Part the First: Beware Scientific Jargon. But everyone here already knows that. Nevertheless, this is a perpetual challenge for every scientist and other scholar who wants to be understood by our fellow citizens without “dumbing it down.” Scientific jargon can be ‘satisfying’ — but misleading. Jargon works especially well for those of my tribe who have something to hide or the desire to show off. I do my best to avoid both tendencies, but some of my colleagues live for both, when they deign to explain. Wendell Berry has described this as the curse of specialization. Wendell Berry is correct.
Across nine online experiments, the researchers presented nearly 6,700 participants with explanations of scientific phenomena that varied by quality (whether the explanation was circular, meaning that its conclusion was used as part of its premise, or complete) and language (whether the explanation was plain or used jargon). Participants were then asked to rate the text along three key dimensions.
The first was ‘gappiness’: to what extent did the explanation have gaps in it? This reflects whether the reader felt that the explanation was incomplete. The second was satisfaction: how satisfying did they find the explanation? This is a proxy for perceptions of the coherence and completeness of the argument, and the expertise of the writer. Finally, comprehensibility: how easy was the explanation to understand? This provides a direct measure of whether the reader felt that they understood the explanation. The researchers’ goal was to unpack why jargon might boost reader satisfaction but decrease their understanding.
Why does jargon work? The pattern observed by the authors reflects a psychological tendency: when people lack knowledge, they often rely on surface cues to assess the credibility of a statement. Jargon becomes a signal of the communicator’s expertise. Even when readers don’t understand the technical terms, they assume the explanation refers to existing knowledge. In other words, readers gave statements with jargon the benefit of the doubt.
Welcome to the world of Alternative Medicine, which seems to have taken over much of our biomedical scientific establishment that is steadily being gobbled up by Biomedicine – the child of Biomedical Science and Big Pharma.
But one thing in this article, I do not understand. Why is the following even a question?
This research raises an important question: what should science communicators aim for — explanations that readers find acceptable and satisfying, or ones that are clear and understandable? Unless a communicator has a compelling reason to do otherwise, we think that clarity should prevail. Plain language deepens understanding, supports sound decision-making and reduces the risk of harmful misinterpretation. This is especially crucial in the context of politically important and fast-developing fields, such as climate science, technology and medicine.
Clear and understandable is always superior to obscure and inscrutable. I sometimes fail at this, but not for lack of effort. Any scientist who cannot explain his or her research and its importance in two minutes to a sincerely interested interlocutor without using jargon does not understand the problem and should not be given much attention. The underlying article is here for those who can get it.
Part the Second: Why Chocolate Tastes So Good. And can taste better. It’s the microbes involved in fermentation. Naturally. This will not be a surprise to those who eat fermented food (good for the microbiome though I am still developing a taste for yoghurt) and drink beer, wine, and spirits, the latter three in moderation, of course.
In a study published in Nature Microbiology (open access) researchers found that, during the fermentation process, the pH, temperature and microbial species all influence how the resulting chocolate tastes. They also replicated the flavor attributes of a high-quality chocolate in the laboratory by creating the ideal environment for fermentation.
The researchers hope that using these techniques will “create novelty and exciting new flavors for consumers in the future”, says study co-author David Gopaulchan, a plant geneticist at the University of Nottingham, UK.
“I think this definitely has promise for people to start to play with and look at in terms of designer chocolates,” says Heather Hallen-Adams, a food scientist at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
Bakers, distillers, winemakers, and brewers are food scientists to their core. But this research shows that professional food scientists can be of a certain use, too, and while not working for food ultra-processors:
Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) bean fermentation is a spontaneous process involving interactions between abiotic and biotic factors that contribute to the final flavors of chocolate. Understanding these underlying interactions could enable desired flavor profiles to be reproduced under controlled conditions. Here, using bean fermentation samples from Colombian farms, we established that pH, temperature and microbiota composition, including both bacteria and fungi, influence key flavor attributes of premium chocolate. Genome-resolved metagenomics revealed that metabolic traits necessary for the development of the flavor profile of chocolate are redundantly present in the fermentation microbial community. Using a defined and metabolically competent microbial consortium, the feasibility of replicating fine flavor attributes of chocolate under controlled conditions was confirmed via omics, metabolic networks and a trained tasting panel. Our results provide the basis for the design of fermentation starters to robustly reproduce fine chocolate characteristics.
Many years ago, a medical student gave me a sourdough starter that produced the best bread I ever tasted. Alas, I let it expire due to a false sense of busyness and the accompanying neglect. I am not a chocaholic but I outgrew Hershey kisses long ago (not that I eschew them completely). Good chocolate is like good cheese. It may cost a lot more but it is ten times more satisfying than the two-pound orange brick from the usual manufacturer most commonly found in the United States. This work is worth following to its conclusion. Food should be taken seriously, even when it is chocolate. Perhaps especially when it is chocolate. And with that, I hope to return to Ladurée Thanksgiving Week – the best time for an American to visit Paris. And Notre Dame has reopened and the Olympics are long gone.
Part the Third: Update on Retraction of the Arsenic Life Paper. It has always been passing strange how this paper, which claimed that a new form of Life on Earth has been discovered in Mono Lake in California, in a bacterium that substituted arsenic for phosphorous in DNA and RNA. Well, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. From the very first reading by anyone with the slightest biochemical intuition, this paper was implausible if not completely ridiculous. Of course, the bacteria were using phosphate instead of arsenate, because the components of the culture medium were contaminated with phosphate, albeit at very low levels. Any microbiologist would understand that bacteria are very good at making do with less, a lot less than optimum, if given the time.
So, how did it happen? This article by David A. Sanders in Times Higher Education explains the situation very well (click on reader view to avoid registration). But no one should really have much sympathy for the authors and even less for the reviewers. The authors got carried away with their hypothesis and admittedly lacked the relevant biological expertise to know this. I am by no means a chemist but it was immediately apparent that a “sugar-arsenate” instead of a “sugar-phosphate” backbone for RNA and DNA would be unstable and incapable of serving as the genetic material. The reviewers? I have no clue about them. The explanation for this unfortunate event lies in this video linked by Sanders: NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built with Toxic Chemical (the first few minutes at 1.40x are enough to get the gist of it):
NASA-funded astrobiology research has changed the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth.
Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components.
This finding of an alternative biochemistry makeup will alter biology textbooks and expand the scope of the search for life beyond Earth. The research is published in this week’s edition of Science Express.
No, no, and no. But it made a very good story for a NASA bureaucracy in search of a budget. I cannot find the reference but NASA had done this before, in the 1980s if I remember correctly. A meteorite was discovered that had tiny round nodules under the microscope that looked for all the world like Archaean fossil blue-green algae (cyanobacteria or similar organisms). This discovery was hailed as evidence for life elsewhere in the universe. Not so much as it turned out. A more recent reach is here. The lesson to be learned is this: When the hype gets out of hand, wait and see. We have unfortunately seen this too much in the past five years, and my fellow scientists have much to answer for. Not that they will ever see it this way, even as their hubris has authored much destruction.
Part the Fourth: All of Us Will Still Die Anyway One Day No Matter What We Do. A fear of death is natural – everyone wants to go to heaven even though no one seems to want to die to get there. But acting on those fears in the scientific effort to prolong life beyond eating well, exercising, and taking life as it comes but not for granted, is downright silly. We have covered this before in a discussion of The Future Loves You: How and Why We Should Abolish Death. My first mentor in science was taught by an outstanding group of scientists. One of them decided the study of metabolism was a waste of time if the goal was not to figure out how to live much, much longer. He switched to the study of senescence back in the day when the Hayflick limit was discovered. Unfortunately, he died in the mid-1970s at a normal old age. He was able to tell a good story at the big annual meeting to the end, though!
This science continues, and some of it in the form of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has been retracted. Stuff happens, and digital image manipulation seems to be the most common stuff. Has this been a consequence of deskilling in the laboratory? Or is it simply a crime of convenience facilitated by tools such as blur, cut/paste, flip/rotate, brightness/contrast (especially of the nonlinear kind)? All of the above. The paper was contributed to PNAS by George Church of Harvard Medical School and MIT. As a member of the National Academy of Sciences he has that (not unlimited) privilege. Professor Church is by all accounts a very successful scientist by current and conventional metrics, with publications (more than 700) and fifty startup companies coming out of his laboratories.
I remember this paper from 2021. Inhaling a cytomegalovirus (CMV) preparation containing magic enzymes that increase longevity seemed too good to be true. Maybe it was:
Significance. Using CMV as a gene therapy vector we illustrated that CMV can be used therapeutically as a monthly inhaled or intraperitoneally delivered treatment for aging-associated decline. Exogenous telomerase reverse transcriptase or follistatin genes were safely and effectively delivered in a murine model. This treatment significantly improved biomarkers associated with healthy aging, and the mouse lifespan was increased up to 41% without an increased risk of cancer. The impact of this research on an aging population cannot be understated as the global aging-related noncommunicable disease burden quickly rises.
Abstract. As the global elderly population grows, it is socioeconomically and medically critical to provide diverse and effective means of mitigating the impact of aging on human health. Previous studies showed that the adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector induced overexpression of certain proteins, which can suppress or reverse the effects of aging in animal models. In our study, we sought to determine whether the high-capacity cytomegalovirus vector (CMV) can be an effective and safe gene delivery method for two such protective factors: telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) and follistatin (FST). We found that the mouse cytomegalovirus (MCMV) carrying exogenous TERT or FST (MCMVTERT or MCMVFST) extended median lifespan by 41.4% and 32.5%, respectively. We report CMV being used successfully as both an intranasal and injectable gene therapy system to extend longevity. Specifically, this treatment significantly improved glucose tolerance, physical performance, as well as preventing body mass loss and alopecia. Further, telomere shortening associated with aging was ameliorated by TERT and mitochondrial structure deterioration was halted in both treatments. Intranasal and injectable preparations performed equally well in safely and efficiently delivering gene therapy to multiple organs, with long-lasting benefits and without carcinogenicity or unwanted side effects. Translating this research to humans could have significant benefits associated with quality of life and an increased health span.
I would simply note two things. (1) the mouse is good model for cancer and a lousy but convenient model for human physiology and (2) that it will be impossible to “to provide diverse and effective means of mitigating the impact of aging on human health” other than to build a world that is predicated on human flourishing rather than GDP growth and billionaire proliferation until we have a gaggle of trillionaires. Oh, and also that George Church blurbed The Future Loves You: How and Why We Should Abolish Death:
Elegantly handles the why and how of ending death, with engagingly described specific details and compelling responses to standard concerns about overpopulation, social stagnation, and unnaturalness…Dear Future, we love you, too.
Lovely sentiments but death becomes us all. Actually, the book was an exercise in empty philosophical and biological hypotheticals. The former are unconvincing and the latter mistake the physical structure of the brain, down to the level of the synapse and the molecules that make them function, with mind that is the product of the brain and the seat of what makes us human animals.
Part the Fifth: The Scopes Trial Was One Hundred Years Ago. And covered in Nature (paywall that my digital subscription would not surmount):
AMERICAN men of science naturally felt consider able interest in the trial of John T. Scopes, high school teacher, at Dayton, Tennessee, for the alleged violation of the now famous anti-evolution act on the statute books of that State. Relatively few scientists in this country are directly threatened by the epidemic of anti-evolution legislation; for this is at present confined largely to the southern States, and the majority of the more important colleges and universities, both independent and State-supported, are in the north and west. However, interest in the continued academic independence of their colleagues in the south brought a number of scientists to Dayton as scientific coadjutors for the defense counsel, while many more had signified their willingness to attend if called upon. They would have appeared as expert witnesses also, had the judge not ruled against the admissibility of scientific testimony.
The Scopes Trial had it all: Clarence Darrow, William Jennings Bryan, H.L. Mencken. If you have not seen it, Inherit the Wind with Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and Gene Kelly is a fair Hollywood treatment, in my view (but I could watch that cast in anything). Books on the Scopes Trial are many. But neither science nor academic freedom were seriously threatened in 1925 by the political reaction to what John Scopes taught to his biology students. Not so true of the actions of our politicians today.
Regarding the Scopes Trial, we should remember that the first thirty years of the twentieth century witnessed the rise of professional science as a way of knowing but not knowing everything. These years were also thoroughly scientistic in their misuse of science to address problems that were not amenable to scientific approaches. Not the least was the then mainstream science of eugenics and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in the Buck v. Bell decision (1927), “three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Who would have thought then that one hundred years hence, scientism and a softer but just as malignant eugenics would be concerns of 2025?
And with that, no more about what is wrong with our science today. We have next week for that. And there continues to be a lot to cover. See you then.
