False positives
From a number of fields
- The WiFi system at the British Library wouldn’t let a researcher get to an online copy of Hamlet, because of the violent content. “The site is dismal, and our affairs from England come too late”
- From one of the Guardian’s science blogs: [update: link fixed]
So when one particular paper began to strain the servers, attracting hundreds if not thousands of downloads, the entire editorial board began to pay attention. “What,” they asked, “is so special about this paper on the ryanodine receptor of Caenorhabditis elegans?” (For those of you who don’t know, Caenorhabditis elegans is a very common and much-loved model animal—it’s a small, soil-living roundworm with some very useful features. Please don’t ask me what a ryanodine receptor is; I don’t know and I don’t really care.)
- Along similar lines, someone reminded me of the problem the UK town of Scunthorpe has with text filtering. There is an old joke that there are two other football teams whose names contain swear words (punchline)
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
Odd not to care about ryanodine receptors. Faulty ryanodine receptors kill.
Also there’s no link to the guardian blog, the paragraph makes more sense if you read the whole guardian blog post…
11 years ago
Thanks for pointing out the missing link.
I do know and care what ryanodine receptors are — I even have a published paper related to them — but I think Richard Grant can be excused for not finding them as exciting.
11 years ago