Originally designed for the pharmaceutical industry to test the safety and effects of drugs, the authors have pioneered RCTs to test the claims that small, uncollateralized loans to the poor are a persuasive antidote to poverty.
In the first study to test the effects of playing violent video games over time, researchers found that cumulative play results in increased hostility and aggression.
FORBES: Study: More Violent Video Game Play Results in More Aggression
Working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the North Dakota Department of Health ran a test to find out the health effects of lead-shot game.
The idea is to test the effects on the atmospheric window of various pollutants, and also of water vapour, by releasing them into the building.
According to Marc Schildkraut, an antitrust lawyer at Howery LLP, Justice Department lawyers in the previous administration used a test that weighed whether the anticompetitive effects of behavior disproportionately outweighed any good that such behavior might bring consumers.
WSJ: Sherman Stirs: U.S. Revives Section 2 of the Antitrust Act
Meredith Fowlie at Berkeley is also hard at work on designing experiments to test the effects of various informational alternatives on energy use.
Physiome's virtual heart allows drug companies to test the effects of their compounds electronically before they try them on real people and even to do experiments that would be unacceptable in the material world.
The discovery of the gene that controls Rett syndrome could lead to the development of a test to diagnose the disorder before birth and new methods to prevent the debilitating effects of the disease.
BBC: News | Health | Scientists crack secret of child disease
Although the experiment did not test the idea (or, for that matter, the effects of an upgrade to the rodent equivalent of business class), the researchers speculate that it may be this lack of synchrony that caused the deaths of the older animals.
To test her hypothesis about the detrimental effects of power on advice-taking, See and her colleagues conducted four different pieces of research.
The team's next step is to test whether boosted autophagy can indeed explain the life-extending effects of exercise.
Every few days, Vinh Cao would do sets of pull-ups, sometimes using the glove for three minutes between sets, to test its effects.
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