Not So Simple

Here are some topics we discuss as examples of science and technology reporting in my classes, bringing home the point that oversimplification of information often leads to lack of clarity.

Graphene

This 2013 article was posted to reddit about two weeks ago and got plenty of upvotes as if it were a new and easy magical thing -

http://gizmodo.com/5990876/lockheeds-new-carbon-filter-takes-all-the-effort-out-of-desalinization

Graphene has awesome potential as both an electrical conductor and a molecular sieve, but there is more work to be done to make its use practical on a larger scale. This MIT article from last year looks like a more reasonable update on graphene’s use as a filter - 

http://news.mit.edu/2015/repair-graphene-leaks-0508

Wolves

Check out the different focal points of this video and article, both from 2014 -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/10/opinion/is-the-wolf-a-real-american-hero.html

The feel-good style of the video has touched far more hearts than Arthur Middleton’s more balanced analysis published a month afterward, but the question is do we want to dig deeper? 

Fiber

This article focuses on meat and cheese -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3534246/Western-diets-high-meat-dairy-salt-eroding-gut-bacteria-scientists-say.html

This article focuses on fiber -

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-04/cp-cmf040516.php

Which of the two gives a more accurate depiction of the research?

Rocket Science

Finally, consider this op-ed from last year, which encourages us to
understand discovery as hard effort rather than a moment of epiphany -

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/16/opinion/it-is-in-fact-rocket-science.html

These kinds of distinctions are important when evaluating information.