We have previously written blog posts on media coverage of the factors that have been suggested to cause mental health conditions, especially childhood disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A great sensitivity clearly needs to be taken when speculating (and even more so when attributing evidence) to potential factors that may cause these conditions in media reports. Many parents of children with these conditions will read these articles and will attribute evidence that they read to their own situation, which can of course include personal blame. Read more…
As our Rewrite the Headlines competition draws to a close, we would like to take this opportunity to thank the individuals and groups who helped to make the initiative such a success. Working with schools and universities throughout Scotland, the Rewrite the Headlines competition aimed to help young people better understand what research is, how it gets translated from specialised areas to popular media, and then how they might translate it back. And it wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the following… Read more…
Over the last few weeks we have been showcasing the top entries in both the school and undergraduate categories of our Rewrite the Headlines competition (full list of winners here). Today we conclude with the overall winning primary school entry which is from St. Roch’s Primary and Hearing Impaired School, Glasgow. Read more…
Over the last few weeks we have been showcasing the top entries in both the school and undergraduate categories of our Rewrite the Headlines competition (full list of winners here). We continue with the primary school winners of the special subject prizes: St Francis of Assisi Primary RC School, Glasgow, and St Joseph’s Primary School, Glasgow. Read more…
Over the first few weeks of February, we’re showcasing the top entries in both the school and undergraduate categories of our Rewrite the Headlines competition (full list of winners here). We continue with the runners up in the primary school category, from Sandaig Primary School, Glasgow, and St. Mun’s Primary School, Dunoon.
At the end of January, we were delighted to announce the winners of Rewrite the Headlines, our national competition encouraging school children and students to explore how the latest research is turned into headline news. You can view the full list of winners here. Over the last two weeks we have been showcasing the top entries in the undergraduate categories. This week we will be showcasing the top entries in our primary school categories which involved rewriting a headline to be more accurate and providing an explanation of the process engaged in to come up with the new headline. We begin with the commended entries which came from Towerbank Primary School, Edinburgh; St Fillan’s Primary RC School, Glasgow; and Milesmark Primary School, Dunfermline.
If you have been following our blog you probably saw a similar post only a few months ago. But, since very similar headlines re-appeared last week, I thought it was worth discussing once again the news telling us that Alzheimer’s disease is infectious. The headlines were quite dramatic: “Alzheimer’s can be transmitted from one person to another” in the Independent, or “Can you CATCH Alzheimer’s? Fresh fears emerge amid claims of a second case of transmission from a transplant” in the Daily Mail. Read more…
As I write this, the physics world is buzzing with the news that the LIGO team have finally detected one of the most elusive phenomena in the Universe – gravitational waves. This is the first time that gravitational waves have been directly detected – we’ve known their existence indirectly, through observations of binary pulsars made in the 1970s, which won the Nobel Prize in 1993.
A very common mistake (in both academic and media circles) is to confuse gravity waves and gravitational waves, like this Wired article’s title, or this from the Wall Street Journal (even Google displays results for gravitational waves when you type gravity waves). I’m here to tell you they’re not the same thing. Read more…
Over the first few weeks of February, we’re showcasing the top entries in both the school and undergraduate categories of our Rewrite the Headlines competition (full list of winners here). We conclude the undergraduate entries today with the overall undergraduate winner, Abbey Wrathall at the University of Edinburgh. Read more…
Over the first few weeks of February, we’re showcasing the top entries in both the school and undergraduate categories of our Rewrite the Headlines competition (full list of winners here). We’re now onto the special undergraduate subject prizes, with David McElroy at Abertay University winning the Social Policy prize, sponsored by the School of Social Work and Social Policy at the University of Strathclyde. Read more…
researchtheheadlines.org 