If nothing else it violates PNAS' own policies, because it's in clear breach of both the Declaration of Helsinki and ICMJE requirements on informed consent.
That doesn't discuss informed consent, which under Federal law requires that study participants be given specific information about the purpose, risks, procedures, duration, etc. etc. of the research.
Human subjects research is subject to mandatory informed consent - specific to the study being performed, you can't just have a boilerplate like the Facebook ToS - in almost all jurisdictions. For example, this is the US law Facebook undoubtably broke:
"Dear customers. We are really sorry that you're so upset at our great study. We're super glad that we did the study but so very very sorry that you guys were upset by it. When we do it again, let's work together to find a way that you could just not be so upset about it."
Given that subjects were not geographically constrained (they were randomly selected by user ID), the US isn't the only nation whose laws apply to this research.
"the questionable assumption that such manipulation has happened"
They literally wrote a peer-reviewed scientific paper demonstrating that they manipulated people's moods to a statistically significant degree, I don't think there's much you can call questionable about it from Facebook's perspective.
The process involved nitric acid and a large resin column (probably an ion exchange column). Probably it was forming some nitrates and these decomposed.
Hmm, now I've read it in more detail it looks like he was transported from the decontamination centre to the ambulance by manipulators, which would seem entirely practical.
That doesn't seem to be accurate; the local newspaper describes a fellow technician who dragged him out of the room, and I don't believe they would've had some sort of building-wide system of manipulators that could've then moved him from there to an ambulance:
At any rate, it looks like the glove box was just to allow access to adjust the equipment, and not perform the procedure. So there's every possibility that the actual work was done with manipulators. (You can play around with some of them in the museum in Richland; they're surprisingly nimble.)
I think you're lacking in context here. In the 1980s and 1990s, the absence, poor quality or ambiguity of supernatural photos and video was always justified by the fact that not everyone had a camera with them at any given moment, and that the cameras were unweildy and difficult to operate. Now that cameras are ubiquitous, easy to operate, and far higher quality, the quality of the evidence has not improved, which rather implies that it was all camera glitches and mistaken identity to begin with.
A lot of crossing signs in the UK have metal boxes around the lights, and horizontal shutters to boot, so you can't really see the light from anything but ground level at the crossing point. I'm guessing it's largely a light pollution and confusion-reduction measure (e.g. you don't see the light for an adjacent crossing and mistake it for your own) but it means that the hardware's already available, probably as an off the shelf component, for some styles of light.
Channel 4 put out a three-part documentary series about this research last year, called Bigfoot Files. Depending on the episode you got a mixture of local legends, interviews with bigfoot chasers, and of course the search for and testing of the putative hominid remains. The article mentions that one of the samples tested as human; there's a rather heartbreaking local tale behind that. Very nicely done and desensationalised.
While I'm sure that most police officers are perfectly capable typists, given the amount of paperwork that comes with the job, it's not out of the question that an officer writing a Facebook post might not use the best possible punctuation.
And I assume the only proper context is one in which this sort of behaviour is normalised? From where I'm standing, the context makes it looks like both an abhorrent abuse of power against both our ostensible allies and our own citizens and a depressingly widespread one.
They're called "five eyes" because they've been sharing intelligence on each other's enemies since after the second world war. It's probably a given that they're also sharing information on each other's citizens.
I don't think any of those countries have secret courts that force local businesses to do the spying for them, though. Maybe Russia and China, and probably (to pick one not on your list) Iran.
In all seriousness, Britain had an intelligence-sharing agreement with the US whereby GCHQ would hand over its own extensive snooping results, so the NSA didn't need to spy on the UK anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
If nothing else it violates PNAS' own policies, because it's in clear breach of both the Declaration of Helsinki and ICMJE requirements on informed consent.
http://www.pnas.org/site/autho...
Looks like this doesn't apply. Federal funding requirement.
Actually this doesn't apply. Federal funding requirement.
I agree.
That doesn't discuss informed consent, which under Federal law requires that study participants be given specific information about the purpose, risks, procedures, duration, etc. etc. of the research.
http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humans...
Human subjects research is subject to mandatory informed consent - specific to the study being performed, you can't just have a boilerplate like the Facebook ToS - in almost all jurisdictions. For example, this is the US law Facebook undoubtably broke:
http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humans...
"Dear customers. We are really sorry that you're so upset at our great study. We're super glad that we did the study but so very very sorry that you guys were upset by it. When we do it again, let's work together to find a way that you could just not be so upset about it."
Research ethics. We hold scientists to a higher standard than web sites and TV stations.
How was this paper "largely ignored"? It was published two weeks ago, and the outrage started immediately.
Given that subjects were not geographically constrained (they were randomly selected by user ID), the US isn't the only nation whose laws apply to this research.
"the questionable assumption that such manipulation has happened"
They literally wrote a peer-reviewed scientific paper demonstrating that they manipulated people's moods to a statistically significant degree, I don't think there's much you can call questionable about it from Facebook's perspective.
The process involved nitric acid and a large resin column (probably an ion exchange column). Probably it was forming some nitrates and these decomposed.
Hmm, now I've read it in more detail it looks like he was transported from the decontamination centre to the ambulance by manipulators, which would seem entirely practical.
A lot of the background for this article* comes from a 1984 piece in People Magazine, in some cases word for word:
http://www.people.com/people/a...
*It's an AP wire service piece
That doesn't seem to be accurate; the local newspaper describes a fellow technician who dragged him out of the room, and I don't believe they would've had some sort of building-wide system of manipulators that could've then moved him from there to an ambulance:
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/...
At any rate, it looks like the glove box was just to allow access to adjust the equipment, and not perform the procedure. So there's every possibility that the actual work was done with manipulators. (You can play around with some of them in the museum in Richland; they're surprisingly nimble.)
I think you're lacking in context here. In the 1980s and 1990s, the absence, poor quality or ambiguity of supernatural photos and video was always justified by the fact that not everyone had a camera with them at any given moment, and that the cameras were unweildy and difficult to operate. Now that cameras are ubiquitous, easy to operate, and far higher quality, the quality of the evidence has not improved, which rather implies that it was all camera glitches and mistaken identity to begin with.
A lot of crossing signs in the UK have metal boxes around the lights, and horizontal shutters to boot, so you can't really see the light from anything but ground level at the crossing point. I'm guessing it's largely a light pollution and confusion-reduction measure (e.g. you don't see the light for an adjacent crossing and mistake it for your own) but it means that the hardware's already available, probably as an off the shelf component, for some styles of light.
Have you seen the movie adaptation of the same name? I can't speak for accuracy as I haven't read the book but it was very engaging.
Channel 4 put out a three-part documentary series about this research last year, called Bigfoot Files. Depending on the episode you got a mixture of local legends, interviews with bigfoot chasers, and of course the search for and testing of the putative hominid remains. The article mentions that one of the samples tested as human; there's a rather heartbreaking local tale behind that. Very nicely done and desensationalised.
While I'm sure that most police officers are perfectly capable typists, given the amount of paperwork that comes with the job, it's not out of the question that an officer writing a Facebook post might not use the best possible punctuation.
And I assume the only proper context is one in which this sort of behaviour is normalised? From where I'm standing, the context makes it looks like both an abhorrent abuse of power against both our ostensible allies and our own citizens and a depressingly widespread one.
They're called "five eyes" because they've been sharing intelligence on each other's enemies since after the second world war. It's probably a given that they're also sharing information on each other's citizens.
I don't think any of those countries have secret courts that force local businesses to do the spying for them, though. Maybe Russia and China, and probably (to pick one not on your list) Iran.
Seems like a club the US should join, right?
Forcing Microsoft, Google, et al to spy for the NSA, using secret orders from a secret court, seems rather more problematic.
In all seriousness, Britain had an intelligence-sharing agreement with the US whereby GCHQ would hand over its own extensive snooping results, so the NSA didn't need to spy on the UK anyway.