#the-conversation

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Cancer
fromNature
1 day ago

Engaging the head and the heart: why scientists turn to poetry

Poetry and medicine intertwine, enhancing the healing process and providing emotional support in palliative care.
Education
fromFuturism
2 days ago

AI Forces College Professor to Get Typewriters for Entire Class

Typewriters in class encourage students to engage more with each other and the learning process, contrasting with modern digital distractions.
OMG science
fromArs Technica
5 days ago

Research roundup: 7 cool science stories we almost missed

Raccoons exhibit flexible problem-solving skills, thriving in human environments by successfully navigating complex puzzles.
#artificial-intelligence
fromNature
6 days ago
Intellectual property law

Hallucinated citations are polluting the scientific literature. What can be done?

Artificial intelligence is generating non-existent academic references, leading to hallucinated citations in scholarly publications.
Intellectual property law
fromNature
6 days ago

Hallucinated citations are polluting the scientific literature. What can be done?

Artificial intelligence is generating non-existent academic references, leading to hallucinated citations in scholarly publications.
fromWarpweftandway
1 week ago

Upcoming Collaborative Learning Events

The first event is a roundtable on "Zhuangzi: Fate, Desires, Transformation" on April 6th at 9:00am Beijing time.
Philosophy
Online Community Development
fromNature
1 week ago

A responsible authorship culture is needed - it is a collective responsibility

Responsible authorship culture is essential for scientific integrity, anchored in credit, accountability, and transparency.
fromHarvard Gazette
6 days ago

Writing us back from the brink - Harvard Gazette

"We're talking about political leaders who were moved by an enormous sense of responsibility and fear for the world."
Russo-Ukrainian War
fromNature
1 week ago

Now is the time for scientific societies to guide global research

Modern scientific societies are increasingly vulnerable due to their dependence on membership fees and journal subscriptions, which are being challenged by the rise of virtual networking and open-access publishing.
Science
#generative-ai
Graphic design
fromThe Verge
6 days ago

Like it or not, AI is part of art school curriculums

Generative AI poses a significant threat to creative professionals, impacting job prospects and sparking protests among students.
Graphic design
fromThe Verge
6 days ago

Like it or not, AI is part of art school curriculums

Generative AI poses a significant threat to creative professionals, impacting job prospects and sparking protests among students.
fromSearch Engine Roundtable
1 week ago

Block of Citations Tested Beneath AI Overview Summary

The format has ginormous link cards at the bottom of the AI summary, which include a thumbnail of no apparent value, the site name, favicon, description, and title.
Typography
Education
fromFortune
6 days ago

Meet a professor fed up with AI slop who made her whole class use typewriters instead of computers | Fortune

Students at Cornell University experience manual typewriters to understand writing without digital assistance.
Psychology
fromHarvard Gazette
1 week ago

Ways to keep talking - and maybe find way forward - amid riven times - Harvard Gazette

Signaling goodwill and respect while highlighting shared interests is essential for effective disagreement.
Higher education
fromEntrepreneur
3 days ago

A Growing Number of College Students Are Switching Majors - Here's What's Behind It

One in six college students changed their major due to AI's perceived impact on the job market, with many considering a switch.
fromwww.scientificamerican.com
1 week ago

What happens when AI starts checking mathematicians' work

Computer programs that check mathematical arguments have existed for decades, but translating a human-written proof into the strict programming language of a computer is extremely time-consuming, often taking months or even years.
OMG science
Humor
fromTechCrunch
2 weeks ago

Why scientists can't get a laugh | TechCrunch

Most scientists struggle with humor in presentations, with only 9% successfully making audiences laugh.
Typography
fromTODAY.com
1 week ago

Professor Shares 1 Word That's a Dead Giveaway for an AI-Written Paper

The word 'moreover' is a strong indicator of AI-generated writing in student papers.
#higher-education
Philosophy
fromPsychology Today
3 weeks ago

Why Some Scientific Debates Never End

Complex questions involving values cannot be definitively settled by evidence alone, as different priorities lead experts to emphasize different findings from the same data.
Philosophy
fromAbove the Law
2 weeks ago

Pigs Can Fly!: The Sins Of Legal Scholars - Above the Law

Academic integrity requires honest representation of facts and findings; misleading titles, fabricated evidence, and misrepresentation undermine scholarship and damage disciplines.
Philosophy
fromWarpweftandway
3 weeks ago

Two Collaborative Learning () Events This Week

The 四海为学 Collaborative Learning Project hosts two free public events: Louise Edwards discussing childhood and gender in China on March 19, and Peter Hershock exploring AI and agency from a Buddhist perspective on March 20.
fromFuturism
1 month ago

Grammarly Offering Manuscript Reviews by AI Versions of Recently Deceased Professors

Grammarly is now offering 'expert review' of your work by living and dead academics. Without anyone's explicit permission it's creating little LLMs based on their scraped work and using their names and reputation.
Roam Research
Philosophy
fromPsychology Today
3 weeks ago

What Is the 'Critical' in Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is the ability to analyze, evaluate, and make judgments for decision-making, not merely critiquing or criticizing ideas.
Philosophy
fromThe Conversation
3 weeks ago

I was teaching virtue and knowledge while lying on the side

Self-deception enables vice through small permissions that gradually erode moral boundaries, as demonstrated through infidelity rationalized during relationship separation.
Higher education
fromFortune
1 week ago

'You won't be able to AI your way through an oral exam': Colleges have an Ancient Greek-style solution to the Gen Z stare | Fortune

Oral exams are being reintroduced in higher education to combat the negative effects of generative AI on student learning and critical thinking.
Philosophy
fromBig Think
3 weeks ago

The 3 types of reading (and the 2 you'll pick)

Reading exists on a spectrum from scanning to deep engagement, with most digital readers employing surface-level scanning that misses textual depth and nuance.
fromNature
1 month ago

Pop-up journals for policy research: can temporary titles deliver answers?

I'm less interested in topics than in questions, and I'm less interested in publishing than I am in curation. When I've testified before Congress or dealt with an appropriations bill or a budget negotiation, this question, of what is the return on investments when you're doing R&D, comes up quite often. It's been asked by economists in very formal ways since at least the 1950s, but the data and the methods that were available were really not very strong.
Science
Artificial intelligence
fromNature
1 month ago

This AI can improve your peer review - and make it more polite

An AI Review Feedback Agent can help peer reviewers give more constructive, less toxic feedback, but effects on research quality are not yet established.
#generative-ai-in-education
fromwww.npr.org
1 month ago
Higher education

College students, professors are making their own AI rules. They don't always agree

Generative AI in education creates tension between convenience and skill development, forcing professors and students to navigate unclear boundaries around responsible use.
Higher education
fromwww.npr.org
1 month ago

College students, professors are making their own AI rules. They don't always agree

Generative AI in education creates tension between convenience and skill development, forcing professors and students to navigate unclear boundaries around responsible use.
Writing
fromNature
2 months ago

Three tips for scientific writing: a guide for graduate students

Break large writing projects into specific, actionable tasks, use prompts, structure, and accountability to reduce blank-page dread and sustain progress.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

C'mon, Professors, Assign the Hard Reading

Assigning whole novels in literature classes restores deep reading, rebuilds attention, and enables students to engage meaningfully despite technological distractions.
Agriculture
fromNature
2 months ago

Fresh starts: how to thrive when you leave academia

A liver physician left full-time academia to run a diverse six-hectare farm while maintaining part-time research and policy advisory roles.
History
fromMedievalists.net
2 months ago

10 Medieval Studies' Articles Published Last Month - Medievalists.net

Local populations in Anatolia used spolia to assert cultural continuity with the ancient and Byzantine past, challenging exclusive Western claims to that heritage.
Mental health
fromNature
1 month ago

When a colleague dies: exploring academia's 'death-denying' culture

Academic institutions are often unprepared to support people experiencing grief and death, leaving researchers to navigate loss without adequate institutional provisions.
Philosophy
fromApaonline
1 month ago

The Humanities Challenge: Expanding the Circle of Philosophy

Philosophy offers transformative insights and vision into human life, and public humanities must evolve beyond traditional academic formats to make philosophy accessible to broader audiences through innovative, engaging methods.
Science
fromNature
1 month ago

How to wow a popular-science writer with your research expertise

Effective science communication requires researchers to explain work accurately yet comprehensibly, balancing writers' narrative goals with scientists' commitment to precise truth.
fromInside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs
3 weeks ago

How Libraries Shape AI Literacy on Campus

Librarians have been actively collaborating and talking about it almost every day, whether it's creating tutorials and digital learning objectives or thinking about the conversations to have with instructors. It can feel like cognitive dissonance to be actively working with AI on a regular basis and also saying we're constantly thinking about the harms and the biases.
Higher education
fromMedievalists.net
1 month ago

10 Medieval Studies' Articles Published Last Month - Medievalists.net

In this paper we investigate whether infant and childhood feeding practices influenced the imbalanced adult sex ratio reported in medieval Europe from historical and osteological evidence. First, we examine hypotheses for the observed imbalanced sex ratios in Europe and the evidence presented to support these hypotheses. We then use stable isotope analysis (δ13C and δ15N) of incremental dentine in 64 first molars from adults at three medieval sites (Aulla, Badia Pozzeveri, and Montescudaio) in north-western Tuscany (11th-15th c. CE).
History
#ai-in-education
Science
fromPsychology Today
2 months ago

How to Evaluate Research Articles and AI Information

Assess rival hypotheses and researcher/experimental effects because expectations, cues, and context can bias outcomes and misattribute causality.
Artificial intelligence
fromNature
2 months ago

Author knows best? Top AI conference asks for self-ranked papers amid paper deluge

Authors' self-ranking of multiple submissions, calibrated against peer review, predicts long-term citation impact and highlights higher-quality papers.
#academic-freedom
Higher education
fromThe New Yorker
4 weeks ago

The Unmaking of the American University

Research universities face existential threats as the Trump Administration weaponizes federal funding cuts and compliance demands, forcing institutions to choose between their missions and government favor.
Science
fromArs Technica
2 months ago

Research roundup: 6 cool stories we almost missed

Mineral fingerprinting and zircon analysis indicate humans transported Stonehenge stones from distant quarries, not glaciers.
Science
fromNature
2 months ago

Synthesizing scientific literature with retrieval-augmented language models - Nature

OpenScholar is an open, retrieval-augmented system integrating a 45 million-paper datastore, trained retrievers, and iterative self-feedback to generate cited, up-to-date scientific literature syntheses.
fromblog.apaonline.org
2 months ago

How to Handle the Death of the Essay

If you don't know it, Ecclesiastes is a collection of Old Testament verses in which the eponymous title character discourses on the apparent meaninglessness of pleasure, accomplishment, wealth, politics, and life itself in the face of the infinitude of the universe and the absolute perfection of God. It is the source of many of our most cliched phrases, such as there is a time for everything and there is nothing new under the sun.
Philosophy
fromInsideHook
1 month ago

Are the Humanities Poised for an Academic Comeback?

Many colleges and universities have made cuts in these programs, often bolstering STEM programs at their expense. It's a situation that has sparked no small amount of impassioned editorials. The headline of a recent article at The Guardian by Alice Speri referenced an 'existential crisis at U.S. universities,' and Speri's reporting features numerous examples of undergraduate and graduate programs facing cuts or outright elimination.
Higher education
Philosophy
fromApaonline
2 months ago

Not Yet: A Graduate Student's First Publication

Graduate students often face cautious mentorship that delays submission; trusting one’s judgment can result in successful publication despite initial skepticism.
Philosophy
fromWarpweftandway
2 months ago

Call for Papers - Special Issue: "Science, Technology, and East Asian Philosophy"

Special issue solicits papers examining how East Asian philosophical traditions illuminate, challenge, or reframe understandings of science and technology in historical and contemporary contexts.
Philosophy
fromApaonline
2 months ago

Why Reflections on Teaching Philosophy Matter: A Call for Contributions

Effective philosophy teaching cultivates student participation through course design, assessments, and informal pedagogies that encourage thinking aloud, testing partial ideas, and revising views publicly.
Higher education
fromNature
1 month ago

Why an industry career move is a taboo topic in academia

Many researchers leave academia due to shrinking job security, intense publication pressure, and poor work-life balance, though discussing this transition remains taboo within academic communities.
Higher education
fromNature
2 months ago

Can academia handle my religious faith?

Religious identity coexists with academic careers, and denying this complexity harms researchers and wider society.
fromInside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs
2 months ago

Apparently, Civil Discourse Requires a Bachelor's Degree

They were well represented among the awards focused on workforce training but were shut out when it came to addressing larger social issues. To be fair, FIPSE wasn't alone in ignoring community colleges. As Karen Stout pointed out this weekend, The Chronicle 's quarter-century forecast drew on 50 experts from across higher education to talk about emerging trends; only one was from a community college.
Higher education
Higher education
fromNature
2 months ago

'Bodies like ours aren't considered in academia'

Academic spaces, equipment, and norms often exclude people of larger body sizes, creating everyday barriers and unspoken discrimination.
fromInside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs
2 months ago

We Need to Revitalize Area Studies (opinion)

Just before winter break, news broke that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill plans to close its centers for African, Asian, European, Middle Eastern, Latin American and Slavic, Eurasian and East European studies. Though UNC administrators said in a statement that decisions on closures are not finalized, they confirmed they are evaluating centers and institutes as part of a budget-cutting effort in response to state and federal funding changes.
Higher education
Higher education
fromwww.mercurynews.com
1 month ago

Opinion: Sociology is taking it on the chin. Here's how we can preserve this critical field of study.

Sociology faces politicized attacks, curricular exclusion, and erosion of departmental standing despite teaching critical thinking, inequality analysis, interdisciplinary synthesis, and scrutiny of power.
fromInside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs
2 months ago

Strategies for Supporting International Scholars (opinion)

While everyone is subject to their individual situations, for many, the process begins with an F-1 student visa, which they hold as they complete a Ph.D. over five to six years. After graduation, they may choose to transition to Optional Practical Training (OPT), which provides a year of work authorization, with a two-year extension for STEM graduates. Some may then transition to a H-1B temporary work visa, which provides for three years of work authorization and is renewable for another three years.
Higher education
fromNature
2 months ago

AI could transform research assessment - and some academics are worried

In 2023, Australia abandoned its expensive and bureaucratic scholar-led research-assessment programme. New Zealand followed suit soon after. The hope, according to a transition plan unveiled by the Australian federal government's Department of Education and the research sector, was to find a "more modern, data-driven approach". In the United Kingdom, where financial pressures on universities are especially acute, there are similar calls to reform the Research Excellence Framework (REF), the country's performance-based research-funding system.
Higher education
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