brain porn noun informal the excessive use of references to brain studies and neuroscience in the popular media
As a journalist and cultural critic, I applaud the backlash against what is sometimes called brain porn, which raises important questions about this reductionist, sloppy thinking and our willingness to accept seemingly neuroscientific explanations for, well, everything.
[New York Times (US broadsheet) 25 November 2012]
frackademia noun academic research that is funded or influenced by the fossil fuels industry, especially companies involved in fracking
Weeks after SUNY Buffalo’s upper-level administration gave the Shale Resources and Society Institute (SRSI) the boot due to its gas industry public relations effort masked as a ‘study,’ University of Texas-Austin’s (UT-Austin) administration has somewhat followed suit for its own ‘frackademia’ study.
[http://my.firedoglake.com 7 December 2012]
lab lit noun literature that includes some detailed scientific information as part of the story
In Lab Lit, Fiction Meets Science of the Real World
[New York Times (US broadsheet, headline) 4 December 2012]