Development: 2015

In an effort to make it easier for the TIL community to verify submissions, we're kindly asking that contributors make a top level comment after submitting a TIL quoting the relevant text from their source (which should be concisely paraphrased in the submission title). This is not currently a requirement, but we'd appreciate it if everyone would try their best to do it. If the TIL you are posting is linking to a Wikipedia page, please directly link to the section of the Wikipedia page that is relevant to your TIL submission.

In most cases this will be 2 - 3 sentences, but up to 4 - 5 should be fine if more context is required. If it's not possible to copy/paste the text, then a screenshot of the relevant part (preferably highlighted) or indicating where in the link provided is the relevant piece of information located is also acceptable. If the source includes audio or video, then please link to the pertin ent time stamp and transcribe it.

Note that if a source is just a table, graph or other raw data/statistics then you won't be able to quote it (by design) -- find another source (and see below for an explanation).

We'd also like to clarify our first rule about submissions needing to be verifiable with a reliable source that completely supports the claims in the post title. This means that you cannot interpret data and draw your own conclusions -- everything must be clearly and explicitly stated in your source, in words.

We encounter a lot of issues when people try to submit technical papers, statistical data or other studies that may support a claim, but one that the authors don't explicitly make (and hence subject to extra scrutiny). You have to make it clear when a source just provides evidence supporting/refuting a hypothesis, but doesn't go as far as explicitly statin g it as an accepted fact.

This means that merely quoting statistics and implicitly generalizing the results of a study is often not acceptable. You also need to be diligent about not misleading people with overly simplified, outdated or refuted claims.

As an example, you may come across a paper describing a study where coffee consumption was found to be associated with reduced incidents of cancer. A misleading and unacceptable conclusion would be^1:

TIL coffee can cure 58% of cancer patients

On the other hand, this would possibly be acceptable as the details make it clear that the result is not definitive:

TIL a 2004 study found that coffee consumption was negatively correlated with incidents of bowel cancer in senior citizens

You still have to do your research, because if this was later disproven or brought into question then it may subsequently r emoved as misleading by omission. A variation that may better address this is:

TIL a 2004 study found that coffee consumption was negatively correlated with incidents of bowel cancer in senior citizens, however subsequent research was unable to replicate the results

Of course at this point your TIL is less of an attention grabber and not particularly noteworthy, but hopefully this highlights some of the issues we face with verifying sensational claims.

¹ unless the authors made the same unconditional claim (which is highly unlikely).

While we do our best to verify submissions and remain objective, please note that extraordinary or controversial claims will likely be subject to more scrutiny and it is up to contributors to make them as airtight as possible (and us to be pedantic).

TL;DR: be extremely careful with primary sources, and don't interpret d ata/statistics yourself -- find a reliable source that does that for you and paraphrase.

As always, we encourage everyone to report rule violations and send us a message about inaccurate TILs. If you feel something was unfairly removed then please first check the comments and then feel free to ask us (we try our best to tag all removals, but this system is somewhat limited).

submitted by TILMods
[link] [73 comments]

Persons with moderate or severe depression treated with antidepressants seemed to show lower rates of death, coronary artery disease and stroke than those who didn't take the drugs, according to a new

submitted by AnusOfSpeed
[link] [22 comments]

Police lineups cause false accusations up to 60% of the time. But now scientists are exploring "nose-witness testimony" in a new study that suggests victims may be able to identify their attackers bas

submitted by brokeglass [link] [244 comments]

Autism detection improved by multimodal neuroimaging

submitted by N8theGr8 [link] [comment]

Science AMA Series: We are Susannah Burrows and Scott Elliott, atmospheric scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory, who developed an approach to simulate

Atmospheric researchers at PNNL (/u/Dr_Susannah_Burrows) and LANL (/u/Dr_Scott_Elliott) worked together to develop a new approach to simulating how microscopic sea organisms known as phytoplankton â€" which includes a mix of algae, bacteria, and other microbes so tiny they are invisible to the naked eye â€" affect chemistry at the oceanâ€™s surface. The mix is constantly made airborne by crashing oceans waves through sea spray, which ultimately impacts cloud properties and the energy balance of the planet. Thatâ€™s because sea spray can influence the amount of sunlight that clouds reflect away from the Earth and its oceans, which normally act as a heat sink for the planet. A synopsis of this research is at https://www.pnnl.gov/science/highlights/highlight.asp?id=3895, and our paper, published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, is available at http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/14/13601/2014/acp-14-13601-2014.html. If you want to know how sea spray affects the warming and cooli ng of the planet, weâ€™ll answer your questions about the complex interactions of aerosol particles, ocean life and cloud systems, sunlight and precipitation processes â€" all important factors in modeling the Earthâ€™s climate. We will be back at 1 pm EST (10 am PST, 6 pm UTC) to answer questions â€¦ Ask us anything! UPDATE: Thanks from Susannah at PNNL! It was a pleasure to interact with you today and share our research. To learn more about our work in atmospheric sciences at PNNL, visit our program page at http://www.pnnl.gov/atmospheric/. To follow PNNL, we encourage you to follow us on Twitter at @PNNLab, Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/PNNLgov and Google+ at https://plus.google.com/100922732508111452182. We also have a new newsletter called Currents. Subscribe at http://bit.ly/CurrentsSubscribe. Thanks from Scott at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Read more about Los Alamos' climate modeling work here: http://www.lanl.gov/science-innovation/capabilities/earth-s pace-sciences/climate-modeling/index.php. And you can follow us on Twitter @LosAlamosNatLab and @LANL_Earth Facebook, Flickr, YouTube. We're going to be signing out now, but we might come back and answer more questions if we have time! Thanks for participating, everyone! submitted by Dr_Susannah_Burrows [link] [227 comments]

samedi 7 mars 2015

Science AMA Series: We are Susannah Burrows and Scott Elliott, atmospheric scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory, who developed an approach to simulate

Science AMA Series: Iâ€™m Professor Mady Hornig at Columbia Universityâ€™s Mailman School of Public Health, Ask Me Anything about chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS)!

Hi, Iâ€™m Mady Hornig, a psychiatrist whoâ€™s also a neuroimmunologist and epidemiologist. I recently published a paper that identifies distinct immune changes in patients diagnosed with ME/CFS. The findings represent the first robust physical evidence that ME/CFS is a biological illness as opposed to a psychological disorder, and the first evidence that the disease has distinct stages, which could lead to a blood test to diagnose the disease as well as treatment options, including some that are already on the market. (Read more in stories in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.) Our study, which wouldnâ€™t have been possible without the strong support of the ME/CFS community (including through an ongoing crowd-funding campaign), as well as the Chronic Fatigue Initiative of the Hutchins Family Foundation, gives credence to the idea that ME/CFS may reflect an infectious â€œhit-and-runâ€ event. Patients often report getting sick, sometimes from something as common as in fectious mononucleosis (Epstein-Barr virus), and never fully recover. Our research suggests that these infections throw a wrench in the immune systemâ€™s ability to quiet itself after the acute infection, to return to a homeostatic balance; the immune response becomes like a car stuck in high gear as demonstrated by the elevated cytokine levels found in our study. At the Center for Infection and Immunity, we are continuing to study the ME/CFS immune changes in a more in-depth study. We are also looking for â€œmolecular footprintsâ€ of the specific agents that might trigger the diseaseâ€"be they viral, bacterial, or fungal. Update: Hereâ€™s a video where I touch on some of the new research findings: http://www.mailman.columbia.edu/news/chronic-fatigue-moves-out-shadows I will be back at 1pm EST (10 am PST, 6 pm UTC) to answer questions, Ask Me Anything! Update: I just logged in. Iâ€™m going to start answering questions now. Thanks for all your interest! Update: Here's s ome information on ME/CFS research and funding. The patient driven crowd funding team is The Microbe Discovery Project, their Facebook page is: The Microbe Discovery Project: https://www.facebook.com/microbediscovery?fref=ts and their website is: http://www.microbediscovery.org/. The Chronic Fatigue Initiative at Hutchins Family Foundation: http://cfinitiative.org/. And to give directly to our effort. Update: I have finished answering questions here. Thanks so much for all the excellent questions! And thanks to everyone who joined the conversation here and read the discussion! submitted by Prof_Mady_Hornig [link] [677 comments]