Mar 102013
 

Dear io9,

I appreciate all the work you do to bring science news to a large and enthusiastic audience, and I’m a frequent reader myself, but as they say, with great power comes great responsibility. Unfortunately in a recent post one of your authors blew it in a big way.

In “Too many fly bites can lead to death by bug-spit poisoning”, Esther Inglis-Arkell repeatedly states that black flies inject their larvae into the bodies of the birds or people their feeding off of, and that humans are carriers of their young.

No. Just, no.

Black fly larvae are 100% aquatic, living in streams, rivers & flowing water all over the world. In some places — like northern Canada, so infamous for its black fly populations there have been songs sung about them — rivers and streams can be black with fly larvae attached to rocks and other material under the water (check out this post by Crystal Ernst to see just how many larvae can be found in the cold waters of the Great White North).

Yes, like most blood-feeding invertebrates, black flies employ anti-coagulant-laced saliva to keep the good times flowing, but there certainly aren’t fly babies in that spit. Some species of black fly in Africa and South America can transmit a nematode parasite through their saliva (Onchocerca volvulus, responsible for River Blindness, a non-fatal disease), and, as evidenced by the paper that inspired Inglis-Arkell’s post, too much fly saliva can be a bad thing, but to fear-monger that there could be fly larvae swimming in your blood isn’t cool.

Now, I recognize that Inglis-Arkell acknowledged her mistake in response to a commentor who also pointed out the error, but that acknowledgement is buried in the comments, and, unless a reader goes looking for it, will likely remain unread. Why not correct the post (preferably in a way that doesn’t hide a mistake was made) or at least add a footnote that clearly states the author’s mistake? That’s the great thing about web publishing: you can immediately clear up mistakes when they’re uncovered instead of waiting days to print a retraction or correction like in the olden days (i.e. less than 10 years ago). Your web stats show that more than 36,000 people have read articles by Ms. Inglis-Arkell today alone, meaning there are a huge number of people potentially leaving your site with a horribly inaccurate impression of black fly biology.

And that’s the real shame, because despite their bad reputation, black flies are fascinating creatures and are actually kind of cute, especially when they’re biting someone else.

Simulium sp from Ecuador Black fly Simuliidae

Simulium (Psilopelmia) bicoloratum from Ecuador (Simuliidae) feasting on my blood.

UPDATE 2013-03-10 20:30: That was fast! Less than 15 minutes after I tweeted a link to this post, io9 responded saying they were correcting their original article, and included links to those who pointed out the problem! Well done io9, well done!

Jan 112013
 

Notice anything wrong with this picture?

Photo copyright Omid Golzar

Photo copyright Omid Golzar, reproduced here for editorial comment only.

If your first thought was “Why are there jumping spider eyes photoshopped on to the butt of a beetle?”, then you’re correct!

I don’t normally have a problem with digital art like this; it encourages creativity, makes the viewer think about what their seeing, and introduces a bit of whimsy (and who doesn’t like whimsy?). What I do have a problem with, is when digital art is portrayed as biologically accurate, and marketed as such to the public in a major news outlet.

Last month, The Sun (UK) ran a feature on Omid Golzar’s work, and captioned the above piece “Whiskers…beetle” before going on:

OK, he does look a bit grumpy — but so would you if you’d been left in a fridge before having your mugshot taken.

This amazing close-up of a beetle — with its “almost human” whiskers and bulging eyes — is one of a series of photos of bugs taken by Omid Golzar.

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4719170/Bugs-show-their-mugs.html#ixzz2HcoS8jGf

It’s not just The Sun though, as the Daily Mail (UK) also featured this piece of digital art by Mr. Golzar almost a year ago, and also failed to note that it was manipulated. But how does something this ridiculous get published in the first place? Mr. Golzar was obviously aware that this piece was a fabrication of his imagination, and yet allowed it to be representative of his work not once, but twice, despite having an impressive portfolio of hyper-magnified insect portraits that are biologically accurate.

But, the blame shouldn’t rest entirely on Mr. Golzar, and I think the editors who run these stories are the ones who should be embarrassed. Taxonomy Fails are one type of error (and one which I have a little more sympathy for), but this equates to a complete failure to recognize basic biology (i.e. insects having compound eyes made up of multiple facets), something that most 8th or 9th grade students could surely point out! It should have been clear that the photo had been drastically manipulated, and thus it should have no place in the newsroom.

To illustrate, how do you think a mainstream media news editor would react if I suggested they run these images?

Sure they’re both photos of Justin Bieber, but they’ve been heavily modified using Photoshop, rendering them unusable in a newsroom (despite being pretty hilarious otherwise). And yes, that’s a Lamprey in the image on the right, which is about the same evolutionary difference as putting spider eyes on a beetle.

Obviously no self-respecting news outlet would run these, so why is it OK to run a non-human photo without ensuring it was a legitimate representation of the subject? Combined with the nearly daily Taxonomy Fails, I would argue that biological illiteracy in the media has been steadily increasing over the past several years, and I fear the impacts it may have on public perceptions of nature, the environment and science in general. I don’t have a simple solution to curb this trend other than continuing to draw attention to these mistakes, and hope the media starts to notice and remembering it is still their responsibility to present honest & accurate information, no matter what the subject matter.

h/t to Derek Hennen for sharing the original Sun article.

Jun 042012
 

 

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s War on Environmental Science

I don’t normally wade into discussing politics because 1) I don’t follow it as closely as perhaps I should and, 2) it can be a pretty controversial topic which can get messy in a hurry. I don’t want to weigh this week’s flypaper down too much, but I feel compelled to share a number of deeply concerning developments in the Canadian government’s recent cuts to environmental research.

The Environmental Lakes Area, a world-class facility studying the affects humans and our products have on freshwater ecosystems, is being closed down.

If we’re not studying the affects of pollution on freshwater ecosystems, I guess we can still keep track of pollutants in marine environments. Wait, you mean that entire department has been cut as well? Oh. (As a slightly ironic aside, even the US media is picking this one up and questioning what the hell Canada is thinking)

Well, certainly our protected terrestrial environments will be studied and Canadian National Parks kept safe. No?! You have got to be kidding me. (It’s not only the natural history aspects of Parks Canada getting cut, it’s also our cultural history.)

Add to this the thousands of jobs cut across the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada, Environment Canada, Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada, and it’s not hard to see that our current government views scientists & environmental research as an inconvenient truth (especially when they don’t tow the party line).

I’m incredibly proud to call Canada my home & native land, but am utterly ashamed of these “cost saving” measures being rapidly pushed through by the Conservative government. These short-sighted cuts will have long-lasting environmental ramifications well beyond the tenure of any political party’s leadership, will tarnish Canada’s reputation as an environmentally-friendly nation, and will hamper our ability to attract new minds to our universities, industries and governments. I have no doubt that in 10-15 years we will look back on this government and wonder “O Canada, what have you done?”

Feb 212012
 

I was browsing MSNBC tonight trying to stay up to date on goings on from around the world (well, at least the stuff that my Twitter feed hasn’t taught me already), when I saw this headline in the Science section:

In case you can't see it, the headline reads "Newly discovered legless amphibians are horrifying"

Ahh, nothing like some mainstream media-endorsed fear mongering to make people care about an at-risk animal! The amphibian being referenced is actually a really neat new family of Caecilian, legless amphibians which live underground and, in this case, look like earthworms with backbones.

Photo by SD Biju, linked from MSNBC article

The cruel irony is the author (who I’m going to assume didn’t write the headline) finishes off the story by saying:

The habitat of these bizarre animals is under threat, as farming takes over forest land in northeast India, according to the University of Delhi. Although caecilians are harmless, local lore has it that they are incredibly venomous snakes, another factor that threatens these mysterious, secretive creatures.

How exactly are we supposed to get the public to become interested in an at-risk new species when we set them up with negative opinions from the get go? Instead of sharing a fascinating new species that doesn’t conform to most people’s idea of what an amphibian is, and encouraging them to ask questions like “Wow, why does that animal look that way?” or “How is that a relative of frogs?”, MSNBC has instead promoted the ‘ick-factor’ and reinforced that if something looks different it should be feared. Maybe this type of headline will get a lot of people to click on the link, but how many will actually read the story and learn about their cool biology rather than just looking at the photo and agreeing with the headline? When the natural world coughs up an amazing story it’s maddening to see it trashed and slandered like this!

Of course, at least MSNBC knows that scientific family names like Chikilidae are always capitalized, unlike the CBC…

 

Update: It seems MSNBC syndicated this story and headline from LiveScience. Perhaps the headline was proposed by the author after all…

Dec 062011
 
Spinops sternbergorum artistic reconstruction by Dmitry Bogdanov

The Victim - Spinops sternbergorum (artistic reconstruction by Dmitry Bogdanov, image from Science 2.0 story)

I don’t use this blog as a platform to rant very often, but a story published on Gawker this afternoon has me all riled up.

In “Moron Paleontologists Find New Species of Dinosaur in Their Own Museum“, author Max Read decides he’s fully qualified to judge how paleontology and taxonomy in general should be done, and criticizes a team of paleontologists for doing something every taxonomist does; study material housed in a museum. That’s right, Mr. Read snidely mocks the authors, who described a very cool new dinosaur species, for not undertaking a grand expedition to parts unknown to find this new species, instead discovering the species while re-examining specimens housed in the British Natural History Museum’s basement collections.

Nevermind the function of a museum is not just to provide a place for ignoramuses like Mr. Read to potentially learn something about natural history and gawk at fantastic displays, but also to actually house the raw data of biology; specimens. Or that people studying  specimens in museums would much rather be exploring exotic new localities but are handcuffed by a critical lack of monetary support for taxonomy, which cuts our ability search for new specimens (which are then brought back to the museum and ultimately stored, although I guess that fact never occurred to Mr. Read either). Or indeed that the process of taxonomy is not as straightforward as looking at a single specimen (or pieces of a specimen as is the case in much of paleontology) and instantly recognizing it as unique and in need of a new name.

The true shame of all this is the fact that the blog network Mr. Read writes for is composed of a number of blogs which routinely write well-versed and well-researched pieces on science and technology (io9 & Gizmodo to be precise). How this fascinating story was forwarded onto Mr. Read and not to authors in those other fine networks who I’m sure could have done it justice is almost as outrageous as Mr. Read’s story itself.

Natural history collections are one of the most valuable resources we have as a society, providing a link to the world around us, and to believe that people shouldn’t be studying the material contained within them is like believing that libraries shouldn’t be used for fact checking. Oh, wait…

(If you want to see how science journalism SHOULD be done, I encourage you to read Science 2.0’s version of the story)