Computing
‘The Imitation Game’ entertains at the expense of accuracy
Inaccuracies weaken “The Imitation Game,” an otherwise enjoyable film about Alan Turing breaking the Enigma code during World War II.
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Animals
Amazonian bird may act the part of its hairy caterpillar disguise
A rare view of a baby cinereous mourner feeds debate over whether the bird both looks and acts the part of a toxic hairy caterpillar as defense against predators.
Notebook
Health & Medicine
Foul smells during sleep may help smokers quit
A night of smelling rotten eggs and fish while inhaling cigarette odors makes smokers reach for fewer cigarettes upon waking.
Features
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Pumping carbon dioxide deep underground may trigger earthquakes
Injecting carbon dioxide deep underground offers a promising way to curb global warming, but the extra pressure may cause faults to slip or fractures to release the buried gas.
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Is redoing scientific research the best way to find truth?
Researchers don’t even agree on whether it is necessary to duplicate studies exactly or to validate the underlying principles.
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12 reasons research goes wrong
Barriers to research replication are based largely in a scientific culture that pits researchers against each other in competition for scarce resources. Here are a few that skew results.
More Stories from the January 24, 2015 issue
- Health & Medicine
Hallucinated voices’ attitudes vary with culture
Culture puts good or bad spin on voices heard by people with schizophrenia.
- Health & Medicine
Gene variant linked to robust flu vaccine response
Targeting an immune signaling protein called interleukin-28B might boost protection generated by flu shots.
- Ecosystems
Bee losses followed World Wars
British historical records show a century-long decline of important pollinators: bees and some wasps.
- Health & Medicine
Old product might help smokers quit
A drug used in Eastern Europe for decades by people trying to quit smoking outperformed a nicotine patch in a six-month test.
- Climate
Super typhoon shoved supersized boulder
Typhoon Haiyan pushed a 180-ton boulder, the most massive rock ever seen moved by a storm.
- Chemistry
Nylon goes green
A new simple chemical reaction makes manufacturing nylon less harmful to the planet.
- Animals
Crows may be able to make analogies
Crows with little training pass a lab test for analogical reasoning that requires matching similar or different icons.
- Archaeology
Ancient Egyptian blue glass beads reached Scandinavia
Chemical analysis of Danish discoveries extends northern reach of Bronze Age trade.
- Life
Bird flu follows avian flyways
A deadly bird flu virus spreads along wildfowl migration routes in Asia.
- Animals
Rock ants favor left turns in unfamiliar crevices
Rock ants’ bias for turning left in mazes, a bit like handedness in people, may reflect different specializations in the halves of their nervous system.
- Life
Hydrogen sulfide offers clue to how reducing calories lengthens lives
Cutting calories boosts hydrogen sulfide production, which leads to more resilient cells and longer lives, a new study suggests.
- Astronomy
Europa’s geysers play hard-to-see
Follow-up observations of Europa failed to confirm the existence of geysers venting the Jupiter moon’s hidden ocean into space.
- Health & Medicine
Priming the elderly for flu shots
A drug that shuts down a potent signaling molecule in cells might boost protection elicited with flu vaccination, a study finds.
- Life
Contamination blamed in STAP stem cell debacle
Stem cells supposedly made in acid baths were really embryonic stem cells, investigation finds.
- Environment
Trash researcher tallies ocean pollution
Marcus Eriksen has always had a thing for trash, and now he tallies ocean pollution.
- Life
Insect-eating bats implicated as Ebola outbreak source
Insect-eating bats, not fruit bats, may have started the Ebola epidemic.
- Humans
Babbling to babies is OK, despite previous warnings against it
Fifty years ago, a researcher advised banning baby talk, but results since then say otherwise.
