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Reviews

Expert reviews and annotations of scientific papers.

Half the effect sizes in psychology meta-analyses can't be reproduced from the primary papers. Sleep well.

ES

We often rely on meta-analyses, but: a) they often don’t provide their raw data (=> can’t be rechecked), b) they handle statistics in an extremely “loose” manner

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What struck me here was the author’s thought that good reviewers know whether the effect will be reproduced. Which, to be fair, makes you think that they don’t always say that out loud…

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Many Labs 2: Investigating Variation in Replicability Across Samples and Settings

Richard A. Klein et al. (2018). Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science

In all our papers, we write that you can't generalize the conclusions to the population at large. However, apparently, that's not the problem: if the effect exists, then it works everywhere!

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Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science

Open Science Collaboration (2015). Science

Interesting results (poor reproducibility; weak effect), but the conclusions are overly cautious, possibly due to fear of the community’s reaction

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Investigating Variation in Replicability

Richard A. Klein et al. (2014). Social Psychology

A good start for understanding the context. The first replications were on well-known experiments and effects and showed very good results.

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In 2016, 72% of scientists still believed the scientific literature; I wonder how many do now? Interestingly, scientists trust their OWN field more...

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Why Most Published Research Findings Are False

John P. A. Ioannidis (2005). PLoS Medicine

Bayesian arguments are often underestimated, and that's a pity: with their help, you can verify the reliability of seemingly unverifiable information. To begin here regarding the crisis as a whole

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It seems that almost all TNOs are in two-body resonances with Neptune...

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High-order mean-motion resonances in the main belt

Smirnov, Evgeny & Milić Žitnik, Ivana (2025). Astronomy and Astrophysics

Previously, the number of resonant asteroids was estimated at 5–15%. Now it seems that more than 50% of asteroids in the main belt are resonant. Maybe even all of them...

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LLMs can identify even complex themes, such as existential concerns, very accurately and perform both direct and conventional content analysis.

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Existential Concerns Arising From a Threat to the Belief in a Just World: A Mixed-Methods Study

Evgeny Smirnov & Maria Makarova (2025). Journal of Humanistic Psychology

Many people believe that the existential concerns are givens of the existence. However, it could be the case that they are triggered by other fundamental beliefs, such as a belief in a just world.

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One of the first (and good!) attempt to operationalize Tillich's notions of existential (ontological) anxiety and differentiate it from the regular one. IMO more reliable (content validity) than ECQ.

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A really nice collection of the instruments of how to assess death atittudes or anxiety

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Flexibility in Existential Beliefs and Worldviews

Matthieu Van Pachterbeke et al. (2012). Journal of Individual Differences

The classical Religious quest scale has a limitation: it works only with religious people. EQ resolves this problem, following a similar design of the questions and sharing a similar idea.

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Description of a Python package that allows you to determine an asteroid's resonances in a single line of code. It can be used for large-scale simulations.

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Identification of Asteroids in Two-Body Resonances

E. A. Smirnov & I. S. Dovgalev (2018). Solar System Research

The first survey of two-body MMRs in the Solar System

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The first comprehensive survey of three-body resonances in the Solar System across all possible planetary configurations (previously only for Jupiter and Saturn).

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An attempt to theoretically measure the strength of a resonance. A decent approximation, but real asteroids may often not be in strong resonances.

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A systematic study of the influence of MMRs in the Solar system and a useful metric — strength of the resonance.

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Diffusive chaos in the outer asteroid belt

N. Murray & M. Holman (1997). The Astronomical Journal

Sometimes one looks at the Lyapunov time of a main belt asteroid, and it’s minimal. But at the same time it’s not flying off anywhere... Thanks to stable chaos!

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Stable Chaos in the Asteroid Belt

A. Milani et al. (1997). Icarus

An essential manuscript on the concept of stable chaos driven by mean-motion resonances (short Lyapunov time but more-or-less stable orbits).

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Explanation why they are no asteroids in the Kirkwood gap 3/1 (MMR 3J-1).

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Theoretical paper on the application of Chirikov's criterion to the three-body problem (which led to an explanation of the chaos in 3J-1). Nice if you want to understand the fundamentals.

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I'm not sure about the factors; meaninglessness, isolation, and freedom are merged into general anxiety factor; avoidance overlaps freedom...

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A prisoner of one's own mind: Identifying and understanding existential isolation

Elizabeth C. Pinel et al. (2017). Personality and Individual Differences

Controversial assumption that i-Sharing assesses existential isolation, though the idea is brilliant (sharing valuable experiences with others affects aloneness)

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The meaning in life questionnaire: Assessing the presence of and search for meaning in life.

Michael F. Steger et al. (2006). Journal of Counseling Psychology

A nice replacement of the old PIL scale that can assess the existential concern of meaninglessness, though some questions have arguable discriminant validity. To use!

ES

A nice example of the usefulness of LLMs in astronomy + a good example of how to do a benchmark study in astronomy + LLM

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Forget about filtering, periodograms, and working with time series. Just use LLMs!

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Three-Body Mean Motion Resonances and the Chaotic Structure of the Asteroid Belt

D. Nesvorný & A. Morbidelli (1998). The Astronomical Journal

A fundamental paper revealing the presence of 3-body MMRs in the main belt and its large number

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Massive identification of asteroids in three-body resonances

Evgeny A. Smirnov & Ivan I. Shevchenko (2013). Icarus

Study that confirmed that indeed, 3-body MMRs are much more populated in the main belt than 2-body and revealed many of them

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