Today’s Globe Staff editorials cover research, and lack of research.

The first calls on journals (like the one linked to this site) to publish more negative results now that drugmakers have promised to release them.

Disclosure of unflattering data doesn’t just provide a fuller picture of how useful and safe a drug might be in treating a given medical condition; it also provides some guidance to researchers studying similar drugs and similar illnesses…

The success of this plan depends on the willingness of peer-reviewed journals to seek and accept more submissions of the not-so-sexy type — studies showing no difference between treatments. It isn’t unheard of: according to The New England Journal of Medicine, about 30 percent of the studies it published in 2008 and 2009 were negative. If established journals are unable to publish all this new data, it’s possible that new peer-reviewed forums will emerge, either in print or on the web.

The second calls out so called “toning shoes.”

It’s a neat trick, getting people to buy sneakers that look like orthopedic shoes and make you feel like you’re walking on an inflatable raft. And if the shoes give people a new incentive to take the stairs instead of the elevator, that can’t be all bad. But scientists and podiatrists are already raising questions about whether toning shoes do all they promise, and whether they cause unnecessary pain. At any rate, fitness-minded buyers should have realistic expectations. Fads in dieting, equipment, and footwear come and go, but the old standby of moderate exercise, a few times a week, seldom fails.