From the Chronicle (What the Year's Most-Noticed Research Papers Tell Us About Ourselves):
Skim the 100 most-discussed research papers of the past year, put together by the London-based company Altmetric, and you’ll see some of the oddball stuff you might expect. ... In other pee-related news, some scientists, for some reason, measured uric-acid levels in swimming pools and gently suggested that water quality could be improved if more attention were paid to "hygiene habits on the part of swimmers."
Those kinds of papers do get shared on Facebook and Reddit, two of the sites that Altmetric monitors to compile its rankings (go here for a breakdown of the methodology and results). But they’re in the minority. By my unscientific count, only seven of the top 100 fall into the weird/novelty category.
Instead, what’s most intriguing about the list is that it offers a peek into our anxieties and our hopes, our curiosity about where we came from and our wonder at (and fear of) what the future holds. ...
We’re anxious about the environment, and for good reason. Marine ice sheets are collapsing. Global forests are shrinking. African elephants are under attack from human beings. In fact, as another paper explains, pretty much all animals are under attack by people, and we may be in the midst of the planet’s sixth mass extinction, with consequences that we don’t yet completely comprehend. (It’s fair to assume they won’t be good.)
