Research
How to Read a Preprint: Evaluating Research Before Peer Review
A preprint can carry real evidence or real errors. Here is what to check before you trust either.
By Victor Petrov • September 8, 2026
Subject file
Research
Research reports findings with their methods and limits attached: what a study shows, in whom it was measured, and what remains open.
Research
Randomization and Blinding: The Boring Machinery Behind Trustworthy Trials
A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial sounds like jargon — but each word names a specific leak that the design is engineered to plug.
By Samuel Achebe • July 23, 2026
Research
A 'Significant' Result Can Be Trivial. Effect Size Tells You Which.
Statistical significance asks whether an effect exists; effect size asks whether it matters — and the two questions have different answers more often than headlines admit.
By Samuel Achebe • June 30, 2026
Research
It Worked in Mice: Why Animal Findings Rarely Reach the Clinic
Roughly 90 percent of drugs that enter human clinical trials fail, and much of the gap is built into how preclinical animal research is done.
By Samuel Achebe • June 7, 2026
Research
The Margin of Error Is the Least of a Survey's Problems
Sampling error is the only uncertainty a poll's +/- number covers; weighting, mode and nonresponse often move results further than the formula suggests.
By Samuel Achebe • May 16, 2026
Research
Correlation Is Not Causation: How Study Design Decides the Argument
Observational studies and randomized trials answer different questions, and the most famous reversal in nutrition research shows exactly why.
By Samuel Achebe • April 23, 2026
Research
Underpowered Studies Find Too Much, and Too Big
A study too small to detect the effect it hunts will usually miss it, and when it does not, the effect it reports is inflated.
By Samuel Achebe • March 31, 2026
Research
The Replication Crisis, Explained: What Broke, and What Got Rebuilt
When 270 psychologists tried to repeat 100 famous studies, most effects shrank or vanished — and psychology rebuilt its methods from the wreckage.
By Samuel Achebe • March 8, 2026
Research
Preprints Are Not Unpublished Results. But They Are Not Proven Either.
Most biomedical and physics research now appears online before peer review, so readers need a working rule for how much weight a preprint can carry.
By Samuel Achebe • February 14, 2026
Research
Meta-analyses Promise One Answer From Many Studies. Here's How They Try.
Forest plots and pooled estimates look authoritative, but the strength of a meta-analysis depends on choices made long before the statistics run.
By Samuel Achebe • January 22, 2026