Science News BS Heat Map, July 16, 2026

                         

Recent Science News Article	BS Rating	Comment
"Is our intelligence rooted in how living organisms are organized?"		We have an interview in which one neuroscientist interviews another brain scholar who is promoting a book. The interview wanders all over the place, with no decent argument ever being formulated; and neither person sounds  like anyone who has a credible explanation of how human cognition arises. There's mention of a "constraint closure" explanation which sounds hopelessly inadequate as an explanation for the wonders of human minds.  The hierarchical organization of human bodies is one of the grandest marvels ever discovered, but it does not explain human minds or human memory. The author's book can be read online.  On page 10 she strangely states, "What makes organisms special, as I describe in chapter 10, is that the apparently invariant structures that constrain and enable these precarious flows of energy (processes) are also themselves reciprocally dependent on those flows of energy in turn."  There are 100 reasons why organisms such as you are special, many of which are a billion times deeper than that.
"The secret of human intelligence may lie in the power of a single brain cell"		We have the false claim that "researchers found that neurons in the human cortex are significantly more complex information-processing units ('microchips') than those of other mammals." Neurons are not anything like microchips. A scientist makes the false boast that his team discovered that "a single human neuron is itself an extraordinarily sophisticated computing device." The chain of reasoning used to try to justify this claim is a tortured mess. Brains are not computers, and (as discussed here) brains lack almost all of the characteristics of computers;  and individual neurons are not computing devices. See my post "11 Authorities Seem to Realize That 'Your Brain Is a Computer'  Is a Junk Metaphor."
"Dark matter's secret address revealed? Scientists say it may be hiding in fifth dimension."		Another "epicycle" to try and patch up the floundering theory of dark matter. When you have to imagine that something you fail to see is hiding in the fifth dimension, you are not in the realm of hard science.
"From friend to foe: How the brain updates feelings toward others"		We have a bad example of clickbait from the neuroscience magazine The Transmitter. In the article a neuroscientist makes the groundless boast "We found the neural mechanisms that underlie emotion toward others." The article quotes someone else saying, "“It’s truly unbelievable how much they did in this paper." A look at the paper being promoted shows exactly the type of schlock science work that predominates in today's experimental neuroscience research. The paper is behind a paywall but you can look at the Supplementary Information document, which shows the usual severe sins such as the use of way-too-small study group sizes such as only 5 rodents or only 9 rodents, and the use of the utterly unreliable technique of trying to judge "freezing behavior."  No neuroscientist has any credible tale to tell of how your feeling about something (such as your love or hate for someone or something)  could exist as a brain state.
"Detection of a four-carbon sugar in interstellar space"		The reported detection is not a very reliable one, for three reasons: (1) it is "bleeding edge" work using some new technology ("limitation has recently been overcome using ultrafast laser vaporization"); (2) the claimed detection is so far away (in the galactic center) that detection claims are relatively unreliable; (3) the reported amount is some tiniest trace amount that could easily be a false alarm.
"Scientists Say Gravity Has Been Holding Your Consciousness Together"		This is a bogus clickbait headline, provided by the Popular Mechanics site which so often publishes such headlines. As we know from astronauts living for many days in zero gravity, it is not true that gravity is necessary for either your consciousness or the continuation of your life (although the human race could not have arisen without gravity). Conversely, two of the other four fundamental forces of nature (electromagnetism and the strong nuclear force) are forces that you need for every hour of your bodily existence.
"Learning to identify new objects reshapes parts of the brain, research finds"		The press release from York University makes a false claim. Learning to identify new objects does not at all reshape any part of the brain. The research being promoted is a typical product from today's wasteland of cognitive neuroscience research: a study using a study group size of only 3 monkeys per study group (500% too small for any reliable result to be claimed).  The study has produced no evidence that any part of the brains of the monkeys it studied were reshaped in any substantial way.
"The 'Nuclear Nightmare' That Was Manufactured by the Media"		Yahoo.com has strangely offered this story today, under a label of "Science." The article is a nuclear power industry sales pitch, by a writer who writes like he never heard of the meltdown of the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl which poisoned so many square miles. He tells the false tale that concerns about nuclear power plants were "manufactured by the media" without warrant. We have here another reminder that much of what you read labeled as "Science" is not science, but dubious or misleading corporate propaganda.
"Birds are not descended from dinosaurs — they are dinosaurs."		Silly Darwinist slop cluttering up Google News' science news page.
"Scientists Say They’ve Identified an Earth-Like Planet Right Next Door"		The term "Earth-like planet" should never be used unless some planet was discovered with life on it; and no such thing occurred in this case. The planet is twice the mass of Earth, and does not even revolve around a star like the sun. It instead revolves around a very different type of star called a red dwarf. Many think the chance of advanced life on planets revolving around red dwarf stars is slim.
"The hidden brain trait that makes some people fall for extremism"		There is no brain trait that makes some people fall for extremism. We have an interview with a neuroscientist and psychologist who fails to mention any such trait. He's promoting a book. The neuroscientist claims to have "run experiments with thousands of participants," but those were not experiments yielding brain data. We have no link to any papers or any mention of a paper, and the experiments are described as "neuropyschological games."  They were presumably just people playing online games, which don't tell us anything about brains, and which should never have been called "neuropsychological."

Below is an idea for a movie comedy, based on real-life bungling and lazy efforts in the world of science research and science literature, such as the efforts of slacker neuroscientists who keep using fumbling, lazy methods and sleazy shortcuts such as way-too-small study group sizes,  and who lazily fail to adequately study minds, anomalous mental phenomena,  brain physical shortfalls and medical case histories defying their dogmas.