How failures in study selection can sink a meta-analysis
Mixing apples and oranges and winding up with garbage
#249 ‒ How the brain works, Andrew’s fascinating backstory, improving scientific literacy, and more | Andrew Huberman, Ph.D.
“I want to communicate the beauty and utility of biology. I want to do that by being a teacher and a storyteller.” —Andrew Huberman
How much control can we really have in studies on animals?
A 40-year-old study shows that animals’ emotional states can impact physiology, a reminder that they are more complex and individual than we often give them credit for.
Lean mass loss on GLP-1 receptor agonists: a downside of the “miracle drugs”
Clinical trials have generated impressive data on the effects of GLP-1 agonists on body weight and BMI, but how do these drugs perform in terms of body composition?
Screen time and children’s cognition: a question of context
A recent review suggests that screen time may not be as bad for infants as many of us may think – but only under the right circumstances.
When it comes to medical advice, is less always more?
To the general public, the trial-and-error process of science and medicine may erode confidence, but without it, we’d have no science and medicine at all.
Small steps toward improving research reliability
Unfortunately, scientific publishing is riddled with myriad problems, many of which likely can’t be solved without completely rethinking current processes and the underlying research culture. However, there are still small, short-term changes that are relatively easy to implement and can yield meaningful improvements in research integrity.
Adding context to the Alzheimer’s disease research fraud charges
This past July, a news article published in Science sent shockwaves through the scientific community when it reported that one of the most influential and frequently-cited publications in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) research was evidently based on fraud.
Different effects of fat- vs. carbohydrate-restriction on neural reward signaling
“A calorie is a calorie” seems like a simple and obvious statement. But do different macronutrients vary in their ability to drive obesity? A recent study by Dr. Kevin Hall and colleagues provides new clues – and likely new fodder for debate.
Vitamin D(éjà vu): new study, same old problems
For vitamin D supplementation to have any effect relative to placebo, it needs to be increasing the body’s supply of vitamin D, and if it doesn’t, then the treatment and placebo groups are effectively identical. So did the researchers achieve a difference in vitamin D levels over the course of the study?