Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Maria Korochkina @mariakna.bsky.social · Jun 24

www.gov.uk/government/n...

UK launches global talent drive to attract world-leading researchers and innovators

New taskforce and £54 million fund will attract world-class researchers and their teams to the UK and comes ahead of the launch of government’s modern Industrial Strategy.

www.gov.uk

Reposted by Maria Korochkina

Ross Tucker @thescienceofsport.bsky.social · Jun 23

🎙️New podcast: The Replication Crisis Hits Sports Science.

72% of sports science studies could NOT be replicated.

Effect sizes dropped 75%.

Nearly 90% of researchers wouldn’t even share data. We explore bad incentives, a crisis of trust & how to fix it

🎧 podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/m...

Most Sports Science Research is False: The Replication Crisis Hits Sport

Podcast Episode · The Real Science of Sport Podcast · 23/06/2025 · 1h 20m

podcasts.apple.com

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Reposted by Maria Korochkina

Dan Willingham @dtwuva.bsky.social · May 28

If we leave the acquisition of morphological knowledge to children's reading, what information is there in books to be acquired? @kathyrastle.bsky.social has answers (open). www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Reposted by Maria Korochkina

Kathy Rastle @kathyrastle.bsky.social · May 20

** New resource ** We analysed the characteristics of words in 1200 books suitable for children and young people. Properties of each word (frequencies, etc) are now available in an interactive website.
cyp-lex.rastlelab.com

CYP-LEX

Discover what words children and young people encounter when they read

cyp-lex.rastlelab.com

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Reposted by Maria Korochkina

Kathy Rastle @kathyrastle.bsky.social · May 20

What can children learn about morphology when they read for pleasure? We analysed the words in 1200 books suitable for children and young people to find out! Read the blog post here: www.rastlelab.com/post/what-ca...

What can children learn about morphology from reading for fun?

A key part of becoming a skilled reader is understanding how words are built — that is, how small parts of words that carry meaning come together to form words. For example, the word unhappy is made u...

www.rastlelab.com

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Maria Korochkina @mariakna.bsky.social · May 16

Just came across a super cool study on lexical elaboration measured using data from bilingual dictionaries: doi.org/10.1073/pnas.... There is even an interactive app that lets you explore how various concepts are elaborated across languages (relative to English): charleskemp.com/code/lexical...

A computational analysis of lexical elaboration across languages | PNAS

Claims about lexical elaboration (e.g. Mongolian has many horse-related terms) are widespread in the scholarly and popular literature. Here, we sho...

doi.org

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Reposted by Maria Korochkina

Rafael Behr @rafaelbehr.bsky.social · May 14

Column, on the prime minister who had room to manoeuvre and chose to besiege himself instead. Again. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Keir Starmer is caught in yet another trap of his own making | Rafael Behr

The prime minister’s immigration approach follows a now-familiar pattern: letting fear of a difficult argument get in the way of policy that might work, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Maria Korochkina

Marie Martel @mariefmartel.bsky.social · May 7

My study @surreypsychology.bsky.social @modilab-surrey.bsky.social is now live. Looking for typically developing children and children with #DCD / #Dyspraxia.
If you are a #School in Surrey, we can come to your classroom, please get in touch!
Please share widely 🙏

MoDI Lab @modilab-surrey.bsky.social · May 7

🚨Do you have a child between 9 and 11 years old? Are you interested in helping #Science and understanding why some children #move differently? Join our online study that has two parts, one for the parent, one for the child, 20-30 min each.🚨
For more info: surreyfahs.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

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Maria Korochkina @mariakna.bsky.social · May 6

*New paper* out in npj Science of Learning!
@kathyrastle.bsky.social and I take a deep dive into the fascinating intricacies of morphology and introduce a new account of how readers learn about the internal structure of words.
Read it here: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Morphology in children’s books, and what it means for learning - npj Science of Learning

npj Science of Learning - Morphology in children’s books, and what it means for learning

doi.org

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Maria Korochkina @mariakna.bsky.social · Apr 4

Accessible blog post summarising the key findings is available at www.rastlelab.com/post/where-d....

Where Do Children Look when Watching Videos with Same-Language Subtitles?

Can same-language subtitles help children learn to read? Maybe, but only if children look at them.

www.rastlelab.com

Maria Korochkina @mariakna.bsky.social · Apr 4

Very important work led by the brilliant Anastasiya Lopukhina shows that widely publicised claims about subtitles helping children learn to read need to be tempered - just published in PsychScience: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Where Do Children Look When Watching Videos With Same-Language Subtitles? - Anastasiya Lopukhina, Walter J. B. van Heuven, Rebecca Crowley, Kathleen Rastle, 2025

Influential campaigns in the United Kingdom and the United States have argued that same-language television subtitles may help children learn to read. In this s...

journals.sagepub.com

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Reposted by Maria Korochkina

Dennis Hansen @dennish.bsky.social · Mar 26

Abandoning everything you stood for, just to not make fascist billionaires and anti-science crusaders uncomfortable - well done, @royalsociety.org - it takes talent to be SO utterly pathetic and cowardly.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Royal Society decides not to take disciplinary action against Elon Musk

Exclusive: Fellows argue Musk has violated code of conduct but council believes investigation ‘could do more harm than good’

www.theguardian.com

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Maria Korochkina @mariakna.bsky.social · Mar 12

Our article (with @kathyrastle.bsky.social) on vocabulary in the English Lit GCSE is now out in The Use of English @englishassociation.bsky.social. We're very proud of this work and hopeful it contributes to GCSE reform for the benefit of pupils nationwide. Also available at doi.org/10.31219/osf....

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Reposted by Maria Korochkina

Masud Husain @masudhusain.bsky.social · Mar 6

Why academia is sleepwalking into self-destruction. My editorial @brain1878.bsky.social If you agree with the sentiments please repost. It's important for all our sakes to stop the madness
academic.oup.com/brain/articl...

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Reposted by Maria Korochkina

Nina Markl 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 @ninamarkl.bsky.social · Mar 3

i've written a blog post about why I think we should reject generative AI in the university: languagemechanics.neocities.org/no-gen-ai

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Reposted by Maria Korochkina

Tom Richmond @tom-richmond.com · Feb 19

It takes a special kind of ignorance to think that conducting research on how to teach kids to read, or how to support young people with disabilities, should be viewed as 'waste' that needs to be cut.

Utterly shameful.

apnews.com/article/ies-...

DOGE cuts $900 million from agency that tracks American students' academic progress

A federal research office that tracks the progress of America’s students is being hit with almost $900 million in cuts after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency found no need for much of i...

apnews.com

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Reposted by Maria Korochkina

Bodo Winter @bodowinter.bsky.social · Feb 18

This Friday 4pm is my professorial inaugural "From Birds to Words: Onomatopoeia, Metaphor, and the Language of Birdsong" (w/ BSL interpretation).

There'll be a lot of iconicity in it! If you're interested, you can register for the webinar under this link:

www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/edac...

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Reposted by Maria Korochkina

Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · Feb 17

New blog post!

Sometimes, when reviewing a manuscript, it's really unclear to me what precisely the authors are trying to do -- which makes it hard to evaluate the work properly.

So, here's some advice for how to ensure that readers don't get lost.
www.the100.ci/2025/02/17/r...

Reviewer notes: Avoid any ambiguity about analysis aims

For any central statistical analysis that you report in your manuscript, it should be absolutely clear for readers why the analysis is being conducted in the first place – that is, the analysis goal s...

www.the100.ci

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Reposted by Maria Korochkina

Stephen Curry @scurry.bsky.social · Feb 12

Now almost 450 signatories to my open letter calling on the @royalsociety.org to stand up for its values & deal with the widespread concerns raised by Elon Musk's Fellowship. Please consider signing & sharing: forms.gle/miDciq35oxyw...

List of signatories here: occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2025/...

Open letter to the President of the Royal Society – time to stand up for your values

If you wish to show your support for the letter below regarding apparent inaction by the Royal Society in the face of breaches of its code of conduct by Elon Musk FRS, please sign below. I invite anyo...

forms.gle

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Reposted by Maria Korochkina

Dorothy Bishop @deevybee.bsky.social · Feb 12

Latest blogpost on Musk/Royal Society debacle: deevybee.blogspot.com/2025/02/seve... I look at the reasons that have been given for inaction, and find them wanting. @royalsociety.org

Seven reasons for keeping Elon Musk as a Fellow of the Royal Society

Last November, I wrote a blogpost explaining why I had resigned as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). In brief, over the summer a group ...

deevybee.blogspot.com

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Reposted by Maria Korochkina

Steve Fleming @smfleming.bsky.social · Feb 5

Very good summary of all the insane stuff unfolding in the US- solidarity to all my colleagues over there

Grace Lindsay @neurograce.bsky.social · Feb 5

good post
www.science.org/content/blog...

What's Happening Inside the NIH and NSF

www.science.org

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Maria Korochkina @mariakna.bsky.social · Jan 29

maybe saying that theoretical perspectives suggest XYZ, but that these theories haven't been extensively tested empirically so there's no clarity as to what should be done in practice?..

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Maria Korochkina @mariakna.bsky.social · Jan 29

yeah, so perhaps just make this more explicit? I think the original sentence doesn't bring this point across

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Maria Korochkina @mariakna.bsky.social · Jan 29

In fact, I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "an established way" here... Aren't lexical representations created and strengthened through experience with language? Nation's lexical legacy hypothesis would be relevant for this discussion I think?

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Maria Korochkina @mariakna.bsky.social · Jan 29

why not phrase this in a simpler way, e.g., "lexical quality refers to the extent to which a word's representation specifies its sound, spelling, and meaning"? I think you should also cite Perfetti btw ;) I also agree with the comment above regarding "an established way" to create lexical reps.

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