There’s been a lot of talk lately about angry mobs. When Jan Moir wrote a viciously homophobic attack on the recently deceased singer Stephen Gately and his grieving friends and family, she was confronted by an angry mob. When ace lawyers Carter-Fuck attempted to gag the Guardian’s reporting of a parliamentary question, the censored information was carried along the information super-highway on virtual placards by an angry mob.

[bpsdb] The following is the introduction to a recent BBC piece titled "'Glass hold' reveals personality." I've highlighted the crucial phrase:

The way you hold your glass can reveal much more than you might realise, a psychologist has warned. Dr Glenn Wilson, a consultant psychologist, observed the body language of 500 drinkers and divided them into eight personality types. These were the flirt, the gossip, fun lover, wallflower, the ice-queen, the playboy, Jack-the-lad and browbeater. Dr Wilson, who carried out the work for the Walkabout bar chain, said glass hold "reflected the person you are".

Yes, either Walkabout are now major supporters of science research, or once again we are seeing the effects of 'churnalism' - a press release from some unknown PR company abusing science for promotional ends, recited by media outlets as if it represents some sort of serious research.

It's repeated so often that it has long been regarded as a cliche, but we live in an increasingly information-intensive world, bombarded by facts and figures from an endless queue of media outlets, websites, television shows and Windsor-based science bloggers. This abundance of information often comes with a cost. If my grandfather wanted to learn something about his health - and of course like many men of his generation he didn't - he would have seen a doctor or read a reputable book. These days, we receive much of our information on the fly in bite-sized chunks from websites and media articles. Fast food culture applied to research.

The result is like trying to build an igloo by catching snowflakes. We snatch little snippets of information here and there, but often they lack any real substance, failing to really contribute to the building of a complete understanding of a subject. Stripped of context or reference, in the end these factlets are as intangible as the ether they travel through.

The controversy over MMR that Andrew Wakefield managed to trigger in the U.K. with his botched Lancet study, has given researchers the opportunity to study the dynamics of a public health scare. Their report, "Anatomy of a Health Scare: Education, Income and the MMR Controversy in the UK" studies the relationship between the media, certain family attributes, and uptake of the MMR vaccine [1]. Their findings call into question conventional wisdom regarding the positive role of parent education in vaccine uptake.