Last year, in the giving spirit of the holidays, I—your friendly, neighborhood newsletter editor—let my News from Science colleagues take the helm of ScienceAdviser for a day. I had so much fun reading their explanations for the stories that stood out to them that I decided to do it again this year. And once again, it would be a shame if only newsletter subscribers enjoyed their insights into some of the year’s most compelling news stories. So read on!
Of all the online stories we run, my favorites are usually the exclusives—the stories we find that no one else has. This year was ripe with those, from flies in virtual reality chambers to the curious tale of the world’s most cited cat to ancient cave art made by children—all of which, perhaps not coincidentally, show up on our list of top online stories of the year. Our most popular article of the year was also one we broke: scientific proof of “cocaine sharks.”
But of all of our exclusives, my favorite was a piece on our pets eating us after we die. I spotted this gruesome little gem in the table of contents of a journal I’m pretty sure we’ve never covered before: Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology. As Science’s resident cat and dog guy, I was tempted to cover the paper myself. But I just didn’t have the bandwidth. So, I assigned it to one of our crack freelancers, Sara Reardon, who turned in a gripping tale of how our furry friends can compromise crime scenes—and what investigators can do about it. The story isn’t for the faint of heart. (You may never think about hamster nests the same way again.) But it represents what we do best: bringing cool, compelling, and sometimes unusual scientific discoveries to our readers. Just maybe don’t bring this one up at the holiday dinner table.
What stands out to me from this year is the Global Equity in Science series, which I co-edited with my colleague, Elizabeth Culotta. The series highlights how formerly colonized nations are re-envisioning the way science—arguably a Western and colonial enterprise in many ways—is done there. The series includes richly reported stories on data sovereignty for Indigenous groups, how Latin America is serving as a model for more equitable publishing, and more. It’s hard to pick, but one hit home.
I was born and spent part of my childhood in India, so I was eager to edit Vaishnavi Chandrasekhar’s feature on a new educational policy there to teach traditional Indian knowledge in colleges and universities. I grew up with many stories about forgotten or overlooked Indian science, but that knowledge was always separate from the Western science I was learning about in grade school and beyond. The idea of building in a way to learn about this ancient knowledge was intriguing.
Part of what made it a good fit for our series was that some proponents of the new policy were pushing it as an effort to “decolonize” the Indian education system, which is still very much a holdover from British colonial times. The challenge for many higher institutions, however, is how to separate traditional knowledge from pseudoscience and other fringe concepts—especially when the concepts are given a platform by the current Hindu nationalist government, often in the same breath as scientific ones. Through this vivid, in-depth, on-the-ground report, Chandrasekhar takes readers through the complex landscape of the new policy and how different institutions are grappling with the mandate. Along with the amazing photos that accompany the feature, it’s a piece that is exemplary of our ambitious series. If you haven’t already read the story, I hope you will now.
More: https://www.science.org/content/article/science-editors-pick-their-most-memorable-stories-year
