In today’s episode, we will learn which structural components will be minimally essential for an abstract, and which will be additionally necessary for a well-written abstract. These are the abstracts of primary research papers in life sciences, both in clinical- and basic-science fields.

There are very many variations in the structures of published abstracts. Why do we want to discuss the above topic?

This is because understanding the essential components of abstracts will help us anticipate key information and understand the content more effectively!

Let’s talk about an excellent abstract that I read this week. It was so well written, and I was so excited to read it that I wanted to talk about it with you today. The beauty of it is that the first 3 structural components guide us through the authors’ intention and question very clearly. But there was also a little twist to the structure: we will talk about it, too.

The abstract that we talked about today was from the following paper:

• “A meta-analysis of technology use and cognitive aging”
• Benge & Scullin, Nature Human Behaviour, 2025
• “Online ahead of print” (thus, no volume number or page numbers) as of the date of this episode upload.
• PubMed link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40229575/
• Journal link: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02159-9

We can read its abstract on either of the above websites.

Unfortunately, the other parts of the paper are subscription-based. So, they are accessible, if you or your institutions have a subscription to the journal.

This episode = mini-series: reading-32.

(My email is active. But my website is under construction. Please wait for a while. Thank you for the patience!)

My students selected a paper to read in a journal club. The abstract (and the rest of the paper) was not written well. The abstract gave us two precious lessons.

• Lesson 1: Good structural organization will help the readers understand the content.
• Lesson 2: Abstracts of peer-reviewed papers can be disorganized.

I hope you learn them in this episode, too!

This episode = mini-series: reading-31.

(My email is active. But my website is under construction. Please wait for a while. Thank you for the patience!)

We have reached 50 episodes! Thank you for listening.

Today, we will briefly talk about how I have kept sustainable podcasting so far. The most important thing may be that I have set my goal simple and single: It is to create high-quality content for you. That’s it.

Here are links to two sources of podcast statistics that I mentioned in the episode.

• https://www.amplifimedia.com/blogstein-1/lyspqop3ylro9a2t7y2de820uwkgwx
• https://podcastindex.org/stats
  
  

(My email is active. But my website is under construction. Please wait for a while. Thank you for the patience!)

We will talk about the second of the two, well-crafted loops of logic, in the Abstract of a paper written by the Nobel Prize Laureates.

Not all abstracts have this second loop. But when it is present, it gives a better overview of the impact of the presented work. We can find one of the best examples in our Abstract.

We are reading the paper written by the Laureates, Dr. Katalin Karikó & Dr. Drew Weissman, that led to the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023. We call it the Milestone Article 1. Here are two sets of links related to the paper.

Milestone Article 1:

• “Suppression of RNA recognition by Toll-like receptors: the impact of nucleoside modification and the evolutionary origin of RNA” by Karikó, Buckstein, Ni & Weissman. Immunity, 23(2): 165-75, 2005.
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2005.06.008
• PDF: https://www.cell.com/immunity/pdf/S1074-7613(05)00211-6.pdf
• PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16111635/

Copyright of the paper (as of March, 2025):

• See the pull-down menu “Article Info” near the top of the article webpage (Use the DOI above to reach it).
• Check the “User License” section which lists the “Elsevier user license”:
• --- http://www.elsevier.com/open-access/userlicense/1.0/
• --- https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/open-access-licenses/elsevier-user

For finding our Milestone Articles 1, 2 and 3 (i.e., three papers written by the Laureates that led to the Nobel Prize), visit the following website that shows the “Press Release” of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023. Look for "Key publications" section.

• https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2023/press-release/

We discussed how to find Milestone Articles 1~3 as above, in Episode #10. Here is the link to the episode:

• https://synaptologica.buzzsprout.com/2219599/episodes/14122755

(My email is active. But my website is under construction. Please wait for a while. Thank you for the patience!)

I can visualize two well-crafted loops of logic, in the Abstract of a paper written by the Nobel Prize Laureates. Can you?

We will talk about one of them in today’s episode. Such a loop, together with a linear progression, highlights the authors’ clear and logical thought process.

We are reading the paper written by the Laureates, Dr. Katalin Karikó & Dr. Drew Weissman, that led to the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023. We call it the Milestone Article 1. Here are two sets of links related to the paper.

Milestone Article 1:

• “Suppression of RNA recognition by Toll-like receptors: the impact of nucleoside modification and the evolutionary origin of RNA” by Karikó, Buckstein, Ni & Weissman. Immunity, 23(2): 165-75, 2005.
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2005.06.008
• PDF: https://www.cell.com/immunity/pdf/S1074-7613(05)00211-6.pdf
• PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16111635/

Copyright of the paper (as of March, 2025):

• See the pull-down menu “Article Info” near the top of the article webpage (Use the DOI above to reach it).
• Check the “User License” section which lists the “Elsevier user license”:
• --- http://www.elsevier.com/open-access/userlicense/1.0/
• --- https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/open-access-licenses/elsevier-user

(My email is active. But my website is under construction. Please wait for a while. Thank you for the patience!)

Let's analyze a single sentence in the Abstract of an impressive paper. It is the paper that led to the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. This is the paper that we call the milestone article 1 (Please see below for details).

We will analyze the second sentence. Why is this sentence important? We will discuss four of my approaches to see that this sentence is important, beautiful and helpful for readers outside the field.

It is fun to spend one episode for just a single sentence, and think deep about how it reveals the authors' logic.

Here are two sets of links related to the paper written by the Laureates, Dr. Katalin Karikó & Dr. Drew Weissman of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023.

Milestone Article 1:

• “Suppression of RNA recognition by Toll-like receptors: the impact of nucleoside modification and the evolutionary origin of RNA” by Karikó, Buckstein, Ni & Weissman. Immunity, 23(2): 165-75, 2005.
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2005.06.008
• PDF: https://www.cell.com/immunity/pdf/S1074-7613(05)00211-6.pdf
• PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16111635/

Copyright of the paper (as of March, 2025):

• See the pull-down menu “Article Info” near the top of the article webpage (Use the DOI above to reach it).
• Check the “User License” section which lists the “Elsevier user license”:
• --- http://www.elsevier.com/open-access/userlicense/1.0/
• --- https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/open-access-licenses/elsevier-user

(My email is active. But my website is under construction. Please wait for a while. Thank you for the patience!)

Today, we will analyze the Abstract of an impressive paper. It is the paper that led to the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. This is the paper that we call the milestone article 1.

We will have two essential pre-analysis sub-steps, and then we will analyze each sentence. During this analysis, we will read each sentence of the Abstract, examine the role of each sentence, and assign each sentence to a structural component, so that we will be able to understand the authors’ intention for each sentence.

Here are two sets of links mentioned in this episode. All are related to the Laureates, Dr. Katalin Karikó & Dr. Drew Weissman of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023.

Milestone Article 1:

• “Suppression of RNA recognition by Toll-like receptors: the impact of nucleoside modification and the evolutionary origin of RNA” by Karikó, Buckstein, Ni & Weissman. Immunity, 23(2): 165-75, 2005.
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2005.06.008
• PDF: https://www.cell.com/immunity/pdf/S1074-7613(05)00211-6.pdf
• PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16111635/

Copyright of the paper (as of March, 2025):

• See the pull-down menu “Article Info” near the top of the article webpage (Use the DOI above to reach it).
• Check the “User License” section which lists the “Elsevier user license”:
• --- http://www.elsevier.com/open-access/userlicense/1.0/
• --- https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/open-access-licenses/elsevier-user

(My email is active. But my website is under construction. Please wait for a while. Thank you for the patience!)