News Feeds

Our three-day festival of science, discoveries and innovation, with talks by names from Alice Roberts to Venki Ramakrishnan, took place from 12-14 October. Here's a taste of the fun in pictures

General relativity teaches us that observing a black hole is all a question of perspective – and technique, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Neurosurgeon James Doty and neuroscientist Sabina Brennan ask if there is any real science in manifesting in their new books

Feedback is intrigued by a study that uses rain and a "realistic three-compartment human head phantom" to explore the effects of a direct hit from lightning

There is a dirty secret in publishing: most popular science books aren't fact-checked. This needs to change, says Michael Marshall

A debating technique known as the "truth sandwich" is helping archaeologists combat a false narrative about an advanced ancient civilisation forgotten in human history

While quantum computers are still in their infancy, more and more people are training to become quantum software developers

From some place I can’t recall I learned about a site called Ad Fontes Media, which has a figure called an  Interactive Media Bias Chart that looks like this (click to enlarge):

On the X axis various sources are ranked for political bias, with “left” sources on the left (of course) and right-wing sources to the right. On the Y axis is a measure of credibility, with low scores on the bottom and high scores on the top.  You’ll want to know how the rankings are done, and you can see that on this page. (You can also get digital downloads, which are free for educational, personal, and nonprofit use.)

You’ll want to enlarge the chart at the original site and see how your media sources rank. You can also search for a given media source (including television and other digital media).

The source with the most balanced coverage and also the most reliable appears to be USAFacts, to which you must subscribe (I ahven’t heard of it or seen it).  The CBS Evening News and the Wall Street Journal are also given as credible centrist sources.

The politically extreme sources tend to be less credible, and that’s understandable, of course, for they slant the news.  Among left-leaning and less credible sources are the PBS News Hour (surprise), but, even worse: Jezebel, and Jen Psaki on NBC. Then the left-wing sources go even more downhill to sites like Wonkette and the Tony Michaels Podcast.

Not credible right-wing sources include The Post Millenial and Fox and Friends, and, even more extreme and less credible (and not surprising) are Louder with Crowder and, of course, Alex Jones.

Scores are based on panels of three people rating individual articles, and I can’t seem to find an overall score for places like the New York Times, but here’s their chart, showing a left skew and moderate credibility (each dot is an article)

The Wall Street Journal shows, as indicated above, more centrist and credible news:

Reuters is left-centrist and pretty reliable:

The Washington Post, like the NYT, is also skewed left and not terribly credible:

I haven’t examined the methodology or overall scores for each source, but I’ll let readers do that for themselves. Anyway, it’s fun to play around with and see where your own news sources fall.

What life is and how the mind works fall within the compass of one bold concept. But critics say that by attempting to explain everything, it may end up explaining nothing

Teleoperated robots for gathering moon dust are a step closer, according to new research.

Teleoperated robots for gathering moon dust are a step closer, according to new research.

A new world record in wireless transmission, promising faster and more reliable wireless communications, has been set by researchers. The total bandwidth of 145GHz is more than five times higher than the previous wireless transmission world record.

A new world record in wireless transmission, promising faster and more reliable wireless communications, has been set by researchers. The total bandwidth of 145GHz is more than five times higher than the previous wireless transmission world record.

Researchers have developed photoswitching molecules that reversibly change properties not only with light, but also with heat. They showed that the molecules can be used as a rewritable recording medium as well.

Researchers have overcome the limitations of existing metasurface technologies and successfully designed a Janus metasurface capable of perfectly controlling asymmetric light transmission.

Conventional catalysts for hydrogen production via water electrolysis usually contain precious metals and are expensive. However, cheaper alternatives have been developed -- for example, cobalt-manganese catalysts. They have a high activity and are stable over a long period of time. The decisive factor for these characteristics is their manganese content. Why manganese plays this essential role was unknown for a long time. The mechanism behind this has now been deciphered.

A commonly used strategy in the development of messenger RNA (mRNA) medicine is based on the destruction of disease-causing mRNA. Achieving the opposite and stabilizing health-promoting mRNA is still a great challenge. A research team has now overcome this challenge: the chemists developed the first active substance that inhibits the deadenylation of mRNA and thus prevents its degradation.

Tiny diatoms in the ocean are masters at capturing carbon dioxide from the environment. They fix up to 20 percent of the Earth's CO2. A research team has now discovered a protein shell in these algae that is necessary for efficient CO2 fixation. This groundbreaking discovery can provide ideas for bioengineering approaches to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere.

With heart attacks, every second counts. A new blood test diagnoses them in minutes rather than hours and could be adapted as a tool for first responders and people at home.

How long do free neutrons live until they decay? This has been a hotly debated topic, because different measurement techniques lead to different results. A possible new solution has now been proposed: All the results can be explained, assuming there are different neutron states with different lifetimes.