We didn't want to set a precedent that would allow those looking to smear scientists, to go down this endless road of subjecting scientists to vexatious demands that would basically tie us up — we wouldn't have any time to even do research any more.
Despite the potential advantages of using oneself as a subject, scientists contemplating this approach should consider research ethics guidelines.
Still, despite the dearth of research on the subject, scientists are recommending that it's better for Ebola survivors to be safe than sorry when it comes to their sexual health, and that of their partners.
An accompanying story also illustrates how the subjects that scientists study can affect the scientists themselves.
ReprintsThe study has met with scepticism from both subjects and scientists.
We were careful to emphasise that there was no suggestion of Alzheimer's being contagious and noted that, with the research cohort being only eight subjects strong, scientists were calling for more research before drawing firm conclusions.
Like other early developers of scaling techniques, Dr. Stevens, who pioneered a method called "magnitude estimation," did not use his scale to compare the responses of different groups of subjects: if scientists do not know whether they are dealing with elephants or mice, Dr. Stevens realized, it becomes anyone's guess what small and large really mean.
The result, a first for human subjects, brings scientists a step closer to restoring mobility for people with spinal cord injuries, lost limbs, and other conditions that limit movement.
In a 2010 paper published in the journal Laterality, study participants were more likely to guess that photographic subjects were scientists if the photographs showed their right cheeks, and more likely to place them in the arts and humanities if the photos showed their left cheeks.
This study used the National Health Insurance Research Database NHIRDD) from 1996 to 2007, which is derived from the Taiwan National Health Insurance NHII) program and provides a sample of 1,000,000 random subjects to scientists in Taiwan for research purposes.
