Science Daily;

In a stunning discovery that overturns decades of textbook teaching, researchers have determined that the brain is directly connected to the immune system by vessels previously thought not to exist. The discovery could have profound implications for diseases from autism to Alzheimer’s to multiple sclerosis.

h/t Chuck

In the Guardian, of all places;

The Bohannon hoax and LaCour/Green retraction have a lot in common. Scientific research was manufactured, which resulted in claims that appealed to some popular views, and the media broadly and uncritically promoted the results, advocating popular actions in response.
These two episodes highlight a more general problem: a lot of nonsense is published in the name of science. Writing in The Lancet last month, editor Richard Horton argued that as much as half of all scientific papers may simply be “untrue.” He writes: “The apparent endemicity of bad research behaviour is alarming. In their quest for telling a compelling story, scientists too often sculpt data to fit their preferred theory of the world.” The media, journal editors and universities also share blame, he wrote.
The hoax and retraction should help us to understand that a big part of the problem that Horton laments has little to do with research misconduct or fraud, though that is a problem too, but rather science working exactly as it should.

From the Journal of Preemptive Ass-Covering;

Scientists at the University of Southampton predict that a cooling of the Atlantic Ocean could cool global temperatures a half a degree Celsius and may offer a “brief respite from the persistent rise of global temperatures,” according to their study.
This cooling phase in the Atlantic will influence “temperature, rainfall, drought and even the frequency of hurricanes in many regions of the world,” says Dr. Gerard McCarthy. The study’s authors based their results on ocean sensor arrays and 100 years of sea-level data.

Yowza.

An electromagnetic drive being developed by NASA to operate without rocket fuel, in a vacuum, is seemingly defying the laws of physics, and raising hopes for the future of space travel.

h/t TSB

Hole lot of nuthin.

The ‘supervoid’, which is 1.8 billion light-years across, is the largest known structure ever discovered in the universe but scientists are baffled about what it is and why it is so barren.
It sits in a region of space which is much colder than other parts of the universe and although it is not a vacuum, it seems to have around 20 per cent less matter than other regions.
Although the Big Bang theory allows for areas that are cooler and hotter, the size of the void does not fit with predicted models. Simply put, it is too big to exist.

They should have used computer models;

The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.
[…]
The admissions mark a watershed in one of the country’s largest forensic scandals, highlighting the failure of the nation’s courts for decades to keep bogus scientific information from juries, legal analysts said. The question now, they said, is how state authorities and the courts will respond to findings that confirm long-suspected problems with subjective, pattern-based forensic techniques — like hair and bite-mark comparisons — that have contributed to wrongful convictions in more than one-quarter of 329 DNA-exoneration cases since 1989.

Pass me the chips, Einstein;

A surprising study contradicting all previous research found that being fat in middle age appears to cut the risk of developing dementia rather than increase it, the Lancet scientific journal has reported.
A study of two million people found that the underweight were far more likely to develop dementia, a growing problem among the elderly in the Western world.
Underweight people had a 34 percent higher risk of developing dementia than those of a normal weight, the study found, while the very obese had a 29 percent lower risk of becoming forgetful and confused and showing other signs of senility

BBC;

A recent study reported that joggers who exercise strenuously have the same life expectancy as people who do barely any exercise at all. But the author has now admitted he hasn’t actually proved this.

h/t Meatriarchy

WaPo;

“There is no longer any valid basis for the current salt guidelines,” said Andrew Mente, a professor at McMaster University in Ontario and one of the researchers involved in a major study published last year by the New England Journal of Medicine. “So why are we still scaring people about salt?”