Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by David Crotty

Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 15h

MIT (Kornbluth): The Compact "would restrict freedom of expression...the premise is inconsistent with our core belief that funding should be based on scientific merit alone...we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education" orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...

Regarding the Compact | MIT Organization Chart

orgchart.mit.edu

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Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 2d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Jill ONeill @jillmwo.bsky.social · 3d

B&T is a book distribution company that has been around for more than a century in support of public libraries book acquisition and collection management. That they are closing on such very, very short notice is creating new pressures on both libraries and other vendors in the space. Bad news.

Maris Kreizman @maris.bsky.social · 3d

seems very bad www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

Baker & Taylor Prepares Plan to Shut Down

At a town hall yesterday, B&T owner and CEO Aman Kochar announced that following the termination of the ReaderLink acquisition deal, he does not see a path to keep the library wholesaler in business.

www.publishersweekly.com

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James Briscoe @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social · 3d

Very sad news, John Gurdon has died.

A developmental biologist's developmental biologist, Nobel prize winner

His work is the foundation of much of today's dev & stem cell bio.

An inspiration to many, including me. Always asking questions & wanting the answers

www.magd.cam.ac.uk/news/profess...

Professor Sir John Gurdon FRS (1933-2025) | Magdalene College

Magdalene College is deeply saddened to announce the death of Professor Sir John Gurdon FRS, who served as Master of the College from 1995 to 2002.

www.magd.cam.ac.uk

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Danny Kingsley @dannykay68.bsky.social · 5d

RESOURCE for publishers - AI Opportunity Map www.ce-strategy.com/services/ai-...

AI Opportunity Map | Clarke & Esposito

AI Opportunity Map: Decision support tool for publishers to align AI opportunities with business goals. Cut through the noise and focus on real value-driven initiatives.

www.ce-strategy.com

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 5d

I suppose I’m too literal-minded, but I really don’t get these Google Cloud commercials where Google AI finds what are obviously spurious correlations in Major League Baseball stats.

Like isn’t this the whole reason why ML dressed up as AI is bullshit?

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samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 5d

"the quickest way to get a collaborator to return edits on your manuscript is to write down their affiliation wrong" (ancient academic proverb)

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David Crotty @dacrotty.bsky.social · 4d

Must be something in the air today scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/10/06/g...

Guest Post - Manifesto Time: Do You Need a Publishing Manifesto? - The Scholarly Kitchen

Does your publishing organization need a manifesto? Writing a manifesto for your organization can be a great exercise for team building and planning, and a way to ignite action.

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

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Damon K @dadadrummer.bsky.social · 5d

“Spotify won’t prohibit this music—not because it thinks it’s innovative or ushering in a new era of technological futurism (the platform has never cared about culture) but simply because it’s generating streams.”
— @kieranpressreyn.bsky.social, who knows from slop pitchfork.com/thepitch/spo...

Spotify’s New Policy Won’t Stop the Wave of AI Slop

Rabbit Holed is Kieran Press-Reynolds’ weekly column exploring songs and scenes at the intersection of music and digital culture, separating shitpost genius from shitpassé lameness. This week, Kieran ...

pitchfork.com

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The Ass is the father of the legs @internethippo.bsky.social · 7d

"We're going to create superintelligence" How about making outlook search work first. How about that

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Travels With Brindle Takes Manhattan 11/9 @travelswithbrindle.bsky.social · 9d

BREAKING NEWS: The first Cars album still slaps

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Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 8d

Both @lisalibrarian.bsky.social and I keep saying this. IMO academia has to deal with this, not conjure an OA fantasy where reuse excludes LLMs.

After all the purpose of knowledge generation is reuse. As I said at CNI, this is not the situation screenwriters or musicians find themselves in. 2/n

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Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 8d

"Courts leaning toward training [of AI] is “fair use” not subject to copyright restriction...none of the [CC licenses] take away what one can do with copyrighted content.”

☝️ training is legal. It's only copyright breach if _output_ is verbatim reproduction 1/2

www.ce-strategy.com/the-brief/ou...

Outliers | Clarke & Esposito

Will HHMI’s new preprint policy have any impact on the larger market? 85% of marketers use GenAI tools.

www.ce-strategy.com

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Martin Paul Eve @eve.gd · 9d

Ignore the Hinton prediction headline - lots of this is interesting on the subject of lab testing vs real-world environments

Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 9d

In 2016 Hinton predicted that AI would replace all radiologists in five years. Ten years later, why hasn't it happened? This post is a great explainer.

www.understandingai.org/p/ai-isnt-re...

AI isn't replacing radiologists

Radiology combines digital images, clear benchmarks, and repeatable tasks. But demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high.

www.understandingai.org

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Michael Clarke @mtclarke.bsky.social · 8d

Yes, yes, Europe has its benefits. Walkable cities. Cultural heritage. Amazing food. Little gun violence. Healthcare. Governments that are not shut down. But the number of website pop-ups asking one to accept cookies renders the continent pretty much unlivable.

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Karin Wulf @kawulf.bsky.social · 9d

“We may be past the point of no return, but at a minimum we ought to … assess where we are, and what we’re losing when we fully cashier robust support for Humanities research. The Humanities are us.” Feels like a(nother) good day to share this. scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/04/02/t...

The Humanities as Canary: Understanding this Crisis Now - The Scholarly Kitchen

The Humanities have always been the canary in the coal mine of the full knowledge industry. What information can help us understand this crisis and its implications?

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

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David Crotty @dacrotty.bsky.social · 8d

New issue of @brieferyet.bsky.social out today. Will the new HHMI immediate access policy requiring preprints and de-emphasizing journals have any impact on the larger market? Increasing use of AI in marketing and AI use of Creative Commons licensed materials continues to confound publishers

Outliers | Clarke & Esposito

Will HHMI’s new preprint policy have any impact on the larger market? 85% of marketers use GenAI tools.

www.ce-strategy.com

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Ryan Marino, MD @ryanmarino.bsky.social · 10d

This is why we fund scientists to study things like oyster slobber even if you don’t think it sounds important

Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 11d

⚠️ Chinese researchers have invented bone glue that mimics how oysters stick to surfaces underwater.

The adhesive can reportedly repair orthopedic fractures in 2-3 minutes, even in blood-rich environments, and is bioabsorbable.

interestingengineering.com/science/chin...

China's oyster-inspired 'bone glue' bonds fractures in minutes

A new oyster-inspired Bone-02 adhesive can revolutionize bone repair without metal fasteners.

interestingengineering.com

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The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 11d

Exclusive: OpenAI is planning to release a new version of its Sora video generator, which creates videos featuring copyrighted material unless copyright holders opt out of having their work appear.

OpenAI’s New Sora Video Generator to Require Copyright Holders to Opt Out

Executives at the startup notified talent agencies and studios over the last week.

on.wsj.com

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Lorcan Dempsey @lorcand.bsky.social · 10d

"My editor’s email started off friendly enough, but then came the hammer blow: “We need you to remove all the em dashes. People assume that means it’s written by AI.” " buff.ly/rLpQjTr

My petty gripe: not only am I losing my livelihood to AI – now it’s stealing my em dashes too

The humble em dash is being used as a tell that something is written by a large language model. But it’s James Shackell’s favourite piece of punctuation, and he’s not ready to lose it

www.theguardian.com

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 11d

This is a fundamental point that 99% of higher-ed coverage, and 100% of immig coverage, have missed.

Dave Vanness @djvanness.bsky.social · 11d

A lot of people think that every international student admitted means one fewer spot for domestic students, when the opposite is more likely true - the tuition revenue international students bring allows public universities to provide substantial discounts to domestic students, improving access.

Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 11d

30% drop year over year!

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Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 10d

Hm is it bad if the industry somehow propping up a trembling economy is based almost entirely on our collective willingness to let it do crimes

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · 11d

this is not gonna go down well

www.reuters.com/technology/o...

OpenAI's new Sora video generator to require copyright holders to opt out, WSJ reports

OpenAI is planning to release a new version of its Sora generator that creates videos featuring copyrighted material, unless right holders opt out of having their work appear, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

www.reuters.com

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Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 10d

Journal TOCs do allow occasional serendipitous discoveries other strategies don't yet enable. Meanwhile, highlights, reviews, news & views, etc. do point to things one should read, and I see a continued role for journals in curation 2/n

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Karin Wulf @kawulf.bsky.social · 11d

I do not want the video. I will never watch the video. I usually won’t even give the video the effort of complaint.

I just want to read the news story. Give me the text. This would be my Ted Talk but that would be text too.

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Nathan Kalmoe (he/him) @nathankalmoe.bsky.social · 14d

Some big implications for journalism, too, where reporters often mistake trending posts as a reasonable reflection of public opinion.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 14d

🤷🏿‍♂️

Cracker Barrel Outrage Was Almost Certainly Driven by Bots, Researchers Say

Doesn't that make more sense than lots of people caring about Cracker Barrel?

gizmodo.com

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