Overselling research

Three examples that have come across my Twitter feed recently:

A genetic “crystal ball” can predict whether certain people will respond effectively to the flu vaccine. Science News

This is actually really interesting research looking at why some people get high levels of antibodies and others don’t.  However, the ‘crystal ball’ is cloudy. If people are divided into ‘low’, ‘medium’ and ‘high’ responders, and you take one ‘low’ responder and one ‘high’ responder, the test has about a 75% chance of working out which is which.

Is Swiss cheese a superfood?, asks Food & Wine.

According to metro.co.uk, researchers at the University of Korea have found that Swiss cheese has a whole lot of health benefits. It contains a probiotic called—you ready for this?—propionibacterium freudenreichii, which reduces inflammation. Among other things, reducing inflammation can reduce the risk of getting a number of diseases and slow the aging process. Propionibacterium freudenreichii also boosts immune system functions.

The research was carried out in microscopic nematodes, and didn’t involve Swiss cheese. The nematodes eat bacteria, and these ones were given a diet of  Propionibacterium freudenreichii instead of their normal E. coli. While the live bacteria are present in Swiss cheese, the recipes linked from the story would make sure no live bacteria reached your gut.

From the Guardian

Dating from 1,000 years before Pythagoras’s theorem, the Babylonian clay tablet is a trigonometric table more accurate than any today, say researchers.

It’s pretty clear that this has to be bullshit. It’s harder to find what’s actually being claimed.  Popular Science has a more balanced view: the conjecture is that the Babylonians worked with triangles where the ratios of side lengths were simple fractions rather than where the angles were simple fractions of a circle.  Like we do in measuring slopes of roads or railways.  If that’s true, it’s an interesting idea and if they knew about trignometric relationships then it pushes back the discovery quite a bit.  It’s still not ‘more accurate than any today’; the rounding-off just happens in a different place.