The science desk

Science coverage is about method as much as about wonder. This desk covers universities and laboratories, space agencies such as NASA and ESA, public research councils, and the journals in which a claim is argued — Nature, Science, Cell, The Lancet, NEJM, and the specialist titles that actually hold a given field.

A preprint on arXiv or medRxiv is a draft. A peer-reviewed paper is a paper. A conference poster is a poster. A university press office is an interested party. We will say which one we have, and we will look for the sample size, the conflict-of-interest statement, and whether anyone has replicated the work.

Where this desk stops

Clinical and public-health consequences belong on Health when the reader needs the patient or the ministry. Climate attribution and energy systems belong on Environment. The method still starts here.

Pitches from researchers: editorial@lapress.org. Send the paper, not only the embargoed news release.