In a post earlier this week on a study raising doubts about some high-profile studies in neuroscience, I was remiss in implying that the problem existed only in fMRI studies. As the paper’s lead author, Niko Kriegeskorte, reminds me, “this is not only about brain imaging (as your title suggests), but equally affects other fields of systems neuroscience,” including EEGs.

I also reported criticism that Kriegeskorte and his colleagues had not listed the studies they found to be problematic, which leaves scientists scratching their heads about what’s reliable and what's (maybe) not. The reason they did not make the list public, Kriegeskorte explains, is that their aim was “to educate, so that an alarming trend can be nipped in the bud before many incorrect claims accumulate in the literature” and not to accuse. “So we decided not to list papers. Every case is different and we could not have done justice to particular studies had we been more specific. We didn’t even want to give a percentage [of how many studies resort to the ‘double dipping’ they criticize], but one of the four reviewers and the editors were adamant about this. . . . We feel that starting a political fight with hundreds of authors is not helpful to our field—especially when most of the studies affected are likely to be correct in their overall conclusion. . . . A few bad apples can and should be listed. But literally thousands of overall good apples, each with a little brown spot, can and should not."

Since the original criticism of fMRI studies earlier this year by Ed Vul and his colleagues, neuroscientists seem to have gotten more aware of statistical pitfalls that can skew their results. But there is no question that passions are running high and that back-biting and defensiveness have set in. At least one attempt to get critics and criticized together in the same room blew up.

Official reports of swine flu cases always lag behind actual cases. It takes time for people to get to a doctor, get diagnosed, and have the results reported to public health surveillance networks. And that assumes people get checked out: illegal aliens and other uninsured people in the U.S. might try to treat themselves and stay under the radar. But you don’t need health insurance or a doctor’s appointment to use Google. Led by research showing that the popularity of certain search terms correlates with a rise in the incidence of flu, the company just published flu estimates for 16 states in Mexico and the country as a whole, as well as U.S. data, in an effort “to help track the spread of the swine flu outbreak,” Google said in a statement.

The effort began last week, when epidemiologists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked the researchers at Google Flu Trends if they could track the incidence of swine flu in Mexico. Google Flu Trends, which was launched last November, analyzes the popularity of various search terms to detect a sudden increase in flu cases: historical data have shown that when lots of people start Googling terms such as “flu,” “aches,” “fever” and “buy thermometer,” it correlates with a rise in flu cases. (The researchers described their methodology in a February paper in Nature.) By comparing historical search data with historical data on flu cases, the Google team has been able to filter out search terms—such as plain old “swine flu”—that indicate curiosity rather than an actual case of the flu.

In a blog post today, Google software engineers Jeremy Ginsberg and Matt Mohebbi say “the system has detected increases in flu-related searches in Mexico City (Distrito Federal) and a few other Mexican states in recent days, beginning early in the week of April 19-25,” which was a week before widespread media reports of a swine flu outbreak. The flu incidence is still quite low, with only pockets of "moderate" activity. That suggests that the few hundred officials cases are not the tip of a huge iceberg.

It’s not clear if the Mexican search data are reliable, however. Unlike for the U.S., Google does not have data correlating actual flu incidence in Mexico with the popularity of particular search terms among people in Mexico. The lack of such historical data means the Google researchers “cannot be fully confident that the data is correct,” they say. But “we are cautiously optimistic that the graphs reflect actual flu activity. . . . While we would prefer to validate this data and improve its accuracy, we decided to release an early version today so that it might help public health officials and concerned individuals get an up-to-date picture of the ongoing swine flu outbreak.” Google Flu Trends will update the Mexican data every day.

Interestingly, Google Flu Trends shows low flu activity in the U.S. While it’s too soon to breathe a sigh of relief, that just might be an indication that public health authorities are not missing a huge number of swine flu cases, which as of 11 a.m. today numbered 91 in 10 states with one fatality. Google Flu trends promises, however, that it will “be keeping an eye on the data to look for any spike in [U.S.] activity.”