Ambiguity comes easily when one writes headlines, sometimes. Here’s an example: “An inexpensive, 3D‐printable breast muscle meter for field ornithologists,” Luke L. Powell, Adam Metallo, Crinan Jarrett, Nathan W. Cooper, Peter P. Marra, Scott R. McWilliams, Ulf Bauchinger, and Bryant C. Dossman, Journal of Field Ornithology, vol. 92, no. 1, March 1, 2021, pp. 67-76. […]
Tag: headline
Headline Power: Wine + Cheese + Cognitive
A new press release demonstrates how to draw attention (as yours is drawn right now) to a press release by including the words “wine”, “cheese”, and “cognitive” in the headline: Diet modifications — including more wine and cheese — may help reduce cognitive decline, study suggests Date: December 10, 2020 Source: Iowa State University Summary: […]
How to write a hard-to-resist science headline: Quantum, Coffee
Trinity College Dublin produced a press release, on January 31, 2020, with this headline: “Supercomputers help link quantum entanglement to cold coffee“. The press release is meant to draw attention to a research paper by Marlon Brenes, Silvia Pappalardi [pictured here], John Goold, and Alessandro Silva. The paper is titled “Multipartite Entanglement Structure in the Eigenstate […]
PR headline: “Young bar patrons more likely to smoke”
Today’s PR Headline of the Week is from a press release issued by the American Public Health Association: Young bar patrons more likely to smoke and use multiple tobacco products New Orleans – Smoking prevalence among young adults who frequent bars is at least twice the rate of smoking found among young adults in the general […]
Unclassifiable headline: “Twitter can help weight loss – study”
This week’s Unclassifiable Headline of the Week appears on GMA News: “Twitter can help weight loss – study“.
Press Release Headline of the Week: 29 words
This week’s Clear, Simple, Twisty Press Release Headline of the Week appears in a press release from the Scripps Research Institute. The headline is: Scientists show protein-making machinery can switch gears with a small structural change process, which may have implications for immunity and cancer therapy, compared to the movie The Transformers (Thanks to investigator […]
PR Headline ‘o the Week: Singing & Simulate Driving
This week’s Press Release Headline of the Week appears in a press release from the publisher of a journal. The headline is: “A simulator study of the effects of singing on driving experience“. The study to which it refers is: “A Simulator Study of the Effects of Singing on Driving Performance,” Genevieve M. Hughes, Christina […]
When eggs were falling
“EGGS ARE FALLING“, says an ambiguously worded headline in the March 12, 1910 issue of the Lawrence Daily World. BONUS: The much later development of the square egg BONUS (and possibly bogus, despite and because of which it drew angry letters from the same person): Experiment: Which Came First — The Chicken Or the Egg?
How to Begin a Scientific Report: Headless, Topless
Here’s one way to begin a scientific report. Grab the reader’s attention: “Real faces, real emotions: perceiving facial expressions in naturalistic contexts of voices, bodies and scenes,” Beatrice de Gelder [pictured here] and Jan Van den Stock, in A.J. Calder, G. Rhodes, J.V. Haxby & M.H. Johnson (Eds.), The handbook of face perception. Oxford: Oxford […]
“The Enema of Your Enemy is Your Friend”
Today’s Headline of the Day appeared in Slate several days ago: The Enema of Your Enemy is Your Friend The article, by Emily Walker, explains only slightly more mundanely that “Fecal transplants could be a cheap and effective treatment for gastrointestinal disorders”. (Thanks to investigator Rebecca Skloot for bringing this to our attention.) (Our Headline […]