One of the more valuable science twitter accounts to follow is the one that that just retweets every sensationally misleading pop-sci headline that ends up being based on rodent studies with an all-caps IN MICE! comment.
Trendy, yes. Valuable, not sure. Maybe to keep track of the bleeding edge of basic research. This is much better news than the headline "Nothing we do seems to affect memory loss in mice." It means we're starting to understand how memory works at a molecular level in mammals.
Right, it's good that we have the very beginnings of an understanding of how the process might work. In mice. Applications to humans are, if previous track records are anything to go on, five to twenty years out and uncertain.
Meanwhile, gullible people with poor reading comprehension will see the headline, or hear the badly interpreted third-hand reporting on the study during the science puff piece section of the nightly news. Some fraction of the hypochondriatic will take it up as gospel, and begin preaching it, and the sum total is a contribution to the mountain of medical misinformation that is floating around in the popular consciousness.
One of the more valuable science twitter accounts to follow is the one that that just retweets every sensationally misleading pop-sci headline that ends up being based on rodent studies with an all-caps IN MICE! comment.