Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Olivier Morin @oliviermorin.bsky.social · 14d

Huge congratulations to @alexeykoshevoy.bsky.social l who defended his PhD thesis today!! with his co-supervisor @sblldtrch.bsky.social and jury members @simonkirby.bsky.social @gboleda.bsky.social Paula Rubio Fernandez & Benjamin Spector.

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Olivier Morin @oliviermorin.bsky.social · 23d

also with @kakapitan.bsky.social @sobchuk.bsky.social @artjomshl.bsky.social @hugoreasoning.bsky.social & many others

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 27d

Looking forward to be in Paris for the launch of the CultureLab!

Jean-Baptiste Camps @jbcamps.bsky.social · 27d

We're officially launching the new PSL CultureLab in 10 days !
If you're interested in the research of a collective bridging Computational Humanities, Social Sciences and Cultural Evolution, you can check our programme (and come to our event, if you're in Paris 22 September):
psl.eu/agenda/collo...

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Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 27d

Looking forward to be in Paris for the launch of the CultureLab!

Jean-Baptiste Camps @jbcamps.bsky.social · 27d

We're officially launching the new PSL CultureLab in 10 days !
If you're interested in the research of a collective bridging Computational Humanities, Social Sciences and Cultural Evolution, you can check our programme (and come to our event, if you're in Paris 22 September):
psl.eu/agenda/collo...

Colloque inaugural du Grand programme de recherche CultureLab | PSL

Recherche, CultureLab inaugure ses travaux le 22 septembre 2025 au Campus Condorcet avec une journée consacrée aux sciences humaines et sociales computationnelles et à l’évolution culturelle. , Le Gra...

psl.eu

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Jean-Baptiste Camps @jbcamps.bsky.social · 27d

We're officially launching the new PSL CultureLab in 10 days !
If you're interested in the research of a collective bridging Computational Humanities, Social Sciences and Cultural Evolution, you can check our programme (and come to our event, if you're in Paris 22 September):
psl.eu/agenda/collo...

Colloque inaugural du Grand programme de recherche CultureLab | PSL

Recherche, CultureLab inaugure ses travaux le 22 septembre 2025 au Campus Condorcet avec une journée consacrée aux sciences humaines et sociales computationnelles et à l’évolution culturelle. , Le Gra...

psl.eu

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Olivier Morin @oliviermorin.bsky.social · Sep 4

Amazing Oleg!

Oleg Sobchuk 🇺🇦 @sobchuk.bsky.social · Sep 4

Great news from the @erc.europa.eu today: I received an ERC Starting Grant to study the cultural evolution of literature 🔥

www.eva.mpg.de/press/news/a...

Charting the evolution of European literature

Oleg Sobchuk has received an ERC Starting Grant to study 200 years of European literary evolution

www.eva.mpg.de

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Oleg Sobchuk 🇺🇦 @sobchuk.bsky.social · Sep 4

Great news from the @erc.europa.eu today: I received an ERC Starting Grant to study the cultural evolution of literature 🔥

www.eva.mpg.de/press/news/a...

Charting the evolution of European literature

Oleg Sobchuk has received an ERC Starting Grant to study 200 years of European literary evolution

www.eva.mpg.de

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Gold Yoshi @goldyoshi.bsky.social · Sep 4

enshittification definition covered in ads

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James Winters @replicatedtypo.bsky.social · Aug 15

🚨🚨 New preprint 📜 with Mathieu Charbonneau (@matcharbonneau.bsky.social‬): Modelling the emergence of open-ended technological evolution (arxiv.org/abs/2508.04828). Feedback welcomed! #Evolution #Technology #Culture #OpenEnded #TechnologicalEvolution #CulturalEvolution 🧵: 1/29

Modelling the emergence of open-ended technological evolution

Humans stand alone in terms of their potential to collectively and cumulatively improve technologies in an open-ended manner. This open-endedness provides societies with the ability to continually exp...

arxiv.org

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Olivier Morin @oliviermorin.bsky.social · Aug 15

I'd join the class action if I were US-based.

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · Aug 14

"If your books were uploaded to LibGen/fed into the LLMs, add your name to the potential class action lawsuit by tomorrow." Details:

LibDem database: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Attorney form: www.lieffcabraser.com/anthropic-au...

(This information comes via a reliable Discord source.)

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI

Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

www.theatlantic.com

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Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · Aug 14

"If your books were uploaded to LibGen/fed into the LLMs, add your name to the potential class action lawsuit by tomorrow." Details:

LibDem database: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Attorney form: www.lieffcabraser.com/anthropic-au...

(This information comes via a reliable Discord source.)

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI

Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

www.theatlantic.com

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Hugo Mercier @hugoreasoning.bsky.social · Aug 11

From ancient Greece to the Arabic golden age, scholars have been driven by their curiosity to investigate astronomy, history, philosophy, and sundry other disciplines. Is there a structure to that curiosity? Are astronomers as likely to also be historians or to also be philosophers?

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Oleg Sobchuk 🇺🇦 @sobchuk.bsky.social · Feb 27

Rohan Kapitany launches a fun pop sci podcast: about games & behavioral sciences. In one of the later episodes @oliviermorin.bsky.social & myself will be discussing our recent paper on monsters 👹

Really cool idea – and very well executed! Great work for our community and beyond

Not that other guy, that's for sure @neogliberal.bsky.social · Feb 27

Excited to announce Mind Games. A podcast where insufferable D&D/TTRPG fandom intersects with psychological and behavioral science. Please subscribe to get our episodes as they drop.

www.mindgamespodcast.com

iTunes: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/m...

Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/7I5F3qu...

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Edgar Dubourg @edgardubourg.bsky.social · Jun 2

We often have to judge who is knowledgeable—precisely when we are not. Can humans really do that? Our new paper in Psychological Science shows that, surprisingly, we can. drive.google.com/file/d/1b15E...

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Adam Kucharski @adamjkucharski.bsky.social · Jul 8

Adding AI watermark to latest paper...

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Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · Jun 9

buzzkill www.maps.com/snow-mistake...

Snow Mistake: Correcting Myths in the Mapping of Cholera

What if the famous map of Broad Street played no role in determining how cholera spread? Or if John Snow didn't make the storied map?

www.maps.com

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Olivier Morin @oliviermorin.bsky.social · Jun 9

one of my favorite science stories got debunked...

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · Jun 9

buzzkill www.maps.com/snow-mistake...

Snow Mistake: Correcting Myths in the Mapping of Cholera

What if the famous map of Broad Street played no role in determining how cholera spread? Or if John Snow didn't make the storied map?

www.maps.com

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Hugo Mercier @hugoreasoning.bsky.social · Jun 2

We have a lovely new paper out, showing that even ignorant people can be very good at recognising who's knowledgeable based on minimal cues

Edgar Dubourg @edgardubourg.bsky.social · Jun 2

We often have to judge who is knowledgeable—precisely when we are not. Can humans really do that? Our new paper in Psychological Science shows that, surprisingly, we can. drive.google.com/file/d/1b15E...

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Justin Weinberg @dailynous.com · May 22

Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has died.

Alasdair MacIntyre (1929-2025) - Daily Nous

Alasdair MacIntyre, professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and Duke University, well-known for his work on moral and political philosophy, has died. Professor MacIntyre wrote...

dailynous.com

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Cognition ENS @cognitionens.bsky.social · May 20

PUBLICATION I 🐻 Les ours en peluche ont-ils évolué culturellement pour devenir plus mignons ? Un projet étudiant @psl-univ.bsky.social @normalesup.bsky.social explore l'impact de la perception de la mignonnerie sur l'évolution des artefacts culturels et débouche sur une publication 👉 bit.ly/3YUZnw5

Actualités: Les ours en peluche ont-ils évolué culturellement pour devenir plus mignons ? Quand un projet étudiant débouche sur une publication. | DEC Département d'études cognitives

Recherche: Une étude menée sous forme de projet collectif impliquant des étudiantes et des étudiants du Master de sciences cognitives de PSL a débouché sur la publication d’un article dans Journal of ...

bit.ly

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Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · May 12

My therapist: Don’t worry, Merovingian cursive is not real, it can’t hurt you

Merovingian cursive:

Extremely difficult to read document in cursive script. Actually this is a charter of lady Clotilde, Paris AN/K//2/10, from 673

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This skeet will self destruct @pardoguerra.bsky.social · May 5

$500 million is… less than 1.25% of the NIH’s 2024 budget.

When I say there is no capacity to absorb the shock, I mean it.

Ursula von der Leyen @vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu · May 5

We will put forward a 500 million package for 2025-2027 to make Europe a magnet for researchers.

As well as ambitious proposals for R&I in the next EU budget.

We will also offer the best and brightest the right incentives to come to Europe ↓

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Ursula von der Leyen @vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu · May 5

We will put forward a 500 million package for 2025-2027 to make Europe a magnet for researchers.

As well as ambitious proposals for R&I in the next EU budget.

We will also offer the best and brightest the right incentives to come to Europe ↓

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Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · May 2

How are humans able to make sense of time? Not with special biology but with “time tools”—ideas, practices, and artifacts that render time more concrete.

My new paper explores this vast, varied toolkit—one that makes use of knots, nuts, hands, flowers, mountains, shadows, and much more.

(link 👇)

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Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · Apr 24

"Literary Fiction Indicates Early Modernization in
China Prior to Western Influence"
sociologicalscience.com/download/vol...

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · Apr 22

"What goes on four feet in the morning, two feet at midday, and three feet in the evening?"

This riddle is thousands of years old, but why does it stick with us?

In our new paper, we argue that the feeling of insight might explain the lasting success of some cultural products: tinyurl.com/4j756h9a

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Jess Graves @jessgraves.bsky.social · Apr 15

Sick of being taken advantage of by OTHER PACKAGES?!

Use python package {tariff} to show those packages WHO IS BOSS.

Make Reinventing The Wheel Great Again!

pypi.org/project/tari...

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Ted Underwood @tedunderwood.com · Apr 10

15 positions in AI at Paris Sciences et Lettres, computational social science and ethics very much included. I believe these are four-year "fellow" positions requiring some teaching during that term. #MLSky recrutement.psl.eu/en/pnp8wd2rbs

Fellow in Artificial Intelligence - Paris School of AI | PSL

Contract : 4 years fixed term Start of contract : September, 1st, 2025

recrutement.psl.eu

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Mélissa Berthet @berthetmelissa.bsky.social · Apr 4

🚨New in @science.org🚨
With Simon Townsend (@nccrlanguage.bsky.social) and Martin Surbeck, we have investigated whether wild bonobos can combine calls in complex combinations, similar to how humans combine words into sentences 🧪
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

#ScienceResearch #AnimalCommunication

Extensive compositionality in the vocal system of bonobos

Compositionality, the capacity to combine meaningful elements into larger meaningful structures, is a hallmark of human language. Compositionality can be trivial (the combination’s meaning is the sum ...

www.science.org

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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · Apr 3

On the subject of, you know, all *this* I came across a poem about the end of the world crammed into the flyleaf of a 10th century manuscript. Wanna hear it?

Of course you do. Buckle up.

Listen, earth. Listen, edge of the great sea.

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Cognition ENS @cognitionens.bsky.social · Mar 21

La 24ᵉédition du Forum des Sciences Cognitives aura lieu le 29 mars 2025 à l'@normalesup.bsky.social @psl-univ.bsky.social ! Le thème 👉 Cognition, Art et Créativité. Le forum sera suivi d'une soirée festive ! Programme et inscription sur fsc2025.heysummit.com. Venez découvrir les #SciencesCog !

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