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The Economist / Science and technology / News

Scientific journals: Publish and be wrong
09 10 2008 One group of researchers thinks headline-grabbing scientific reports are the most likely to turn out to be wrong IN ECONOMIC theory the winner’s curse refers to the idea that someone who places the winning bid in an auction may have paid too much. Consider, for example, bids to develop an oil field. Most of the offers are likely to cluster around the true value of the resource, so the highest bidder probably paid too much. The same thing may be happening in scientific publishing, according to a new analysis. With so many scientific papers chasing so few pages in the most prestigious journals, the winners could be the ones most likely to oversell themselves—to trumpet dramatic or important results that later turn out to be false. This would produce a distorted picture of scientific knowledge, with less dramatic (but more accurate) results either relegated to obscure journals or left unpublished. ...

Malaria: Hunting down a crafty killer
09 10 2008 A new global campaign and the latest genetic breakthroughs energise efforts to wipe out malaria AFTER decades of tinkering, the world finally seems to be getting really serious about trying to eliminate one of its gravest diseases. As a coalition of businesses, charities, celebrities and big aid donors starts to act on a new strategy for malaria, scientists this week announced two breakthroughs in understanding the genetics of the parasites that spread it. This could lead to new and urgently needed treatments for a disease that afflicts 500m people a year. The Global Malaria Action Plan, which is backed by the United Nations, wants the world to meet a series of ambitious targets by 2015. These include cutting the number of cases of malaria by 75% from the level in 2000. The plan also aims to reduce the number of deaths caused by the disease to nearly zero over the same period. Eventually, rather ambitiously, it wants the complete eradication of malaria. ...

Solar energy: Tubular sunshine
09 10 2008 A new sort of solar panel is less fussy about where the sun shines from SOLAR power should be a cheap and simple way of making electricity, but like any technology the practicalities tend to get in the way. Even if the sun does come out the panels may not face in the right direction. Then there is the cost, which can exceed $40,000 for a household system—more than half of which is accounted for by installation. This week, however, a Californian company launched a new type of solar panel that tries to overcome these problems. Standard solar panels are assembled from arrays of photovoltaic cells made from silicon, like computer chips. These cells absorb photons in light and transfer their energy to electrons, which form an electrical circuit. ...

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