From: To: [email protected] Subject: article round up Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2011 20:20:51 +0000 Hope you are having fun in Paris. Here's all the stuff we're missing since you're in a stupid time zone... Short summary, then link. Am off to Hawaii to give my keynote to all the old white guys next week. Ugh. Science Needs Better Statistical Analysis A respected psychology journal's decision to accept a research report that claims to show the existence of extrasensory perception has inflamed one of the longest-running debates in science. Some statisticians have argued that the standard technique used to analyze data in much of social science and medicine overstates many study findings — often by a lot. The literature is littered with positive findings that do not pan out: "effective" therapies that are no better than a placebo; slight biases that do not affect behavior; brain-imaging correlations that are meaningless. ...Statistical analysis must find ways to expose and counterbalance all the many factors that can lead to falsely positive results — among them human nature...and industry money. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/scienceillesp.html?partner=rss&emc=rss Sleep-Disrupted Mice Get Fat & Dumb McEwen's team turned lab lights on and off to create 20-hour days for mice, while a control group was kept on a regular 24 hour schedule. Within six weeks, the disrupted group started to gain weight, despite eating the same diet as controls. They grew obese, and had altered levels of insulin and leptin, two key metabolic hormones. Effects extended to their brains. In the prelimbic prefrontal cortex, a region important to emotional control and cognitive flexibility, neurons shrank and were arranged in less complex ways. The mice had trouble learning to navigate mazes, and were spooked by new environments. The researchers hope their model of disruption will be used for further investigation of circadian disruption. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/