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Reposted by Dr Manu Saunders

David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 11d

One of the constant strands in the history of the university, dating back to its medieval origins, is the attempt of authorities - especially religious authorities but not exclusively - to control what can and cannot be taught.

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Dr Manu Saunders @manusaunders.bsky.social · 11d

Another platform going with opt-out, for something that should be opt-in www.vice.com/en/article/l...

LinkedIn Is Gonna Use Your Profile to Train Its AI

If you have a LinkedIn profile, it's going to get sucked up to train LinkedIn's AI model if you don't opt out.

www.vice.com

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Reposted by Dr Manu Saunders

RES Publications @respublications.bsky.social · Sep 1

#RESMedVetEnt are delighted to welcome on board three new Editors-in-Chief: Maureen Laroche, Marion England and Philip Barton. 🎉

Learn more about our new team members here ⬇️
www.royensoc.co.uk/news/welcome...

@royentsoc.bsky.social

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Reposted by Dr Manu Saunders

RES Publications @respublications.bsky.social · 22d

The new issue of #RESInsectConsDiv is now available! 📢

It includes the "Restoration & rescue in an age of extinction: advances in #arthropod #translocation & #reintroduction" #SpecialIssue! 🎉

Learn more about this important area of #Conservation in this Q&A with the guest Editors⬇️
buff.ly/FUJMFoR

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Reposted by Dr Manu Saunders

Dr Noor Bari @njbbari3.bsky.social · 18d

Excellent.

www.science.org.au/news-and-eve...

Australia to lead first-ever United Nations indoor air quality global

The Australian Academy of Science and Burnet Institute are leading global efforts at the United Nations, to declare healthy indoor air a human right. More than 300 leaders will come together to

www.science.org.au

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Reposted by Dr Manu Saunders

RES Publications @respublications.bsky.social · 19d

New research in #RESInsectConsDiv

#Grazing-induced changes in the #abundance and diversity of #grasshoppers is mediated through changes in plant functional groups
doi.org/10.1111/icad.70020

#Biodiversity #Orthoptera
@manusaunders.bsky.social @wiley.com

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Reposted by Dr Manu Saunders

John Holmes @jhaue.bsky.social · 20d

Henley residents advised to keep windows, doors closed amid algal bloom crisis.
Strong winds are expected to whip up more foam and blow aerosols into residential areas. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

SA beach residents given 'additional advice' amid algal bloom crisis

Authorities have told a group of residents living near a metropolitan Adelaide beach to close their doors and windows to prevent symptoms related to South Australia's ongoing algal bloom.

www.abc.net.au

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Reposted by Dr Manu Saunders

Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · Apr 15

Why even have a brain, any ideas, any ability to express them, any kind of communication with other people, any desire to solve problems or invent anything, any reason to learn, any use for your eyes or your heart, or any reason to teach or create

From NYT article about the increasing use of AI in the classroom: “Writing is one of the most challenging tasks for students, which is why it is so tempting for some to ask A.I. to do it for them. In turn, A.I. can be useful for teachers who would like to assign more writing, but are limited in their time to grade it.”

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Reposted by Dr Manu Saunders

ARC Tracker @arc-tracker.bsky.social · Sep 8

Here's the link to their "stakeholder survey on the use of AI in grant assessment":

www.surveymonkey.com/r/X7PY5GL

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/X7PY5GL

t.co

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Reposted by Dr Manu Saunders

T. Ryan Gregory 🇨🇦 @tryangregory.bsky.social · 28d

I like the analogy of digital asbestos. Treated like a miracle product now, but it's going to be a huge pain to remove all the embedded AI slop in the future.

Blayne Haggart @bhaggart.bsky.social · 28d

And if/when the genAI bubble bursts and society reacts to the damage it’s causing, there’s a good chance that your AI dependence will leave you at a disadvantage against not just older workers who did the work on their own, but younger students as well.

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Dr Manu Saunders @manusaunders.bsky.social · 28d

THIS 👇

Blayne Haggart @bhaggart.bsky.social · 28d

For all the good-will efforts to reimagine learning in the ChatGPT era, the elephant in the room is that moving away from independent research assignments toward in-class, supervised learning effectively turns universities into glorified high schools.

Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 28d

I spoke to the Irish Times for this very good and rounded piece on the real-world effects of C***GPT in the humanities classroom: www.irishtimes.com/ireland/educ...

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Dr Manu Saunders @manusaunders.bsky.social · 28d

Is it ethical for academic institutions to actively try and discourage students from using genAI to do their assessments while also encouraging academic staff to use genAI to write assessments and content? #AcademicSky

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Dr Manu Saunders @manusaunders.bsky.social · Sep 7

THIS. The techwashing narrative that our future is inevitably AI-driven is ingrained, but so wrong.

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6

2. the strange but often repeated cultish mantra that we need to "embrace the future" — this is so bizarre given, e.g. how destructive industry forces have proven to be in science, from petroleum to tobacco to pharmaceutical companies.

(Section 3.2 here doi.org/10.5281/zeno...)
4/n

3.2 We do not have to ‘embrace the future’ & we can turn back the tide
It must be the sheer magnitude of [artificial neural networks’] incompetence that makes
them so popular.
Jerry A. Fodor (2000, p. 47)
Related to the rejection of expertise is the rejection of imagining a better future and the rejection
of self-determination free from industry forces (Hajer and Oomen 2025; Stengers 2018; van Rossum
2025). Not only AI enthusiasts, but even some scholars whose expertise concentrates on identifying
and critically interrogating ideologies and sociotechnical relationships — such as historians and gender scholars — unfortunately fall prey to the teleological belief that AI is an unstoppable force. They
embrace it because alternative responses seem too difficult, incompatible with industry developments,
or non-existent. Instead of falling for this, we should “refuse [AI] adoption in schools and colleges,
and reject the narrative of its inevitability.” (Reynoldson et al. 2025, n.p., also Benjamin 2016; Campolo and Crawford 2020; CDH Team and Ruddick 2025; Garcia et al. 2022; Kelly et al. 2025; Lysen
and Wyatt 2024; Sano-Franchini et al. 2024; Stengers 2018). Such rejection is possible and has historical precedent, to name just a few successful examples: Amsterdammers kicked out cars, rejecting
that cycling through the Dutch capital should be deadly. Organised workers died for the eight-hour
workday, the weekend and other workers’ rights, and governments banned chlorofluorocarbons from
fridges to mitigate ozone depletion in the atmosphere. And we know that even the tide itself famously
turns back. People can undo things; and we will (cf. Albanese 2025; Boztas 2025; Kohnstamm Instituut 2025; van Laarhoven and van Vugt 2025). Besides, there will be no future to embrace if we deskill
our students and selves, and allow the technology industry’s immense contributions to climate crisis

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Reposted by Dr Manu Saunders

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

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Dr Manu Saunders @manusaunders.bsky.social · Sep 7

Glorious spring day in the New England gorge country near Armidale. Local endemic Ingram's wattle having a glow up #wildoz #ozplants

Clear blue sky, underlined by a rugged cliff face covered in trees. Flowering wattles glow gold among the green and brown

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Dr Manu Saunders @manusaunders.bsky.social · Sep 6

One thing that's fundamental to increasing public trust in science is the fact that for-profit industries do not have any right or mandate to 'approve' scientific evidence before it's published www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Environment watchdog buried report on lead in children’s blood to placate mining companies, emails show

Documents tabled in NSW parliament show state agency took four years to publish report and told miners it would be put online ‘quietly’ but EPA says it was released to community earlier

www.theguardian.com

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Dr Manu Saunders @manusaunders.bsky.social · Sep 3

There are many more effective ways to teach, learn, and connect beyond the traditional lecture...especially when most of your lectures are delivered to an empty room! #AcademicSky theconversation.com/some-unis-ar...

Some unis are moving away from in-person lectures. Here’s why that’s not such a bad thing

Students in Adelaide have been protesting to keep face-to-face lectures. But many students today work or live far from campus – making old-school lectures tricky.

theconversation.com

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Dr Manu Saunders @manusaunders.bsky.social · Aug 21

"What’s happening in Antarctica right now will affect the world for generations to come, from rising sea levels to extreme changes in the climate system." theconversation.com/from-sea-ice...

From sea ice to ocean currents, Antarctica is now undergoing abrupt changes – and we’ll all feel them

The vast ice of Antarctica has long seemed impregnable. But sudden changes are arriving – from shrinking sea ice to melting ice sheets and slowing ocean currents.

theconversation.com

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Dr Manu Saunders @manusaunders.bsky.social · Aug 15

"Reducing cultures to clichés may well be a feature rather than a bug for generative AI systems" theconversation.com/australiana-...

‘Australiana’ images made by AI are racist and full of tired cliches, new study shows

What do Australians and Australia look like according to generative AI? The results are alarming.

theconversation.com

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Reposted by Dr Manu Saunders

Emma Barrett @crimepsychblog.bsky.social · Aug 15

But tell me again how I should delete old emails to save water.

BBC News - Data centres to be expanded across UK as concerns mount
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Data centres to be expanded across UK as concerns mount

The number of data centres is set to jump by a fifth in the coming years, figures seen by the BBC suggest.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Reposted by Dr Manu Saunders

Royal Entomological Society @royentsoc.bsky.social · Aug 13

Expansion and #urbanisation pose a significant threat to #biodiversity. A recent #OpenAccess #review published in #RESInsectConsDiv, Drukker et al. challenge current views of #GreenRoofs ⬇️

www.royensoc.co.uk/news/insect-...

#UrbanInsects #Ecosystems
@manusaunders.bsky.social @wiley.com

RES Publications @respublications.bsky.social · Aug 13

New #OpenAccess #review available in #RESInsectConsDiv

The development of insect #diversity and #ecosystem complexity on #GreenRoofs

Read the full review ⬇️
doi.org/10.1111/icad.70007

#Biodiversity #UrbanInsects #Ecosystems
@manusaunders.bsky.social @wiley.com

Video credit: E.Drukker & C.Bomen

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Dr Manu Saunders @manusaunders.bsky.social · Aug 12

Stop buying and supporting plastic. But also, "no international agreements exist on how to package and transport nurdles safely, or even to classify them as hazardous." www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Buoyant, the size of a lentil and almost impossible to recover: how nurdles are polluting the oceans

Millions of the tiny plastic pellets are being washed up on the coast of Kerala in India in the latest in a series of global spills, as plastic treaty talks continue in Geneva

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Dr Manu Saunders

Casey Dreier @caseydreier.bsky.social · Aug 7

This is a shocking executive order that undermines the very idea of open inquiry. It turns federal grants into dispensations, subject to arbitrary and capricious withdrawal should the recipient say or believe the wrong things.

www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to improve the process of Federal

www.whitehouse.gov

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Dr Manu Saunders @manusaunders.bsky.social · Aug 9

agree, many teachers doing an amazing job within the policy/system constraints they deal with

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Dr Manu Saunders @manusaunders.bsky.social · Aug 9

We've failed so much at general science education that denialists and conspiracy hawkers can easily masquerade as 'fact checkers' or 'independent journos' and mislead huge numbers of people that science is just about opinions, not a rigorous method of inquiry theconversation.com/friday-essay...

Friday essay: Trump and Kennedy are destroying global science. Even Einstein questioned facts – but there’s a method to it

Modern science emerged precisely to deal with the way everything can be manipulated – and scepticism over ‘facts’ goes all the way back to Socrates.

theconversation.com

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