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Investigate the Source: Should we trust the science in New Scientist?

SKILL: Investigate the Source

DIFFICULTY: Simple

SUBJECT(S): Science

Posted: October 31, 2022

This video makes a compelling claim — that a robot made out of magnetic slime that can grab objects inside the human body. But is this a reliable source? An investigation reveals that this robot might indeed be the gross little surgeon of the future.

Related Lesson

Verification Skills Lesson 2: Investigate the Source

Link to Example

The magnetic slime robot that could retrieve accidentally swallowed objects (YouTube)
A large robot

About the Example

This YouTube video posted by New Scientist features a little black blob navigating through mazes and grabbing objects. The video explains that this is a “soft robot” made of magnetic slime: it can be controlled by a magnetic field, and has possible future uses inside the body. While it looks like a stop-motion prank, by investigating the source using the Wikipedia trick we find that New Scientist has a solid reputation: it’s a magazine dating back to 1956 that covers news on science and technology. 

A keyword search for “slime robot” will pull up a Wikipedia entry that validates the claims made in the New Scientist video. But in this case, we will treat this example as a source investigation.  

It may be worth reminding students that there’s more than one way to solve these problems. Checking sources also helps to build our ‘internal database’ of reliable sources, which means less looking up in future, when we can pick familiar sources out of a search results page.



Activities 

  1. Show students the video, ask them to identify the core of the claim being made, and to identify the source of the video.
  2. Have students investigate the source using Wikipedia by either:
    • Clicking into the article linked beside “Learn more”, and then adding Wikipedia after the root URL in the search bar (https://www.newscientist.com wikipedia); or
    • Searching for “New Scientist Wikipedia”
  3. Ask students to skim the Wikipedia entry and answer the following question:
    • Is New Scientist a reliable source for new technological advances, like this slime robot? What evidence did you find to support your assessment? 


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