Fascinating, I like this kind of Magick.

Highlights

European beech trees more than 1,500 kilometers apart all drop their fruit at the same time in a grand synchronization event now linked to the summer solstice.

From England to Sweden to Italy — across multiple seas, time zones and climates — somehow these trees “know” when to reproduce. But how?

Their analysis of over 60 years’ worth of seeding data suggests that European beech trees time their masting to the summer solstice and peak daylight.

The discovery of the genetic mechanism that governs this solstice-monitoring behavior could bring researchers closer to understanding many other mysteries of tree physiology.

So it’s easy to see why masting trees synchronize their seed production. Understanding how they do it, however, is more complicated. Plants usually synchronize their reproduction by timing it to the same weather signals.

Then the team stumbled across a clue by accident. One summer evening, Bogdziewicz was sitting on his balcony reading a study which found that the timing of leaf senescence — the natural aging process leaves go through each autumn — depends on when the local weather warms relative to the summer solstice. Inspired by this finding, he sent the paper to his research group and called a brainstorming session.

It’s the first time that researchers have identified day length as a cue for masting. While Koenig cautioned that the result is only correlational, he added that “there’s very little out there speculating on how the trees are doing what they’re doing.”

If the solstice is shown to activate a genetic mechanism, it would be a major breakthrough for the field. Currently, there’s little data to explain how trees behave as they do. No one even knows whether trees naturally grow old and die, Vacchiano said. Ecologists struggle just to study trees: From branches to root systems, the parts of a tree say very little about the physiology of the tree as a whole. What experts do know is that discovering how trees sense their environment will help them answer the questions that have been stumping them for decades.

We can best view the method of science as the use of our sophisticated methodological toolbox

Metadata

• Author: OUP Academic
• Category: article
• URL: https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/3/4/pgae112/7626940?login=false

Highlights

Scientific, medical, and technological knowledge has transformed our world, but we still poorly understand the nature of scientific methodology.

scientific methodology has not been systematically analyzed using large-scale data and scientific methods themselves as it is viewed as not easily amenable to scientific study.

This study reveals that 25% of all discoveries since 1900 did not apply the common scientific method (all three features)—with 6% of discoveries using no observation, 23% using no experimentation, and 17% not testing a hypothesis.

Empirical evidence thus challenges the common view of the scientific method.

This provides a new perspective to the scientific method—embedded in our sophisticated methods and instruments—and suggests that we need to reform and extend the way we view the scientific method and discovery process.

In fact, hundreds of major scientific discoveries did not use “the scientific method”, as defined in science dictionaries as the combined process of “the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses” (1). In other words, it is “The process of observing, asking questions, and seeking answers through tests and experiments” (2, cf. 3).

In general, this universal method is commonly viewed as a unifying method of science and can be traced back at least to Francis Bacon's theory of scientific methodology in 1620 which popularized the concept

Science thus does not always fit the textbook definition.

Comparison across fields provides evidence that the common scientific method was not applied in making about half of all Nobel Prize discoveries in astronomy, economics and social sciences, and a quarter of such discoveries in physics, as highlighted in Fig. 2b. Some discoveries are thus non-experimental and more theoretical in nature, while others are made in an exploratory way, without explicitly formulating and testing a preestablished hypothesis.

We find that one general feature of scientific methodology is applied in making science's major discoveries: the use of sophisticated methods or instruments. These are defined here as scientific methods and instruments that extend our cognitive and sensory abilities—such as statistical methods, lasers, and chromatography methods. They are external resources (material artifacts) that can be shared and used by others—whereas observing, hypothesizing, and experimenting are, in contrast, largely internal (cognitive) abilities that are not material (Fig. 2).

Just as science has evolved, so should the classic scientific method—which is construed in such general terms that it would be better described as a basic method of reasoning used for human activities (non-scientific and scientific).

An experimental research design was not carried out when Einstein developed the law of the photoelectric effect in 1905 or when Franklin, Crick, and Watson discovered the double helix structure of DNA in 1953 using observational images developed by Franklin.

Direct observation was not made when for example Penrose developed the mathematical proof for black holes in 1965 or when Prigogine developed the theory of dissipative structures in thermodynamics in 1969. A hypothesis was not directly tested when Jerne developed the natural-selection theory of antibody formation in 1955 or when Peebles developed the theoretical framework of physical cosmology in 1965.

Sophisticated methods make research more accurate and reliable and enable us to evaluate the quality of research.

Applying observation and a complex method or instrument, together, is decisive in producing nearly all major discoveries at 94%, illustrating the central importance of empirical sciences in driving discovery and science.

Notes from the podcast:

The president has sole authority to initiate a nuclear war without needing approval from anyone else, emphasizing the speed of decision-making in such scenarios.

Post-nuclear war scenarios lack population protection planning, requiring individuals to rely on their own resources for survival.

Building trust with primary sources for reporting involves navigating conflicts between personal and professional information, especially in high-stakes environments like national security.

The revelation of the Roswell crash being a hoax orchestrated by Stalin highlights the intricate world of government intrigue and secrecy.

Title 50 allows for covert operations like the assassination of Bin Laden in Pakistan, showcasing the blurred lines between military and intelligence operations.

CIA covert operations raise ethical dilemmas, with discussions around the role of assassination in geopolitics and military operations.

Obtaining unbiased insights from different intelligence agencies requires extensive research and multiple sources, emphasizing the importance of transparency in investigative journalism.

Surveillance techniques have evolved to include mass biometric data collection, raising concerns about privacy and the implications of widespread surveillance in modern society.

Fun ):

A part of the post somewhat related to the topic

Interesting observation