Peer Review is universally used to ensure the quality of scientific research, but the process may not be as reliable as people assume. A new study in PLoS One suggests that the recommendations reviewers may not be much more reliable than a coin toss.

"Peer review provides an important filtering function with the goal of insuring that only the highest quality research is published," said William Tierney, M.D., a Regenstrief Institute investigator and study co-author. "Yet the results of our analysis suggest that reviewers agree on the disposition of manuscripts – accept or reject – at a rate barely exceeding what would be expected by chance. Nevertheless, editors' decisions appear to be significantly influenced by reviewer recommendations."

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a devastating autoimmune disease, where the immune system attacks the white matter throughout the nervous system. While the cause for MS is currently unknown, epidemiological data so far suggests that the disease is likely triggered by both environmental and genetic factors. To pinpoint the molecular mechanism for MS, Sergio Baranzini and colleagues at UCSF conducted a recent twin study on multiple sclerosis using advanced tools such as genomic deep sequencing analysis. In their study published recently in Nature, Baranzini analyzed immune cells from identical twins where one of the twins has developed MS (Barazini et al., 2010). Much to their surprise, the study found no significant genomic differences between the twins.

Music is omnipresent and plays an enormous role in our everyday lives. It transports us, soothes us, energizes us, evokes memories instantaneously like few things in this world have the power to do (smell being an exception).

Music can bind us together and create shared experiences, or it can divide us (metalheads versus country fans). But why? Mark Changizi wrote an excellent article on the origins of music and four hurdles for a scientific theory of music, touching on these questions: why do we have a brain for music; why is music emotionally evocative; why do we dance; and why is music structurally organized as it is?

Dr. Raymond Mar, of On Fiction: An Online Magazine on the Psychology of Fiction, published a research bulletin the other day summarizing a psychological study whose results apparently suggest that, in the words of the blog headline, “words reveal the personality of the writers.”  After presenting the background, experimental procedure, and findings, Dr. Mar concludes that “From these findings, it appears that creative writing can indeed reveal aspects of the author’s personality to readers. An encouraging result for those of us who feel we’ve come to know an author by reading his or her books.”

Arctic Ice May 2010 - Update


In a recent article - Arctic Ice May 2010 - I predicted that Arctic sea ice would be lower by the end of the month than at the same time in 2007.  The extent as shown by the NSIDC is now touching the 2007 extent line on the graph.


image source NSIDC 20 May 2010.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Arctic sea ice is on track to recede to a record low this year, suggesting that northern waters free of summer ice are coming faster than anyone thought.

There's a tremendous amount of research literature that does not make it into public consumption. Coupling this lack of trickle down with a voracious need to feel certainty where none may exist, many parents faced with an autism diagnosis will gravitate towards those individuals who offer the certainty they are seeking. They find this certainty, these assurances, not with mainstream medicine or psychology, but with alternative medicine and snake oil salesman who offer guarantees that cannot be delivered on.

Henry Ford Hospital researchers say it is time for a nationwide public smoking ban. Such a measure would reduce public health care costs by $90 million and significantly reduce hospitalization due to heart attack each year.

Their study was presented today at the American Heart Association's annual Quality of Care and Outcomes Research conference in Washington.

After analyzing data from the 13 states that don't have a law banning smoking in public places, researchers concluded that more than 18,596 fewer hospitalizations for heart attack could be realized from a smoking ban in all 50 states after the first year of implementation, resulting in more than $92 million in savings in hospitals costs for caring for those patients.

Parents who have books in the home increase the level of education their children will attain, according to a 20-year study conducted by sociologists from the University of Nevada, Reno and UCLA.

For years, educators have thought the strongest predictor of attaining high levels of education was having parents who were highly educated. But, strikingly, this massive study showed that the difference between being raised in a bookless home compared to being raised in a home with a 500-book library has as great an effect on the level of education a child will attain as having parents who are barely literate (3 years of education) compared to having parents who have a university education (15 or 16 years of education).

Researchers from the University of Barcelona and the University of California, San Francisco have captured the first high resolution images of DNA unfolding.

The team studied a small DNA fragment consisting of 12 base pairs (the human genomes has about 3,000 million base pairs) and obtained 10 million structural snapshots of how DNA unfolds. In this process they revealed the two main ways by which the natural folded structure move to an unfolded state.  The results of the research were published in Angewandte Chemie.