The month ahead in science

Parliament has announced an inquiry into peer review, the sometimes controversial process by which scientific papers are vetted for publication. The Commons science and technology committee has revealed that the inquiry would investigate, among other things, how reviewers are chosen and whether there are alternative methods of gauging research. Peer review is seen as the gold standard for publication but its reputation is not untarnished: the MMR vaccine scare was unleashed thanks to a 1998 Lancet paper that its own editors now admit should never have been published. Interested parties have until 10th March to submit evidence.

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After a six-year journey, the unmanned probe Messenger will become the first spacecraft to orbit the planet Mercury on 18th March. Nasa’s emissary aims to do more than make history: scientists hope to discover why the planet closest to the Sun is also the densest, as well as the composition of its crust and atmosphere. The craft, the size of a Mini, discovered water in Mercury’s atmosphere during a 2008 flyby.

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Magician and psychologist Richard Wiseman hopes to finally debunk the idea of the supernatural in his new book Paranormality: Why we see what isn’t there (Macmillan), published on 4th March. Séances, telepathy and poltergeists are evidence of brain trickery, not other worlds, he says. Prospect, however, has seen the future—and it contains angry psychics.

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Expect lots of fizzing, banging and popping from 11th to 20th March, which is National Science and Engineering Week. Marvel at the trajectory of projectiles as you toss a coin to the science buskers in Reading town centre (12th March), be sure to number stand-up mathematician Matt Parker’s gig in your social calculations (16th March, Bath), and let TV geologist Iain Stewart rock your world in Belfast on 19th March. For more info, click here.