Information overload

One of my favourite cartoons, which I’ve pasted on my desktop pc, exhibits a person with just a little seashore pail standing on a seashore whereas an enormous wave (which appears to be like just like the woodcut “Great Wave Of Kanagawa” by Katsushika Hokusa) is about to interrupt over him. The man is saying, “Eureka! More information.”

(I am unable to present the cartoon right here as a result of it is copyrighted. I used to be going to hyperlink to the writer Ted Goff’s web page, however he is apparently updating his web site and the hyperlinks do not work for now.)

This cartoon illustrates how I really feel about science information nowadays. I get about 150 Eurekalert science press releases day by day, in addition to the tables of contents from plenty of journals. And it appears as if simply as some truth is usually accepted, a paper comes out refuting that truth.

Also, science analysis is getting way more technical nowadays. Unless a research is commissioned by some business group just like the the California Walnut Commission, which funds plenty of research exhibiting the well being advantages of walnuts when a few of these advantages could be discovered by consuming related nuts, individuals not are likely to publish easy research saying that issue X will increase or decreases diabetes symptom Y. Instead the authors (usually 20 or extra) drill all the way down to the molecular stage and attempt to present that issue X will increase or decreases the extent of quite a few cell elements that govern gene expression or hormone exercise.

Unless the reader has a background in biochemistry or molecular biology, I determine the reader in all probability would not perceive these research (typically I do not both), so there is no level in discussing them.

Also,  except I feel there is a main flaw within the proof, I see no must hyperlink to a research that has been picked up by all of the information media, one thing like “Eating pickles and figs will make you lose 10 pounds in a week.” You’ll most probably see that research on the TV information anyway.

All this can be a manner of explaining why I am not running a blog a lot for the time being. But I have not disappeared. I proceed to attempt to sustain with new analysis developments, and when one thing each fascinating and understandable by the typical reader comes out, I am going to let .

Hang in there. I am making an attempt to.