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The National Academies of Science is wading into the longstanding mess over the validity of research findings. It doesn’t, of course, agree that there is a “crisis.” That said, the report also notes that the American public’s confidence in science hasn’t wavered at all in recent years, despite major news articles discussing the “crisis” in psychology and elsewhere. And it found that even scientists who have criticized the current state of things aren’t completely on-board with calling science broken. “How extensive is the lack of reproducibility in research results in science and engineering in general? The easy answer is that we don’t know,” Brain Nosek, co-founder and director of the Center for Open Science, told the report committee during a Read More ›

Riffing off Elon Musk’s goal of sending humans to Mars by 2024, and NASA’s plans to send astronauts there after they visit the Moon again, Rice University evolutionary biologist Scott Solomon envisions “mutations cascading through the gene pool”: After about two generations, he thinks their bones will strengthen, they’ll need glasses for nearsightedness, their immune systems will be null, pregnancy and childbirth will be significantly more perilous, and the exposure to radiation—more than 5,000 times the amount we’re exposed to on Earth during a normal lifetime, Solomon says—could lead to an influx of cancer.Natalie Coleman, “Evolutionary Biologist: Mars Colonists Will Mutate Really Fast” at Futurism As a result, he thinks Martians should stop having kids with Earthlings. Hey, what do Read More ›