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That chemical is trichloroethylene. Even Science does clickbait now.
by version_five 3y ago
That chemical is trichloroethylene. Even Science does clickbait now.
- tartrate 3y agoNot sure I'd call it clickbait, and they do mention it right away. It'd be like putting a mathematical expression in the headline of an article about neural networks.
- SnowHill9902 3y ago“Tricholoroethylene strongly linked to Parkinson”
- CodeAndCuffs 3y agoMy first thought would be, "What is this? Is it a common chemical?". Then I'd probably call the article click bait even though it says it's common early in the article.
- swarnie 3y agoWhat is Tricholoroethylene? "A widely used chemical" ....
- visarga 3y agoa colorless, volatile liquid that is primarily used as a solvent
- rob74 3y ago"Widely used chemical Tricholoroethylene strongly linked to Parkinson"
- throwaway2037 3y agoUpvote here. Good suggestion. This would be more accurate and less click bait-y.
- robertlagrant 3y agoRenowned author Meredith Wadman
- xenonite 3y ago“Parkinson links strongly from widely used chemical Tricholoroethylene”
- baq 3y agoFunny how making an informative title for a piece of text is on the curriculum but good-for-readers titles don't earn money... so writers have to learn good-for-ARR titles instead
- croes 3y agoImagine this headline A widely known basketball team wins NBA finals Clickbait?
- swarnie 3y agoDepends on the audience i guess, im not sure i can name a basketball team. Does the average reader of science.org know what trichloroethylene is without a prompt?
- doctor_eval 3y agoI read science.org, I’m pretty average, and I don’t know what it is.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago>> A widely known basketball team wins NBA finals > Depends on the audience i guess, im not sure i can name a basketball team. It's bordering on tautology. After all, who else would win National Basketball Association finals - a soccer team? A more astute reader will also observe that NBA finals aren't something casually won by random teams nobody heard of - by the time they get to the finals, the team is already widely-known. Equally informative, but non-clickbait version of the headline, would be "NBA finals complete" - or, for basketball fans, "Today is 18th of June, 2023".
- rdl 3y agoI know of it as "dry cleaning chemical and why you don't want to buy a building which used to contain a dry cleaning shop with on-premises processing".
- seanhunter 3y agoYes and a straw man also. Widely known and widely used are definitely not the same. More people know the names of basketball teams than know the significance of TCE.
- throwaway2037 3y agoNot to ruffle any feathers, but I notice this trend on HN also. People will post something the city they live in and drop all kinds of hints... except the name. Same for employers. Strange. It's like we need to play the old boardgame "Guess Who?"!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hinkley 3y agoWhich automobile manufacturer do you work for? A major one.
- el_benhameen 3y agoThis would give me less personal context than the original.
- hackernewds 3y agoAnd also be less clickbait-y
- riceart 3y agoWidely known ambiguity with verb tense in English used to write clickbait. “Once widely used chemical in the 70s…” or a “Formerly widely used chemical” - was that so hard?
- softwaredoug 3y agoNot clickbait when they tell you right away and give you a detailed story of the context and evidence behind what they learned
- croes 3y agoOf course clickbait because you need to click to get the name.
- kadoban 3y agoYeah, because if you had the name you'd have no further questions. There's just no way to condense enough important information into the headline, and the chemical name would mean nothing for 99% of people.
- croes 3y agoIf I already know TCE is dangerous and need to be avoided I might not need to read the article or I could if I need further information. But if I need to click to get the basic information it's clickbait.
- j45 3y agoCould the article be primarily written for people who don’t know about TCE?
- croes 3y agoThey would read it if TCE is in the title. But so all are forced to read it because Parkinson concerns everybody. Why not simply "Widely used TCE strongly linked to Parkinson's disease" Key message in the title, further information in the article.
- bumby 3y agoBut it’s not written for you specifically. Since this is related to a Marine base, I’ll give you an example. What if the headline was “2/4 gets new Bradleys” To a Marine, it’s a clear headline: 2nd Battalion 4th Marine Regiment gets new armored personnel carriers”. But to a laymen a better headline would be “Marine unit gets new Tanks.” The former would be almost deliberately meaningless to a casual reader.
- rightbyte 3y agoI have no clue what trichloroethylene is so I think the title is fair. It could be a stone for all I know.
- wiredfool 3y agoA very effective organic solvent. Used in dry cleaning and formerly in chip making in SV.
- peterfirefly 3y agoAnd in Tipp-ex/liquid paper/white out. The smell was quite interesting. They switched to a replacement solvent that wasn't nearly as good.
- Joker_vD 3y agoIt's also highly toxic, works as an anaesthetic (i.e., knocks you out); it also decomposes into phosgene and hydrochloride when exposed to light and air. But on the other hand, it is a great organic solvent.
- voisin 3y agoIf memory serves me this is the chemical at the basis of the John Travolta movie A Civil Action, which is based on the true story covered in the excellent book of the same title.
- q1w2 3y agoThere are two other issues with this... 1. The authors only studied two military camps. One with high TCE levels, and one with low TCE levels. But, obviously, there might be any number of other factors that are different between the two camps with a causal relationship to Parkinson's Disease. 2. There is an active class action lawsuit from this military camp. Doing a limited study that benefits one side of a class action lawsuit should always be taken with some extra skepticism and evaluated for conflicts of interest.
- PaulHoule 3y agoNot that it proves anything but one of my uncles was a marine who spent a lot of time at Camp Jejune. He died of ALS, another neurodegenerative condition, and he got care for it through the VA as the marines thought it was a service-related condition.
- robertlagrant 3y agoI think the phrase "linked to" should be banned in science-adjacent journalism. It's too vague. "Antibiotics are linked to disease", just negatively. Any correlation can be called a "link". Far too vague.
- dandy23 3y agoThey should have done it with dry cleaners instead. Selected from 100s or 1000s of shops.
- mock-possum 3y ago“Scientists discover common chemical strongly linked to Parkinson… and you’ll ever believe what it is!”
- 9935c101ab17a66 3y agoI disagree strongly. The article very quickly discloses the identity of the chemical the title alludes to, and including the full chemical compound in the title is a poor choice for a variety of reasons.