Science Magazine / sciencemag.org Researchers in four countries will soon start a clinical trial of an unorthodox approach to the new coronavirus. They will test whether a century-old vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), a bacterial disease, can rev up the human immune system in a broad way, allowing it to better fight
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The corona crisis from within At the daycare of the three-year-old son of Jop de Vrieze and Zvezdana Vukojevic, a boy turned out to be infected with the corona virus. In the meantime, the epidemic is also unfolding in the Netherlands. Originally posted in De Groene Amsterdammer (in Dutch) The phones vibrate almost
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A HEALTHY DOSE OF SUSPICION Until recently, conspiracy thinkers were mainly studied to find out what derailed them. But a new generation of researchers is taking them more seriously. 'The important thing is not whether the theories are correct, but where the distrust is coming from." Originally published in Dutch in EOS
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A SHOT OF HOPE Published in Science Magazine, November 29, 2019 MALAWI—In a small room at the Phalula Health Centre in southern Malawi's Balaka district, two young mothers are sitting on a wooden bench, each with a 5-month-old baby on their lap. Across from them, behind a desk, sits Alfred Kaponya, a
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After the stillbirth of their son, journalists Jop de Vrieze and Zvezdana Vukojevic are in search of answers within the Dutch system of natal care. Gynecologist: ”Could we have saved him? Maybe, yes.” “Couldn’t you have called sooner?” Fifteen minutes earlier I stepped into our midwife practice, because I couldn’t remember
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As science journalists who take our job seriously, we’ve learned a couple of rules by heart: never present a correlation as a causation, always check whether a sample is representative and never rely on a single study. As the expression goes: one swallow doesn’t make a summer. These are all good
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Link: Meta-analyses were supposed to end scientific debates. Often, they only cause more controversy
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Link: In science, a small revolution is taking place: the rise of registered reports
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Link: EurekAlert! Has spoiled science news. Here’s how we can fix it
Lees verderA modern day do-over of a mid-20th century pupillometry experiment raises the question: What should we make of a failed replication? December 6, 2018 by Jop de Vrieze Anyone who enters the field of pupillometry — the study of pupil size — stumbles upon one classic research paper: “Pupil Size as Related
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