Journalists’ brains show a lower-than-average level of executive functioning, according to a new study, which means they have a below-average ability to regulate their emotions, suppress biases, solve complex problems, switch between tasks, and show creative and flexible thinking.
The Sound Of Settled Science
What Would We Do Without “Gold Standard” Researchers?
How a tiny circle of repeat offenders poisoned 100s of gold-standard medical trials for over a decade… and didn’t go to jail.
In a recent study, researchers set out to investigate how many retracted randomized clinical trials were linked to superretractors (authors with the most retractions) and to highly cited authors with multiple retractions.
They found that just 6 superretractors were co-authors on 22% of all retracted clinical trials studied, 5 were based in Japan, and 1 was from Germany. Also, a group of 18 top-cited scientists were involved in 25% of all retracted trials. The retractions were highly concentrated in specific areas like anesthesiology, endocrinology and metabolism.[…]
To become a superretractor, first, a researcher must produce large volumes of unreliable, duplicate, or fabricated work, often fueled by the publish or perish system of academia that rewards output over rigor and lacks strong oversight. Second, that misconduct has to be uncovered through investigation and exposure.
Superretractors can also act as superspreaders of contaminated research. When flawed or fabricated trials enter systematic reviews and meta-analyses, they are amplified and woven into widely used evidence summaries. By the time a study is retracted, it has often already shaped these studies referenced for developing clinical guidelines that doctors rely on. The result is a cascade of distorted evidence that can translate into incorrect, even harmful, decisions in patient care.
Splashdown!
🚨 NOW: HUNDREDS of flight controllers just surged into the flight control room to watch the Artemis II crew safely exit the capsule after splashdown
History is being made!
Furthest in space EVER 🔥 pic.twitter.com/6gE773PINP
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 11, 2026
Please share any great links you have!
What Would We Do Without China?
Research papers that list Chinese institutions account for more than half of the retractions across 10 academic publishers, according to a new large-scale analysis.
The study, which has not been peer reviewed yet, was published on arXiv last month and examined 46,000 retractions issued by scholarly journals between 1997 and 2026 that were indexed by the Retraction Watch Database.
According to the study, there were 29,867 Chinese affiliations listed on these retractions – more than 91% of which don’t list international collaborators. Researchers in China produced 16.5% of all research output during that time period, the study found, despite the country’s institutions being listed on more than 52% of retracted papers in the sample.
Following China, institutions based in India, the US and Saudi Arabia feature on 7.25%, 5.72% and 2.83% of retractions, respectively.
Preview of the Return of Artemis 2
Much will be happening later today when Artemis 2 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego. Here’s a detailed preview.
Higher Unlearning
From what I’ve read of the subject, a lot of modern physics consists of the manipulation of mathematical formulas that are largely self-referential and bear little or no relation to reality. A lot like modern economics, in fact. The laws of logic, causality and identity are just so old school, I guess.
Basically, a key piece of mathematics creates bulk masses of fermions that are manifested in the so-called fifth dimensional warped space. This pocket “dark sector” is one possible way to explain the huge amount of dark matter that, so far, has eluded detection using any traditional measurements designed for the standard model of physics. Fermions jammed through a portal to a warped fifth dimension could be “acting as” dark matter.
Not Going Boldly, If At All
When space exploration is stupefied by progressive imperatives:
We are, however, told that we need more deaf and disabled people in space. Because space exploration just isn’t difficult enough and dangerous enough as it is. And choosing astronauts with hearing problems, poor eyesight and motor-control issues will make things much more exciting.
And frankly. when you’re asking, apparently in all seriousness, how a mission to Mars would benefit Black Lives Matter, as if it somehow should, I think we can say that the foolishness in the room has risen to hazardous levels.
Oh, there’s more. Much more.
International CisWomens Day
To mark International Women's Day, I remind readers of Nature of this woman-cancelling cis-schlock article. https://t.co/l8RWEtWKmI https://t.co/XbYsfxjfvZ
— Katewerk (@katewerk) March 8, 2026
Also celebrating.
What Would We Do Without Medical Journals?
At Retraction Watch: The official journal of the Canadian Paediatric Society has just acknowledged that more than 100 of its case reports are fabricated.
Paediatrics & Child Health, the journal of the Canadian Paediatric Society, has published the cases since 2000 in articles for a series for its Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program. The articles usually start with a case description followed by “learning points” that include statistics, clinical observations and data from CPSP. The peer-reviewed articles don’t state anywhere the cases described are fictional.
The corrections come following a January article in New Yorker magazine that mentioned one of the reports — “Baby boy blue,” a case published in 2010 describing an infant who showed signs of opioid exposure via breast milk while his mother was taking acetaminophen with codeine. The New Yorker article made public an admission by one of the coauthors that the case was made up.
The Sound Of Settled Science
Bizarre Detection in the Oldest Light in the Universe Hints at New Physics
Safe and Effective®
When You Lose the Atlantic…
The Atlantic- The Tide Goes Out on Youth Gender Medicine
Trans-Violence is Violence
Western Standard- Another transgender mass shooter, and no, gun laws aren’t the problem
National Post- Live updates
Julia Hartley Brewer- Julia Hartley-Brewer’s scathing message to media outlets for telling the public “lies” about the sex of the suspect of the Canadian school shooter.
Elon Musk- Giving rage-inducing hormones to mentally ill people is insane
Sun- This is not a time for woke politics or politically correct sentiments
Update from Kate. Alternative media is way out ahead of the woke mainstream:
Western Standard: The inside story on the Tumbler Ridge Shooting (mostly commentary).
Put Down The Cookie
Montreal Gazette- Why is obesity not part of the breast cancer conversation?
Excess fat tissue produces hormones and inflammation in the body that can disrupt normal cell growth, creating the perfect conditions wherein cancer is more likely to develop. In breast tissue, these changes can increase the risk of disease, especially during life stages when hormone levels naturally shift, like during menopause.
We’re Going Back To The Moon
…and It’s Kind Of Weird That Nobody Is Freaking Out?
I actually hadn’t twigged this properly until now. The last manned mission to orbit and land on the Moon was Apollo 17 in December 1972: Gene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt, Ronald Evans.
To date, Cernan is the last human being to have walked on the Moon, on December 14th 1972 – when I was just over a year old.
So yes, this is huge. I reckon we should all be talking about this (yelling, in fact) – and applauding the astronauts who are about to travel further from home than almost any living human being…
Safe and Effective®
>=A major new study from Stanford Medicine, published in Science Translational Medicine, offers a fundamentally new explanation for rare cases of mRNA vaccine–associated myocarditis. Rather than simply showing that cardiac injury occurs, the researchers identify a specific immune signaling mechanism that can trigger heart cells to damage themselves from within.
Crucially, the authors describe this mechanism as a potential class effect of mRNA technology, raising important design considerations not only for current COVID vaccines, but also for future mRNA vaccines and cancer therapies.
A.I. vs A.I.
What could possibly go wrong?
Nature- ‘A serious problem’: peer reviews created using AI can avoid detection
It’s almost impossible to know whether a peer-review report has been generated by artificial intelligence, according to a study that put AI-detecting tools to the test.
Everything Keeps Getting Older
A groundbreaking new discovery has just pushed back the origins of making fire by over 350,000 years
Everything Keeps Getting Older
Beyond the regional implications, the structures add to a growing body of underwater evidence demonstrating that complex stone-building traditions existed among coastal hunter-gatherer groups long before agriculture spread across Europe.