So this is my catchup post - the internet was being stupidly slow the other night, so I gave up. And so I'm catching up now.

This post is a warning - check your sources. Multiple sources. This is something I am not very good at. I'm a bit lazy in that. But sometimes one source, even though it is normally reputable, is wrong.

Example number one of this: my last Newsflash. The hair solar panel? Apparently it's a scam. Thanks to annon who pointed this out - I had not heard, I had only heard that it was right. Now my reasons for believing this were as follows:
1. It sounded nice and would save the world.
2. It was on the Daily Mail website. I thought that was reputable. I was wrong.

The comments at the bottom of the article do discuss this briefly, however I did not scroll down that far initially and did not read them.

This blog also reported on it and was corrected. The discussion is very good though.

Another good debunking site for this myth is this.

Another good example is this story about dead fish exhibiting brain activity. Of course they don't normally and they are not alive, but if we twist what we find, or only report some of the results, this is what happens.

This is a big trap for reporters - if they don't understand the science, then it is easy to believe fake science, or at least mistaken science, and report on it. Which in turns leads others who also don't understand the science to false knowledge. Leading to widespread untruths.

It kind of comes down to what I said about being science ambassadors - we have a responsibility to ensure the science we pass on is correct and true. If it involves asking experts, or reading different sources to ensure its right, then that is what we need to do. People trust communicators, they trust the media, to give them the truth. So communicators need to ensure they are passing on the real truth, not psuedo-truth.

*Sigh* Me included. No more just trusting news sites.