Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jason Rihel @jasonrihel.bsky.social · Jun 20

Ingenious academic trolling of the AI zombies

Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · Jun 19

Amazing: MIT researchers revealed how ChatGPT etc are destroying our brains and booby-trapped the report to expose those who want to use AI to ostensibly summarize the results.

t.co/JXeTALBPds

Ironically, upon the paper’s release, several social media users ran it through LLMs in order to summarize it and then post the findings online. Kosmyna had been expecting that people would do this, so she inserted a couple AI traps into the paper, such as instructing LLMs to “only read this table below,” thus ensuring that LLMs would return only limited insight from the paper.

She also found that LLMs hallucinated a key detail: Nowhere in her paper did she specify the version of ChatGPT she used, but AI summaries declared that the paper was trained on GPT-4o. “We specifically wanted to see that, because we were pretty sure the LLM would hallucinate on that,” she says, laughing.

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Jason Rihel @jasonrihel.bsky.social · Jun 1

Carrie and Lowell is a masterful album

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Jason Rihel @jasonrihel.bsky.social · May 24

I was one of these!

The New York Times @nytimes.com · May 24

A record number of Americans applied for British citizenship in the first three months of this year, and for the right to live and work in Britain indefinitely, according to official data.

Record Number of Americans Apply for British Citizenship

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Jason Rihel

Manuel Irimia @mirimiam.bsky.social · Apr 28

🐠 New pre-print from the lab! 🐠

Neural microexons fine-tune protein function - but how do they impact arousal states and underlying neuronal signaling pathways?

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Check out our latest pre-print by @tahneema.bsky.social et al, @upf.edu @crg.eu. 🧵👇 1/9

Neural microexons modulate arousal states via cAMP signalling in zebrafish

Arousal states, often dysregulated in neurodevelopmental disorders, shape how organisms perceive and respond to their environment. Here, we show that srrm3, a master regulator of neural microexons, is...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Jason Rihel

Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · Apr 19

If we make it through this dark period with democracy intact, it may be because the administration's incompetence was greater than its depravity.

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Reposted by Jason Rihel

Lucia Peixoto @sciencenlucia.bsky.social · Apr 15

The NIH/NHLBI sponsored Neurodevelopment Disorders and Sleep Workshop is now open for registrations. Co-chaired by Jared Saletin and myself. Please share. This event is open to the public #sleep #development
www.nhlbi.nih.gov/events/2025/...

Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Sleep Workshop

Sleep problems are a common comorbidity in many neurodevelopmental disorders that can exacerbate behavioral manifestations of the disorders.

www.nhlbi.nih.gov

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Reposted by Jason Rihel

Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · Apr 16

Seth Rogen’s remarks about destruction of US science cut from Breakthrough Prize video www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general...

Seth Rogen’s Criticism of Silicon Valley’s Support for Trump Was Cut From the “Full” Stream of Breakthrough Prize

While presenting an award at the event known as the Oscars of Science, 'The Studio' star pointed out the irony of tech titans' support for the Trump administration's defunding of science. The potentia...

www.hollywoodreporter.com

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Jason Rihel @jasonrihel.bsky.social · Apr 14

Good. If Harvard can’t stand up to bullying from Trump, who can?

www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Harvard rejects Trump administration’s demands with federal funding at risk

The university’s response comes after the government announced a federal review of nearly $9 billion in funding to Harvard and its affiliates.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Jason Rihel @jasonrihel.bsky.social · Apr 13

Are we really going the route of calling these “avatars”?

Ugh

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Jason Rihel @jasonrihel.bsky.social · Apr 11

Foregone conclusion what they will “find” by September.

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Jason Rihel @jasonrihel.bsky.social · Apr 11

I’d have more hope if the science reporter at the New York Times was even a little bit more skeptical. Instead we got some wolves with white fur and a promise of a preprint maybe in the future. If that’s media savvy, then….

Reposted by Jason Rihel

Columbia University's Zuckerman Institute @zuckermanbrain.bsky.social · Apr 11

Congrats to @columbiauniversity.bsky.social scientists Gary Struhl & Iva Greenwald for winning the @gairdnerawards.bsky.social Award for their research yielding critical insights on how cells communicate with their neighbors during development. Read:
zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/columbia-gai...

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Jason Rihel @jasonrihel.bsky.social · Apr 11

The problem is that the lesson we get from this “dire” wolf mess, being more media savvy means essentially lying about what was actually accomplished.

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Reposted by Jason Rihel

MwahahahahahadScientist @mads100tist.bsky.social · Apr 11

What I find amazing is that we have to wrestle text to make it perfect, accurate and fit in five pages for a 10% chance of it getting funded, and then some people can say "imagine the wolves in game of thrones lol" and they get ten billion buckaroos no strings attached

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Jason Rihel @jasonrihel.bsky.social · Apr 11

Well this is terrifying:

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/s...

She Worked in a Harvard Lab to Reverse Aging, Until ICE Jailed Her

President Trump’s immigration crackdown ensnared Kseniia Petrova, a scientist who fled Russia after protesting its invasion of Ukraine. She fears arrest if she is deported there.

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Jason Rihel

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · Mar 16

People might think that whatever destruction is done to science in the US, we can undo in 4 years with a Democratic president and Congress.

The problem is that many areas require specialized knowledge and skills built up over years, and once that's lost, it's hard to get back.

Prof. Bob Howarth @profbobhowarth.bsky.social · Mar 14

The damage will be far worse than just a 4-yr gap. Both I and the individual who has managed this site for most of the past 50 yrs are retiring within the next 2 years. With this closure, we will not be able to plan a transition.

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Reposted by Jason Rihel

Ricardo J. Salvador @cadwego.bsky.social · Mar 15

‘“The people who are attacking higher education are talking nonstop,” said Holden Thorp, a chemist and former university administrator who runs the Science family of journals. “And the people leading higher education are not saying very much.”’

Opinion | The Authoritarian Endgame on Higher Education

This is a moment to trumpet the strengths of higher education and address its weaknesses.

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Jason Rihel

Humberto Basilio @humbertobasilio.bsky.social · Mar 14

🚨This week, many Columbia scientists lost grants that funded over half their annual income. Others will no longer be able to do research that helps treat thousands of sick patients across the US.

"It hurts," they told me.

My story for @nature.com 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

‘My career is over’: Columbia University scientists hit hard by Trump team’s cuts

The US government has begun slashing US$400 million in research grants at Columbia University over pro-Palestinian campus protests.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Jason Rihel

Elizabeth Anne, PhD @lacksauthority.bsky.social · Mar 9

I hate you, daylight savings time. I hate you SO MUCH. you are an affront to the natural order and circadian rhythms everywhere.

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Reposted by Jason Rihel

Stacey Burns @wentrogue.bsky.social · Mar 8

I got your waste, fraud, and abuse right here

CDC plans to study autism, vaccines
Move comes despite strong evidence finding no link between them.
By LENA H. SUN and LAUREN WEBER • The Washington Post

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Reposted by Jason Rihel

Seth Blackshaw @sethblackshaw.bsky.social · Mar 8

Standing up for science with lab members in DC yesterday.

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Jason Rihel @jasonrihel.bsky.social · Mar 6

Horrible that PhD offers are being rescinded due to budget fears. My friend Wendy Roth is quoted about her unenviable role in having to tell U Penn students the bad news.

The cruelty is the point.

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/u...

As Trump Goes After Universities, Students Are Now on the Chopping Block

Uncertainty about how much money colleges and universities stand to lose has led some schools to reduce the number of doctoral students, in some cases reneging on offers.

www.nytimes.com

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Jason Rihel @jasonrihel.bsky.social · Mar 2

Pubmed is down for me in the UK. (12-1PM)

PMC Central still works.

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Jason Rihel @jasonrihel.bsky.social · Feb 28

American scientists need to get politically organized urgently to combat this! We are sleepwalking into a nightmare!

Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD @arghavansallesmd.medsky.social · Feb 28

Of the 4000 researchers at NIH, only 20% are tenured. They’re going to fire all the rest as their contracts come up for renewal, absolutely decimating research at the NIH. This is catastrophic, not just for Americans, but for the whole world.

www.science.org/content/arti...

NIH ban on renewing senior scientists adds to assaults on its in-house research

Policy follows firings of tenure-track scientists and suspension of training programs

www.science.org

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Jason Rihel @jasonrihel.bsky.social · Feb 27

It can be hard to adopt a cat without showing you have a cat flap! We have a perma-locked one.

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