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Post egregious examples of crap science reporting in this thread

Minoosh said:
As glaring examples of idiotic journalism go, I didn't find this redundancy particularly annoying. But I'm having trouble imagining something flat with ripples. Is it flat like a piece of paper with ripples in it?
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Redundancy? What are you talking about? Did you read the part I highlighted?

Or are you suggesting that if parallel lines never meet, then the universe is two dimensional?
 
yy2bggggs said:
Redundancy? What are you talking about? Did you read the part I highlighted?

Or are you suggesting that if parallel lines never meet, then the universe is two dimensional?
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Ignignokt: You and your third dimension.

Frylock: What about it?

Ignignokt: Oh nothing... It's cute! We have five.

Err: ...th-thousand!

Ignignokt: Yes, five thousand.

Err: Don't question it!

Frylock: Oh yeah? Well, I only see two.

Ignignokt: Well, that sounds like a personal problem.
 
Minoosh said:
I read it and did not see anything glaringly wrong, besides the name of the magazine. I'll try to "tease" it out.
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Hint: Rapists and people in the men's magazine also eat food and sleep and poop.
 
I don't have an actual internet reference, but in the late 80s, there was an article in an Australian newspaper about their newest communications satellite program (I think it was "Aussat B" at the time, but was subsequently renamed as "Optus"). The article concluded with "The satellite runs on batteries, and once these are depleted, it will be directed into the sun where it will be burned up."

Sooo wrong, in so many ways . . . .

ETA: for those of you who aren't familiar with commsats, imagine that it had been an article about an airliner that said the airliner runs on batteries, and once those are depleted, the aircraft will be placed in a cloud where it will be disintegrated."
 
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John Albert said:
What's wrong with this "psychological study"?

http://jezebel.com/5866602/can-you-tell-the-difference-between-a-mens-magazine-and-a-rapist
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What a joke- they give the men two choices, do they identify more with a rapist or a misogynist men's magazine. They're not able to qualify how much they identify with either, if at all, only which one they identify with more. They then draw negative conclusions about the men from the results of this rigged game. What a load of rubbish.
 
I think it was during the early period of the Columbia Space Shuttle crash, that one of the news websites said that the Columbia was travelling at 18 times the speed of light when it exploded.

Instead, the Columbia was travelling at 18 times the speed of sound; which is very zippy, but considerably less than 18 times the speed of light.
 
I have seen many talking-air-heads make the same stupid mistake about Kepler 22b. Scientists say the average temperature there is 72 degrees F. Talking-air-head then states that it is always 72 degrees everywhere on the planet.

[Morbo] Averages don't work that way![/Morbo]
 
I'm not sure if this counts, since it is more about technology than pure science, but I must say that this old article - New Drone Spies Combat Targets from the Stratosphere in Scientific American about a certain Sanswire company and its technology is extremely crappy reporting. It seems no one bothered to check out the background of Sanswire. It's not just that they don't have anything currently in use in the stratosphere, or launched anything into the stratosphere for a significant length of time. No it's that the company is a total scam. It has never had a successful airship, or drone in its entire existence.

Sanswire used to be called GlobeTel, and is now called "World Surveillance Group". Former executives of this company have been imprisoned, almost all of the revenues they reported were proven to be fraudulent, they have serious IRS troubles and they were delisted by the American Stock exchange.

It is pathetic that no one at Scientific American bothered to just do a basic Google search of this company before doing a report about it. They unknowingly promoted a notorious scam company.
 
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Jack by the hedge said:
If you fill your tyres with butane you'll need to keep them above about 30°C otherwise the gas inside will liquify under pressure, effectively deflating the tyre.

...or was that the joke you were making?
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Not to mention the components of rubber that are probably relatively butane-soluble.
 
CORed said:
Also, butane is flammable. a blowout could be really interesting if the tire gets hot enough, or there's a spark from static electricity or whatever.
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Then again, I was once told a major causes of truck tyre blowouts is overheating caused by scrubbing due to one of a pair being underinflated relative to its neighbour. What if there was a small amount of butane in the tyre, which would boil as the tyre heated up and reinflate it? :D
 
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