there are multiple groundbreaking things in here, absolutely amazing article and extremely inspiring news.

This is a news/discussion on Nature about the influences of ChatGPT on academia. Some quotes below:

In the two years since ChatGPT was released to the public, researchers have been using it to polish their academic writing, review the scientific literature and write code to analyse data. Although some think that the chatbot, which debuted widely on 30 November 2022, is making scientists more productive, others worry that it is facilitating plagiarism, introducing inaccuracies into research articles and gobbling up large amounts of energy.

60,000: the minimum number of scholarly papers published in 2023 that are estimated to have been written with the assistance of a large language model (LLM). This is slightly more than 1% of all articles in the Dimensions database of academic publications surveyed by the research team.

10%: the minimum percentage of research papers published by members of the biomedical science community in the first half of 2024 estimated to have had their abstracts written with the help of an LLM. Another study estimated the percentage to be higher — 17.5% — for the computer science community in February.

6.5–16.9%: the percentage of peer reviews submitted to a selection of top AI conferences in 2023 and 2024 that are estimated to have been substantially generated by LLMs. These reviews assess research papers or presentations proposed for the meetings.

One big question that researchers have been pursuing in the past year is whether ChatGPT can go beyond the role of a virtual assistant and become an AI scientist.

Also see FutureHouse's PaperQA2, this work from Lu et al., and this work from Boiko et al.. All are attempts at creating an "AI scientist".

• (2024, free) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4860527
• (2021, pay walled) https://online.ucpress.edu/cpcs/article-abstract/54/4/54/119024/Killing-Politics-SoftlyUnconvincing-Propaganda-and?redirectedFrom=fulltext

I don't have a background in science, I learned of the 2021 study as a footnote in a book I'm reading.

I'm curious to see what more attention this will get over the coming years.

Space weather experts say auroras could be visible from 10 p.m. EST Thursday to 1 a.m. Friday EST, though it’s difficult to pin down an exact window. Updated forecasts may be available as the event draws closer on NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center website or an aurora forecasting app.

The results of a recent study suggest that, if there is no deficit of the hormone, supplements are unlikely to improve a man’s libido

cross-posted from: https://poliversity.it/users/giotras/statuses/113549598922221332

Monitoring plastic pollution: key elements for a science-based framework for a global plastics treaty

@science

https://council.science/blog/monitoring-plastic-pollution-key-elements-for-a-science-based-framework-for-a-global-plastics-treaty/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=monitoring-plastic-pollution-key-elements-for-a-science-based-framework-for-a-global-plastics-treaty

Dear colleagues,

Please find attached the call for proposals to our Open Science Devroom.

A conference track about all things "open source in research context" at the Free and Open Source Development European Meeting on 1st and 2nd of February 2025 at the Université Libre de Bruxelles.

We are looking forward to your proposals!

See you there, The Open Research Devroom managers

Of course killing the Younglings after Mouse Order 66 was carried out wasn't a big deal since the rodent mothers do that all the time anyway.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/386215/trump-rfk-jr-vaccines-health-measles-chart

In this study, the scientists simulated the process of spaced learning by examining two types of non-brain human cells — one from nerve tissue and one from kidney tissue — in a laboratory setting.

These cells were exposed to varying patterns of chemical signals, akin to the exposure of brain cells to neurotransmitter patterns when we learn new information.

The intriguing part? These non-brain cells also switched on a “memory gene” – the same gene that brain cells activate when they detect information patterns and reorganize their connections to form memories.