Evaluation of the New York Times

A Simple Set of Scientific Stories:

Serious Sustenance or Psychological Sham?

&

Solar System Shenanigans.

"When Athletes Go Gluten Free"

Kurious. 10/2015. https://pixabay.com/en/wheat-gluten-allergy-food-allergen-995055/

Some background: More and more athletes these days are turning on gluten as a scapegoat for poor athletic performance. The reason for this is generally being derived from athletes who participate in distance sports feeling gastrointestinal discomfort during or following their workouts or competitions. The bloating comes from the fact that, during workouts, blood from the digestive tract is diverted to the areas of the body that need it most. Over long periods of time (e.g. training for a marathon) this can cause discomfort.

1. Dana Lis is an Australian Ph.D candidate who questioned the effectiveness of the gluten-free diet fad. She conducted a study with 26 professional distance cyclists over a two week period to determine if going gluten-free would help the cyclists perform better athletically or if the theory was nothing more than a placebo.
2. The study took place at the University of Tasmania in Tasmania, Australia. U Tas is a world class college that puts an emphasis on research.
3. The topic in question is the relevancy and proven effectiveness of the choice to omit gluten from one's diet. The stakes for researching this topic are the threats to profits of gluten-free companies if the findings do not show the alleged positive effects of going gluten-free. Another aspect at stake is the well being of the athletes. If going gluten-free won't help their digestive issues, then what will?  Well, in fact, Ms. Lis's findings show that there was no favorable nor unfavorable effect that incurred from a gluten-free diet. There were no measured changes at all. The gluten-free diet was, in fact, a psychological sham. 

Ms. Lis advises that the most important thing about taking care of digestion during workouts to prevent bloating is the timing of your meals and workouts. As if you needed to be told...don't workout on a full stomach.

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"Ninth Planet May Exist Beyond Pluto"

Lindner, John. 9/2014. https://pixabay.com/en/solar-system-sun-mercury-venus-439046/

1. Caltech professors Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Konstanin Batygin have reported unusual elliptical shaped orbits of objects in our solar system that reach far beyond even the Kuiper Belt (about 2.8 billion miles from the sun). They attribute this phenomenon to be due to the existence of a ninth planet.
2. The setting of this story is the California Institute of Technology. This is where the theory was produced/discovery made. The setting is relevant because it is the school at which both of the professors teach. Not only are they teaching, they are also learning.
3. There is not so much a debate going on as an acceptance or refute of the theory. In fact, there has not even been much of an active refuting party pertaining to the theory, besides observers who were expected to reject the theory on the basis that they did not understand astronomy and some theorists who expect this phenomenon to be coincidental. Many scientists have accepted this presumption, though, and the field of astronomy is expecting a boom in research about the possibility of a ninth planet in coming years. 

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