Sorry for the lack of activity. Awful science articles have been thin on the ground lately – not sure whether that’s because column inches are dedicated to more important topics, or because universities have closed for summer. Either way, silly season will be here soon, and I’m sure we’ll be rolling in them, so I guess the message is be patient.
Looking at weird, misleading and just plain stupid reporting of science
Atomic Spin
About
Spin n. 1. A fundamental quantum property of elementary particles. 2. A bias or slant on information, a form of propaganda.
Blogging on the coverage of science, maths and anything else that catches my eye in the British media.
Contact
Email: atomicspin (at) hotmail (dot) co.uk Twitter: @atomic_spinAccolades
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Atomic Spin 
#1 by knightofthedropdowntable on Tuesday, 22nd June 2010 - 15:07 GMT+0100
Check the Metro today – I swear they took the article about the Perfect equation for cycling straight out of Bad Science (which I’m now reading).
“Bike and car parts shop Halford’s is using its theory as part of National Cycle Week to help people learn to ride.” It literally says Halfords came up with the ‘theory’. *headdesk*
#2 by knightofthedropdowntable on Tuesday, 22nd June 2010 - 15:27 GMT+0100
Also, as I read it again, I notice they don’t actually give you the equation, and give a pathetic excuse of a description “for the technically minded”. That description is about as useful as saying ‘a number + a number + some more numbers = another number!’
#3 by atomicspin on Tuesday, 22nd June 2010 - 15:48 GMT+0100
I love how they boiled the formula down so much it becomes completely meaningless. The whole point is that they found numbers that parameterised the equation as a complicated differential equation. It not like “keep cycling and you won’t fall over” is the amazing discovery it took years to find.
Of course, the saddest part of this is that this isn’t even recent news. The equation was covered in The Telegraph way back in 2007 – only that time it didn’t have Halfords name attached to it. So what’s actually happened is that Halfords stumbled on the paper, stuck it in a press release and handed it to the papers to copy-paste into an article without even caring whether it’s news. (It looks like The Mail and The Telegraph – again! – got suckered too)