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Enlarge / Dikembe Mutombo rejects your flawed publication. (credit: DAVID MAXWELL / Getty Images)

Well, that took a while. Five years after Ars' Chris Lee pointed out that the authors of a homeopathy paper were doing little more than offering up "magic" as an explanation for their results, the editors of the journal it was published in have retracted it. The retraction comes over the extensive objections of the paper's authors, who continued to believe their work was solid. But really, the back-and-forth between the editors and authors has gotten bogged down in details that miss the real problem with the original paper.

The work described in the now-retracted paper involved a small clinical trial for depression treatment with three groups of participants. One group received a standard treatment, another a placebo. The third group received a homeopathic remedy—meaning they received water. According to the analysis in the paper, the water was more effective than either the placebo or the standard treatment. But as Chris noted in his original criticism, the authors leap to the conclusion that treating people with water must therefore be effective.

The problem with this is that it ignores some equally viable explanations, such as a statistical fluke in a very small study (only about 45 people per group) or that it was the time spent with the homeopathic practitioner that made the difference, not the water. These are problems with the interpretation of the results rather than with the data. (This probably explains why the paper ended up published by PLOS ONE, where reviewers are asked to simply look at the quality of the data rather than the significance of the results.)

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Yuichiro Chino)

Google Fiber will soon offer 2Gbps service for $100 a month, a package that includes a Wi-Fi 6 router and mesh extender, the Alphabet-owned ISP announced yesterday.

Google fiber-to-the-home service never rolled out as far as many people hoped, but the ISP is still making improvements in cities where it does provide broadband. The new offering is double the download speed of Google Fiber's standard 1Gbps service and costs $30 more. While the new offer is 2Gbps on the download side, it will be 1Gbps for uploads.

In addition to fiber-to-the-home, Google Fiber offers wireless home Internet access in some cities through its Webpass service. Even the Webpass wireless service will get the 2Gbps plan, the announcement said. Webpass' standard speeds today range from 100Mbps to 1Gbps.

Enlarge / The Atlantic tropics at 11am ET on Tuesday, September 15.

It is September 15, with more than two months remaining in the Atlantic hurricane season, and there is just one name left in the cupboard for tropical cyclones—Wilfred. And this storm will probably form off the coast of Africa in a day or two.

In some ways, this has been a truly bonkers year for Atlantic hurricane activity, and in other ways it has been fairly pedestrian. But before assessing the climatology, it's worth focusing on the one storm certain to have a direct impact on the United States, Hurricane Sally.

Sally’s flooding

Hurricane Sally has fortunately not intensified during the last 12 hours. Instead, it has weakened some, thanks to wind shear affecting the ability of its low-level and mid-level cores to align perfectly. This wind shear from its west, along with the upwelling of cooler water deeper in the Gulf, should prevent further strengthening today. The National Hurricane Center predicts the storm will have maximum sustained winds of 85mph when it comes ashore Wednesday morning along the Alabama coastline.

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

Today's Dealmaster is headlined by the best price we've seen to date for Apple's AirPods Pro, which are currently down to $199 at Amazon and Staples. While we've seen the noise-cancelling true wireless earphones hit this price briefly earlier this year, today's deal is still $50 off Apple's MSRP, about $35 off their typical street price online, and the first time we've seen them fall below $200 on Amazon.

We recently recommended the AirPods Pro in our guide to the best home office gear. In short, if you're looking for a pair of totally wireless earphones and specifically want active noise cancellation, they're still hard to beat a year after they launched. They have a largely neutral sound profile that represents a sizable upgrade over the base AirPods, even if they're a bit light on bass. They're remarkably simple to pair with other iOS devices, and they have few connection hiccups once they're hooked up. Their noise-cancelling quality is a step below top-notch over-ear headphones like Sony's WH-1000XM4, but it's still more than strong enough for most people's needs. An accompanying "transparency" mode is excellent at blending in outside noise with your music when you need it. Apple is now adding new features like automatic device switching and spatial audio support, too. And though we prefer the physical playback controls of a Jabra Elite 75t or Beats Powerbeats Pro, the AirPods Pro's touch sensors are easier to use than those of the standard AirPods.

The AirPods Pro have their share of issues: their five-ish hours of battery life is mediocre, they don't let you adjust volume from the earphones themselves, and they lose much of their intuitiveness when connected to an Android or Windows device. It's also worth noting that Apple is holding a special event today, and while we don't expect to see new AirPods Pro in the immediate future, upgraded base AirPods are expected to arrive early next year. Still, if you want a pair of noise-cancelling wireless earphones today, the AirPods Pro remain a good buy at this deal price.