Seriously, would someone please assess the science reporters of Times of India before hiring them! or maybe just hire editors who make sure that the news reaching out to masses is not a distorted truth!!??
Here's an article from today's paper:
"Eat breakfast to have a baby boy"
The article boldly claims "Want a baby boy? Well, then eat full breakfast and fatty diet during early pregnancy, suggests a new study ", but very conveniently forgets to mention that what the scientist is actually saying is that their hypothesis is that diet, either directly or indirectly (e.g. through hormonal changes in the mother), influences the nutrient conditions within the reproductive tract of an early pregnant female. These changes in turn could alter the relative abilities of either X- or Y-sperm to effect fertilization. Alternatively, an altered uterine environment might lead to preferential survival of embryos of one sex over the other. Also, that these preliminary studies have been carried out only in mice! and several experiments need to be done to decipher the actual mechanism!
Normally I would have brushed away articles such as these labeling them as "preposterous" or search articles giving scientific evidence for their claims (if there is any tiny curiosity as to what the original claimant really wants to say). But, a conversation with a non-science/biology background person involving discussion on the various "health" articles led me to wonder how much such "half-truths" influence people's thinking.
Eat breakfast and high fat diet for a baby boy!! Maybe we should leak this news to television mom-in-laws, their bahus will have a good time eating! :P
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
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I agree.. reporters and/or editors should really take efforts to check their layman-ization of scientific results. Maybe run it by one of the authors of that study just once.. "Is this what you mean?" types.
ReplyDeleterun it by the author??? This is how it most likely happens at Times of India..
ReplyDeleteEditor (a fresh undergrad. Majored in Chemical Engg. doesn't know the difference between Navier-Stokes and Neytiri/Sully) : we don't have anything for the science column today. Write something. quick! At my desk in 40 minutes.
Science writer (neighborhood kid who writes everything.. from science to sports to movies and politics.. passed 10th last year. overheard someone talking about sitophilia today morning in metro and was googling it when Editor showed up): let's see what we have today. query Google news "sex breakfast". Voila!
writes something up in 10 minutes and then goes back to wikipedia to letch at women covered in custard and chocolate.