2020 was a good year for Alzheimer’s blood tests. Many new tests, all different biomarkers, and all accurately predicting Alzheimer’s. Have you ever wondered how that is possible? How different biomarkers can all accurately predict a disease that is so complex? The answer is short and sobering: they can’t. …

Eerder deze maand schreef ik een column in NRC over opiniepanels waarvoor deelnemers zich zelf aanmelden en enquêtes die via social media verspreid worden. ‘Waardeloze enquêtes’ was de kop. Opinieonderzoek is ‘waardevol, niet waardeloos’, schreven de adviseurs van het EenVandaag Opiniepanel, de hoogleraren Bethlehem, Van…

A radically different search method The default method to searching scientific literature is entering keywords in a literature database. The quality and relevance of the keywords determines the quality and relevance of the results. Entering several best-guess keywords will return relevant articles, but they are likely not all there is…

A new study shows that people who drink alcohol at home tend to drink more during the coronavirus crisis. Newsweek mentions that “1 in 3 Americans said they had consumed alcohol at harmful “binge drinking” levels during the coronavirus pandemic,” but cautions that the data was self-reported. 1 in 3? …

When I attend lectures online from home, I easily get distracted. Only occasionally, I can blame the presenter. At home, there are too many distractions and, apparently, not enough incentives to ignore them. The biggest distractions are just one mouse click away. Like a quick look-up on the internet or…

When I read news articles about health research, I often wonder what I would have understood if I weren’t an epidemiologist. I bet it would be similar to reading about topics I know nothing about, like mortgages, hip hop, and string theory. I would easily believe that what I read…

Reading the news is a great way to follow what happens in the world, but the stories aren’t neutral and accurate. How to critically digest the news is a valuable skill that can be taught, and that is developed through practice. …

I have muted the words “coronavirus” and “Covid-19” on Twitter. I hardly see any tweets about the coronavirus epidemic anymore. I would like to stay informed but felt that Twitter was no longer the right medium for that. The line between knowledge and opinion had blurred. I could no longer…

The media response to the controversial genetic study of sexual orientation had barely died down when the renowned journal Nature Communications published a new study about the genetic influence on income. …