...I was just scrolling quickly through the skyline and did a full screech-to-a-halt-and-scroll-back-up at the phrase "the Dracula tears paper."

Stanford misinformation expert accused of using AI to fabricate court statement Communications professor Jeff Hancock cited two nonexistent sources in a recent court declaration against political deepfakes. Plaintiffs believe Hancock used AI tools that “hallucinated” the sources.

I will be following this because it is such a useful example for my students of what not to do (allegedly)

stanforddaily.com/2024/12/02/j...

Reddit - Dive into anything The place where people can come and talk about reddit fights and other dramatic happenings from other subreddits.

Saturday afternoon plan is eating nachos and reading this Reddit meltdown about community moderators publishing a pay walled autoethnography about the community. So far have wailed to friends, “that’s not how data works” and “that’s not how COIs work,” can’t wait to see what I will wail next.

Absolutely. I'll meet you halfway between your place and mine and we'll have a NIST picnic.

I have wanted for the longest time to eat the NIST reference peanut butter. If I had a bucket list...

The outer page of a medical drawing of some kind of unknown internal organ, which is a thin tissue paper layer with a white covering on it as if it’s a sac that was around the organ (but that is unclear!).

A medical drawing of some kind of unknown internal organ against a blank background. It is shades of bright yellow and red, looking lumpy and vaguely like an angry fluffy cloud. It has angry red veins on it.

Another view of the unknown lumpy internal organ side by side with the white tissue covering.

Not sure if it counts as spooky, but for the #histmed crowd, this is an early modern illustration in @asianlibrarynl.bsky.social’s Japan collections of some kind of internal organ—what organ, they don’t know! 😬 The label is “pathological drawing in color.” They welcome suggestions! 👀 #AsiaLibLeiden

Casual inference and pubic health – What a rise in common spelling errors says about the state of research culture Based on an analysis of over 32 million abstracts published over the last fifty years, Adrian Barnett and Nicole White find a marked rise in common spelling errors. Evidence they suggest of a cultu…

Starting off my morning with an article on whether a rise in spelling errors in published research reflects anything about scientific culture. Love an article with a very serious graph labeled "pubic health."

A screenshot from the NSF training of two women in an AI-generated office. They're in theory having a conversation, but they're standing side by side looking outwards at the screen, possibly in different planes, both looking way too excited/alarmed for the conversation about compliance that they're having.

I'm finally sitting down with the NSF research security training. I'm trying so hard not to crack up at this depiction of a conversation I have several times a week, but not usually with the researcher and me standing side by side, staring wild-eyed at nothing at all, certainly not at each other.

A question about your age. Options are None/Mild/Moderate/Severe/Extreme/Prefer not to say

I love finding poorly written questions. This one is hall of fame good

Interesting that the article doesn't touch on testing lab certifications at all; in my experience, the researchers' justification for not wanting to share the results is often that the labs aren't CLIA-certified so the results aren't clinical-quality reliable.

What Drugmakers Did Not Tell Volunteers in Alzheimer’s Trials Genetic tests showed that certain patients were predisposed to brain injuries if they took the drugs. That information remained secret.

I've been in enough "how much of the genetic test results do we give back to the research participant, and with what counseling?" ethics board discussions to have found this article on Alzheimer's drug trials to be excellent food for thought. (Gift link.)

World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki This JAMA Special Communication presents the 2024 revision of the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki, a set of principles to guide the ethical treatment of participants in medical res...

The revised Declaration of Helsinki explicitly mandates study registration predating recruitment, complete reporting, declaration of all funding and COI and making negative or inconclusive results publicly available

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Live your professional life such that your friends text you to make sure you know Philip Zimbardo died, and engage in some Saturday morning research ethics chat.

Spooky Moo Deng seems like a great vibe for a Friday!

*doing a quick double check that it's Friday before hitting post, since I am not yet properly caffeinated today and also because if it's not I will be so sad*

Independent Research Ethics Committee – panel members needed! You may already be aware that I have been involved in setting up a new Independent Research Ethics Committee (aka IREC). The aim is to offer ‘nose-to-tail’ ethical review, i.e. considering all aspe…

I've just posted on my blog about the International Research Ethics Committee needing panel members. Your help can make a difference!

Check it out & spread the word: helenkara.com/2024/10/15/i...

#IREC #ResearchEthics

This is a really excellent article on an aspect of misconduct that doesn't really get focused on enough - the ripple effects on others in the lab/field.

Am working my way through this very interesting book, which I only found out about because I attended this meeting
medicalethicshealthpolicy.med.upenn.edu/master-of-bi...
Author Barbara Redman is delightfully kick-ass. I will post some quotes as I go

Brass microscope in mendel‘s bedroom with a silly little fur hat on it

Mendel’s other brass microscope with a silly little hat on it, this one has a tassel

as a Big Nerd I have to tell you I went to Mendel’s abbey to look at his peas but the most notable part is actually the little hats he made for his microscopes

A survey question about gender with radio button answers. The four options are "Please select answer," "Male," "Female," and "I don't wish to answer."

As a little side hobby in the research admin world, I like to collect demographic forms that have made questionable choices in re: which genders exist and/or how we ask about them. Sometimes I find one that's broken in a new and very funny way.

I'll be spending today remote-attending UPenn's symposium on research integrity. I'm so grateful for institutions that are still making the effort to make events like this hybrid, for those of us who can't travel! (Or whose cats simply prefer them to attend conferences from home.)

Well, now I am cheering on Lemon Drop the sea turtle, who headed north all summer, got almost exactly to the part of New Jersey I grew up in, and noped out and turned around again. She feels like a kindred spirit.

I can't believe I started my research career in human fMRI work when I could have gone into cat EEGs instead and been the one to invent Tiny Cat Hats For Science.

Accessing Archaeology: Empowering Queer Voices in the Discipline [Career Pathways]

There's still time to register for this free online panel where LGBTQ+ archaeologists will talk about their experiences. Non-SAA members can register, although you will have to set up a free account with their site.
saa.org/career-pract...

Somewhere around “shared the misleadingly accessed data with a DNA phenotyping service without approval” is where I started emitting a high pitched sound only dogs can hear.

Call for Data Analysts: A Collaborative Reanalysis on Social Isolation This post is co-authored by Drs Hans Rocha IJzerman and Nick Brown. The conversation around social isolation and loneliness has intensified in recent years due to the significant health and societal r...

Want to take part in a collaborative reanalysis of an important paper based on a public dataset? Check out www.linkedin.com/pulse/call-d... @ijzerman.bsky.social

An AI-generated image of some white-lab-coated people standing around on steps outside a University-shaped building, while clipboards and papers are scattered around. The text in the background is attempting to say "Why Privatizing Peer Review is the Future: Lessons from Institutional Review Boards," but as is the way of AI images, most of the words are misspelled or blurred or flat-out using shapes that are more rune than English letter.

Had to blink a couple of times at this image from an article on privatizing peer review, to figure out if the coffee hadn't kicked in yet or if we really were talking about "Lessessers from Insutitional Reviow Boards." Happy Monday?