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Fake Mouse On Twitter Mocks Overgeneralized Scientific Research (twitter.com)

DevNull127 writes: Research scientist James Heathers is a postdoctoral research associate working on bio-signals and meta-science research at Northeastern University, with a PhD from the University of Sydney. He's also pretending to be a mouse on Twitter. And every tweet consists of the exact same two words...

Heathers retweets articles about scientific studies — usually articles with glossy photos and enticing headlines like "Exercise during pregnancy protects children from obesity, study finds." His tweets add the two crucial missing words. "In mice."

In this case a doctoral student at Washington State University measured a specific protein's level in the offspring of mice that performed 60 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise every morning during pregnancy — and in regular mice. On the basis of that he recommended "that women — whether or not they are obese or have diabetes — exercise regularly during pregnancy because it benefits their children's metabolic health."

The name of the Twitter feed: JustSaysInMice.

Other mouse-based studies turning up on the Twitter feed:
  • How Fatty Diets Stop the Brain From Saying 'No' To Food
  • Reused Cooking Oil Ups Risk of Metastases In Breast Cancer Patients
  • Keto Diet Not Effective, Causes Blood Sugar Problems In Women
  • Growth Hormone Acts To Foil Weight Loss: Study

When you read those headlines, just remember to add those two words...

"In mice."


1 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Nicely sums up the problems with science-reporting by gweihir · · Score: 5, Informative

    Everything has to be spectacular and groundbreaking and changing everything. Here is news: Most research is incremental or not directly applicable and the rest is almost never groundbreaking. Deal with it. This is a slow process and over-hyping results is a huge disservice to all of humanity.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.