From the start of the Abbreviated Science Round-up, most articles have come from three peer-reviewed journals: Science, Nature, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (which is inelegantly, but understandably, abbreviated as PNAS). Occasionally, items have been sourced from other journals, but in the main there has been an attempt to avoid those items that have already been blatted across every news site and linked to death on social media. The reasoning behind this was twofold: To give Daily Kos readers more original reporting of science stories that were not yet making the rounds of the popular press, and to avoid looking at these items through secondary sources which often distort and misreport stories, particularly when it comes to articles on health and medicine. But going forward, there’s going to be a bit more flexibility. There will still be a weekly scan of Science, Nature, PNAS and other journals for articles that seem relatable. But there will also be more material from National Geographic, Smithsonian, and from news sites like the BBC and the Guardian.  I’m making that change because sticking with the journals means sometimes skipping over a story that is of obvious high interest, but which isn’t connected to fresh research results. It also means bypassing some terrific science journalism and failing to relay articles some of which are the results of months or years of work. And, frankly, some of these journalists have been doing just what I’ve been doing: Digging through articles with sometimes obscure titles and dense information, in an attempt to find interesting stories that impact people in their homes and daily lives. They’ve often done such a good job at it, that my taking a Friday-night, Saturday-morning swing at repeating their work seems not just pointless, but a disservice to readers. That doesn’t mean you’re still not going to get such nifty little dips into the science pool as a paper on the best way to remove adhesive tape from artwork, a discussion on the difficulty of determining the effectiveness of Facebook ads, or evidence for large-scale looting following a battle between Romans and ‘barbarians’ in the FIrst Century. They’re in there, just after the fold. It’s just that you’re also going to get a Smithsonian article on 3-D printed houses, National Geographic’s take on a paper showing how climate change slows hurricanes, and the Guardian talking about some very, very old footprints. Come on … let’s science. Read more