Rapid Reactions: responding to breaking news. The demands of the 24-hour media machine mean that news journalists often don’t have the luxury of time to track down the best scientists when a science story lands on their desks, so availability can sometimes win out over expertise. This is where the Science Media Centre steps in. When a story breaks – whether it’s the latest flu epidemic, health scare or a potential nuclear crisis – the SMC persuades leading experts to drop everything and engage with the story, then contacts journalists at all the major news outlets to offer those experts for interviews or immediate comment.
Roundups: putting new research into context. One of the other ways the SMC ensures that the media have easy access to scientists and their views is by offering journalists a variety of comments from scientists reacting to the latest research. This service differs from our ‘Rapid Reactions’ as scientists have time to react before new research is announced, rather than in response to breaking news.
With access to embargoed journals before publication, we can pick stories of most interest to journalists, asking third party experts to provide comments and information to put research into context before it appears in the media. The SMC’s unique Roundups help busy journalists critically analyse the strengths and weaknesses of new research, and highlight when studies are very preliminary or display a correlation that should not be read as causation. Equally, when leading scientists are excited about a significant study this can reassure journalists that the study should feature strongly in their coverage.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released* the final COVID-19 Infection Survey data set. Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, … read more
The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act has been granted Royal Assent and passed into law in the UK today. … read more
A study published in PLOS ONE looks at the safety and efficacy of a novel sperm sex selection technique. … read more
A scoping review published in PLOS Global Public Health investigates the association between social media, body image and eating disorders … read more
A study published in PLOS Medicine looks at combined and progestagen-only hormonal contraceptives and breast cancer risk. This Roundup accompanied … read more
An observational study published in the Lancet looks at alcohol-related deaths and hospitalisations in Scotland since the minimum unit pricing … read more
A systematic review published in Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry looks at the impact of viewing self-harm images on … read more
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have published it’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). This Roundup accompanied an SMC Briefing. … read more
Research published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology looks at the window of opportunity to prevent peanut allergies. … read more
A study published in The Lancet Public Health looks at neurodegenerative disease among male elite football players in Sweden. … read more
A study looking at the application of Meta’s Large Language Models to predict protein structure has been published in Science. … read more
A study published in the European Respiratory Journal looks at monocyte function and long COVID lung symptoms in hospitalised COVID … read more
An analysis of life expectancy in the UK from 1952 to 2021 has been published in the Journal of the Royal … read more
A study published in Nature looks at generating functional oocytes from male mice in vitro. Prof Rod Mitchell, Professor … read more
A study published in Nature looks at the dietary sweetener sucralose and immune response in mice. Prof Neil Mabbott, … read more
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, presented his Spring Budget 2023 to Parliament today. Comments specifically on the plans … read more
OpenAI has revealed ChatGPT successor, GPT-4. Prof Dimitrios Makris, Professor in Computer Vision and Machine Learning, Kingston University, said: … read more
A study published in Heart looks at a Mediterranean diet and cardiovascular disease in women. Prof George Davey Smith … read more
A study published in BMJ Medicine looks at plasma caffeine, adiposity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Dr Katarina … read more
The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has announced the withdrawal of pholcodine-containing cough and cold medicines from the … read more
