ISTOCKPHOTO, LORAN NICOLAS
All of us know the apocryphal tale where the mother-in-law “shares” a secret family recipe, but as much as you try, the cookies never taste the same as Mama’s. Of course, Mama’s withholding of the full recipe is a move to sustain her generational authority, perhaps a last grasp for her son’s affection, and definitely, a chance to show up that good-for-nothing daughter-in-law. This is my current fear about science: that soon, we will no longer be able to make cookies the way Mama did.
A pillar of our scientific system is that “true” findings will be validated when other labs repeat experiments, and thus, there is almost a sacred obligation to clearly explain our technical details in the Methods or Procedures sections of our ...
