> Are these types of results generally reproducible? How do we know they are valid?
It's a new study, so no-one had the opportunity to reproduce their findings yet. Generally in the scientific community, one tries to find the flaw in their argument/methods, rather then presuming them to be faulty.
It doesn't seem like a very complicated, time consuming or costly experiment (compared with e.g. the search for the higgs boson), so I'd think it's reasonable to expect another team to reproduce the results in the near future, if there is sufficient interest.
I mentioned the search for the higgs boson only as it leaves me uneasy, that it was so expensive, that I doubt in my lifetime any team will attempt to reproduce the results.
It's a new study, so no-one had the opportunity to reproduce their findings yet. Generally in the scientific community, one tries to find the flaw in their argument/methods, rather then presuming them to be faulty.
It doesn't seem like a very complicated, time consuming or costly experiment (compared with e.g. the search for the higgs boson), so I'd think it's reasonable to expect another team to reproduce the results in the near future, if there is sufficient interest.