Research fraudsters, robot gamblers, bad apples: Weekend reads for September 28, 2024

What we've been reading

A happy Saturday to all!

As we do each weekend, we’ve collected the things we’ve been reading and thinking about this week — so we can share some of the best writing and most interesting ideas we’ve found online with you.

But before you dive in, we wanted to make sure everyone who might have missed it had a chance to read this interview with author Wright Thompson (along with an excerpt from his new book on the murder of Emmett Till and America’s inability to face up to racism) right here at The Ink.

Below, we’ve got the tale of how a scientific fraudster may have intervened to derail critical research into treatments for dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease; a cautionary tale of the threat of legalized online gambling; and — since it’s apple pie season — the most brutally honest reviews you’re likely to see of the myriad varieties of everyone’s favorite utility fruit. We hope these inspire, inform, and even entertain you this weekend.

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The fraud at the center of dementia research?

YANG AND THE OTHER authors say the ongoing human trials of prasinezumab add to the urgency of their findings. According to Prothena, the drug blocks the spread of toxic alpha-synuclein and might slow the progression of Parkinson’s movement disorders and dementia. Prasinezumab’s documented side effects have not been dangerous. But if it is based on suspect scientific foundations and, as the first clinical results suggest, ineffective, further clinical testing could raise false hopes and divert patients from trials of other experimental drugs. [Science]