badly wounded hand.

"He wasn't using the hand to walk, he was limping,” she recalled. While the rest of this animal’s group were sitting around eating, the injured chimp limped away looking for ferns. “He was the only chimp to seek out and eat these ferns.”

The researchers collected and analysed the fern - a plant called Christella parasitica, which turned out to have potent anti-inflammatory properties.

In total, the researchers collected 17 samples from 13 different plant species and sent them to be tested by Dr Fabien Schultz, at the Neubrandenburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany.

That revealed that almost 90% of the extracts inhibited bacterial growth, and a third had natural anti-inflammatory properties, meaning they could reduce pain and promote healing.

All the injured and ill chimps reported in this study fully recovered, Dr Freymann was happy to report. “The one who ate ferns was using his hand again within the next few days,” she explained.

“Of course, we can't 100% prove that any of these cases were a direct result of eating these resources,” she told BBC News.

“But it highlights the medicinal knowledge that can be gained from observing other species in the wild and underscores the urgent need to preserve these ‘forest pharmacies’ for future generations.”

We can best view the method of science as the use of our sophisticated methodological toolbox

Metadata

• Author: OUP Academic
• Category: article
• URL: https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/3/4/pgae112/7626940?login=false

Highlights

Scientific, medical, and technological knowledge has transformed our world, but we still poorly understand the nature of scientific methodology.

scientific methodology has not been systematically analyzed using large-scale data and scientific methods themselves as it is viewed as not easily amenable to scientific study.

This study reveals that 25% of all discoveries since 1900 did not apply the common scientific method (all three features)—with 6% of discoveries using no observation, 23% using no experimentation, and 17% not testing a hypothesis.

Empirical evidence thus challenges the common view of the scientific method.

This provides a new perspective to the scientific method—embedded in our sophisticated methods and instruments—and suggests that we need to reform and extend the way we view the scientific method and discovery process.

In fact, hundreds of major scientific discoveries did not use “the scientific method”, as defined in science dictionaries as the combined process of “the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses” (1). In other words, it is “The process of observing, asking questions, and seeking answers through tests and experiments” (2, cf. 3).

In general, this universal method is commonly viewed as a unifying method of science and can be traced back at least to Francis Bacon's theory of scientific methodology in 1620 which popularized the concept

Science thus does not always fit the textbook definition.

Comparison across fields provides evidence that the common scientific method was not applied in making about half of all Nobel Prize discoveries in astronomy, economics and social sciences, and a quarter of such discoveries in physics, as highlighted in Fig. 2b. Some discoveries are thus non-experimental and more theoretical in nature, while others are made in an exploratory way, without explicitly formulating and testing a preestablished hypothesis.

We find that one general feature of scientific methodology is applied in making science's major discoveries: the use of sophisticated methods or instruments. These are defined here as scientific methods and instruments that extend our cognitive and sensory abilities—such as statistical methods, lasers, and chromatography methods. They are external resources (material artifacts) that can be shared and used by others—whereas observing, hypothesizing, and experimenting are, in contrast, largely internal (cognitive) abilities that are not material (Fig. 2).

Just as science has evolved, so should the classic scientific method—which is construed in such general terms that it would be better described as a basic method of reasoning used for human activities (non-scientific and scientific).

An experimental research design was not carried out when Einstein developed the law of the photoelectric effect in 1905 or when Franklin, Crick, and Watson discovered the double helix structure of DNA in 1953 using observational images developed by Franklin.

Direct observation was not made when for example Penrose developed the mathematical proof for black holes in 1965 or when Prigogine developed the theory of dissipative structures in thermodynamics in 1969. A hypothesis was not directly tested when Jerne developed the natural-selection theory of antibody formation in 1955 or when Peebles developed the theoretical framework of physical cosmology in 1965.

Sophisticated methods make research more accurate and reliable and enable us to evaluate the quality of research.

Applying observation and a complex method or instrument, together, is decisive in producing nearly all major discoveries at 94%, illustrating the central importance of empirical sciences in driving discovery and science.