Skip to content

ACN - 101321555 | ABN - 39101321555

Australasian Human Research Ethics Consultancy Services Pty Ltd (AHRECS)

AHRECS icon
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Consultants
    • Services
  • Previous Projects
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • Feeds
  • Contact Us
  • More
    • Request a Quote
    • Susbcribe to REM
    • Subscribe to VIP
Menu
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Consultants
    • Services
  • Previous Projects
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • Feeds
  • Contact Us
  • More
    • Request a Quote
    • Susbcribe to REM
    • Subscribe to VIP
Exclude terms...
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
AHRECS
Analysis
Animal ethics
Animal Ethics Committee
Animal handling
Animal housing
Animal Research Ethics
Animal Welfare
ANZCCART
Artificial Intelligence
Arts
Australia
Authorship
Belief
Beneficence
Big data
Big data
Biobank
Bioethics
Biomedical
Biospecimens
Breaches
Cartoon/Funny
Case studies
Clinical trial
Collaborative research
Conflicts of interest
Consent
Controversy/Scandal
Controversy/Scandal
Creative
Culture
Data management
Database
Dual-use
Essential Reading
Ethical review
Ethnography
Euthanasia
Evaluative practice/quality assurance
Even though i
First People
Fraud
Gender
Genetics
Get off Gary Play man of the dog
Good practice
Guidance
Honesty
HREC
Human research ethics
Humanities
Institutional responsibilities
International
Journal
Justice
Links
Media
Medical research
Merit and integrity
Methodology
Monitoring
New Zealand
News
Online research
Peer review
Performance
Primary materials
Principles
Privacy
Protection for participants
Psychology
Publication ethics
Questionable Publishers
Research ethics committees
Research integrity
Research Misconduct
Research results
Researcher responsibilities
Resources
Respect for persons
Sample paperwork
sd
se
Serious Adverse Event
Social Science
SoTL
Standards
Supervision
Training
Vulnerability
What was that say
x
Young people
Exclude news

Sort by

Animal Ethics Biosafety Human Research Ethics Research Integrity

Rise of the zombie ants – Nature (Gemma Conroy | January 2021)

Posted by Dr Gary Allen in Research Integrity on January 26, 2021
Keywords: Good practice, Merit and integrity, Publication ethics, Research integrity, Research results, Researcher responsibilities

The Linked Original Item was Posted On January 11, 2021

Woman writing in a book rested on an open laptop

Why hype is creeping into scientific papers.

When Jean-François Doherty first dipped into research papers on parasitic host-manipulation five years ago, he felt as though he was reading science fiction.

Has our hunger to get published, clicks from social media and overcoming reader apathy, driven us to use language that is dramatic and exciting, but ultimately not entirely accurate? This Nature piece reflects on what is going on in the language researchers use to describe their research.

The technical jargon was peppered with colourful words and phrases such as ‘zombie’, ‘hijack’ and ‘mind control’. Even ‘puppeteer’ was used to describe host manipulation, whereby a parasitic organism significantly alters the appearance or behaviour of its host.

The “ample use of anthropomorphisms and words borrowed from science fiction” bothered Doherty, a PhD student studying host manipulation by hairworms at the University of Otago in New Zealand. “I knew these words were objectively inaccurate.”

A 2019 study on the taxonomy of a pathogenic fungus (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis), for example, described its hosts as ‘zombie ants’.

Read the rest of this discussion piece

Related Reading

Covid-19 Research Scandals Illustrate What’s Wrong With Science – Elemental (Dana G Smith | August 2020)

Fighting Fiction with Fiction: A novel approach to engaging the public in bioethics of medical research

Stranger than fiction – Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science (Andrew Gelman | December 2017)

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Links

Complaints against Research Ethics Monthly

Request a Takedown

Submission Guidelines

About the Research Ethics Monthly

About subscribing to the Research Ethics Monthly

A diverse group discussing a topic

Random selected image from the AHRECS library. These were all purchased from iStockPhoto. These are images we use in our workshops and Dr Allen used in the GUREM.

Research Ethics Monthly Receive copies of the Research Ethics Monthly directly
by email. We will never spam you.

  • Enter the answer as a word
  • Hidden
    This field is hidden and only used for import to Mailchimp
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
  • Home
  • Services
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • Services
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Company
  • Terms Of Use
  • Copyright
  • Privacy Policy
  • Company
  • Terms Of Use
  • Copyright
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site Map
  • Site Map

Australasian Human Research Ethics Consultancy Services Pty Ltd (AHRECS)

Facebook-f Twitter Linkedin-in