April 4 2024: Heavy disease burden in ancient Egypt, the perils of fast science, and we're on eclipse day cloud-watch. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | Researchers examined data collected in 31 separate studies of mummies from Egypt and neighboring Nubia, dating back to 2000 B.C. In total, about 65 percent of the mummies had parasitic worms. Some 40 percent had head lice. Of the mummies that were tested for Plasmodium falciparum malaria (the most dangerous and deadly form of the illness), 22 percent had it. The scientists estimate that about 10 percent of mummies had leishmaniasis, a deadly parasitic disease that causes internal organs to enlarge.
Why this is interesting: Malaria and leishmaniasis were common in ancient Egypt likely because of the proximity of the Nile river, which harbored insect vectors for the diseases. However, notorious afflictions of ancient civilizations like whipworm and roundworm, which are spread through feces, were absent from the mummies. Researchers suspect the regular flooding of the Nile distributed fertile silt over the land and reduced the need for animal and human dung to fertilize crops.
What the experts say: The disease burden was shared by rich and poor people alike. "When you have such a high percentage of people in a civilization infected with chronic diseases like this, it has a huge impact on society functioning as a whole," says Marissa Ledger, a medical microbiology resident and biological anthropologist at McMaster University in Ontario. | | | A mummy goes into a CT scanner, which helps investigate the tissues and bones without unwrapping the fragile linen. MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images | | | The number of retractions of scientific research papers has grown dramatically in the last two decades to about eight in 10,000 papers, according to a 2022 estimate by the blog Retraction Watch. Scientific journals issue retractions when a paper becomes untrustworthy due to substantial errors or because of author misconduct or ethical violation. Increased retractions weaken public trust in science and scientific institutions. Why is this happening? One reason for more errors and misconduct could be that science is being conducted too quickly or is under too much pressure to produce results, Naomi Oreskes, historian of science at Harvard University, writes in the April issue of Scientific American. The sheer volume of papers has skyrocketed under such pressure: One recent study put the paper count at more than seven million a year, compared with fewer than a million as recently as 1980.
What the experts say: Good science takes time, Oreskes says. The number of papers published suggests "that the research world has prioritized quantity over quality," she writes. "Researchers may need to slow down—not speed up—if we are to produce knowledge worthy of trust." | | | Protecting Digital Art Generative artificial intelligence tools can now instantly produce images from text prompts. Impressive tech, yes. But it's worrying to professional artists. Two new computer programs called Glaze and Nightshade, developed by a team of University of Chicago computer scientists and artists, add algorithmic cloaks over the tops of digital images that prevent AI models from "absorbing" and learning them. Learn more in our podcast Science, Quickly. | | | • Here are up-to-date weather conditions expected along the path of April 8's total solar eclipse. Our in-house weather guru Andrea Thompson will be updating this article regularly until the big day. | 5 min read | | | • Scientific American's own copy editor, Emily Makowski explores the fascinating way her brain produces "subtitles" for every word she hears (or thinks). | 9 min read | | | • Rewarding detections of fraud in scientific research and publishing, rather than punishing whistleblowers, could help the research community avoid an estimated 5,000 paper retractions a year--a mere fraction of retractions that should happen but don't, write Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus, the founders of Retraction Watch, a blog that reports on the retraction of scientific papers. | 5 min read | | | One of my first assignments as a novice journalist was to write an explainer of the complicated terminology used by scientific journals around problematic papers. "Expressions of concern," "corrections" and "errata" can all be issued for a paper before it is retracted (if it ever is). Opaque procedural details create an air of complexity and inaccessibility around scientific publishing, which is precisely the opposite of what the public needs to feel trust in science. Sadly, my article (written for The Scientist magazine) came before widespread digitization of that publication, otherwise I'd humblebrag-link to it here. The blog Retraction Watch keeps an extensive appendix of terminology surrounding retractions, which you can peruse and get the gist of. | Reach out anytime with feedback on this newsletter: newsletters@sciam.com. I'll be back tomorrow with an eclipse prep email! | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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