Tweets about a thought-provoking conference presentation about Google Scholar led to some pleasant surprises. Here's my post at Absolutely Maybe: Google Scholar Risks and Alternatives.

And a new trial made this question worth a look: Am I Going to Need a Smaller Plate? In Which I Juggle a New Weight Loss Trial & Old Systematic Reviews.

From June to August, there was a bunch of studies on a subject that doesn't get enough attention - and it gave me the opportunity to wheel out two of my favorite old cartoons! One's below. The post: A Double Whammy of Non-Good News About Non-Inferiority Trials.

A new foundation was announced with some fanfare, with the goal of reversing the dwindling number of physician-scientists in the US - and concerned with increasing diversity, too. Sounds ok, but ... My first post for the month at Absolutely Maybe: Is Gender Bias the Elephant in the "Endangered Physician-Scientist" Room?

Started off the month at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Lausanne, Switzerland, as part of a panel providing a crash course in systematic reviews and meta-analyses - with journalist Jop de Vrieze, Karla Soares-Weiser (editor-in-chief of the Cochrane Library), and Jos Kleijnen (from Kleijnen Systematic Reviews). My slides are online here - with a trail of introductory blog posts here. Jop de Vrieze wrote up the session here.

The Conference got me thinking a lot. And I ended up digging into steampunk for the cartoon for a post: Can Anything Really Stop the Science Spin Snowball?

And with much of the northern hemisphere in vacation-mode - and too much of it not: Evidence-based Vacation Should Really Be a Thing (ft. Over-Working Academics)!

My latest at BMJ Opinion: Should we trust meta-analyses with meta conflicts of interest?

A couple of years ago, psychologist Susan Fiske launched a broadside against science bloggers, with a whole lot of name-calling. Now there's a study of 41 blogs, including mine. My thoughts: "Destructo-Critics" and Mean Bloggers: The Study.

The methods section is fundamental to a research publication, but I think it's the poor cousin of science communication. At Absolutely Maybe: Why Don't We Do More Visualizations of Methods?

Ended the month with a look at self-reports in nutritional epidemiology: is only side of the heated debate right, are they both partly right, or isn't there enough evidence to know? My take: Does Our Poor Remembrance of Things Past Doom Much Nutrition Research?