The World is on Lockdown. So Where Are All the Carbon Emissions Coming From?
The air is clear, the roads are clear, and dammit greenhouse gases are stubborn.
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OpenAI's Jukebox Opens the Pandora's Box of AI-Generated Music
OpenAI released Jukebox, a state-of-the-art AI model capable of generating music with vocals in the style of various artists and genres. I highlight some of my favorite samples and discuss the legality of it all.
Op-ed: Covering Science at Dangerous Speeds
Pandemics like COVID-19 call into question the benefit of news embargoes, but do reporters use the additional time to digest findings and consult experts unrelated to the study?
What Happens Next? COVID-19 Futures, Explained With Playable Simulations
An interactive guide
Oxford University Press Launches a New Open Access Journal Series
Oxford University Press (OUP) announces the first two titles in the new flagship open access journal series. The Oxford Open series launches with Oxford Open Immunology and Oxford Open Materials Science. This is an important step forward in OUP’s open access publishing programme.
Policy Briefs of the Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force
The Policy Briefs of the Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force are now available on its website. They reflect the Task Force thinking on a topic at that time and will be updated in the light of new studies or other data.
The Limitations to Our Understanding of Peer Review
Peer review is embedded in the core of our knowledge generation systems. Despite its critical importance, it curiously remains poorly understood in a number of dimensions. In order to address this, this paper assesses where the major gaps in the theoretical and empirical understanding of peer review lie.
DORA's First Funder Discussion: Updates from Swiss National Science Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and the Dutch Research Council
DORA's First Funder Discussion: Updates from Swiss National Science Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and the Dutch Research Council
DORA launched a new virtual discussion series for public and private research funders. The goal of the series is to increase communication about research assessment reform by providing a space for funders to share and discuss new initiatives, with the hope that this will ultimately serve as a platform to accelerate the spread of good research assessment policies and practices.
The Global Research Council's Compilation on National Responses: Confronting COVID-19
The Global Research Council (GRC) is calling on its participating organisations and the global research community to collaborate in the fight against the virus and encourages openness in sharing research findings and data which will help ensure diagnostics, vaccines and prevention measures are developed rapidly for the benefit of every nation.
India takes to homegrown tech to fight COVID-19
When India’s 1.3 billion people come out of a 40-day lockdown on 3 May, imposed to contain the spread of COVID-19, they can hope that a battery of technologies that the government is readying to deploy against the contagious virus could offer them some protection.
CERN Contributes Computers to Combatting COVID-19
CERN is contributing computing resources to a volunteer-computing initiative that aims to better understand the virus behind COVID-19.
Platform for Citizen Science Launched
This is an online platform for sharing knowledge, tools, training and resources for citizen science – by the community, for the community.
Covid-19 Shows Up UK Universities' Shameful Employment Practices
Instead of supporting the 54% of staff on insecure contracts, many managers are using the pandemic to sack them.
We Need Open Science - Crisis or No Crisis
For years, the Swiss National Science Foundation and other organisations have been demanding open science as the new normal. The corona crisis drastically confirms the validity of this demand.
How the Pandemic Made This Virologist an Unlikely Cult Figure
Christian Drosten, who has become Germany's most popular podcaster, warns against reopening the country too soon.
A Systematic Examination of Preprint Platforms for Use in the Medical and Biomedical Sciences Setting
A Systematic Examination of Preprint Platforms for Use in the Medical and Biomedical Sciences Setting
The objective of this review is to identify all preprint platforms with biomedical and medical scope and to compare and contrast the key characteristics and policies of these platforms.
'There is No Absolute Truth': an Infectious Disease Expert on Covid-19, Misinformation and 'Bullshit'
'There is No Absolute Truth': an Infectious Disease Expert on Covid-19, Misinformation and 'Bullshit'
A biology professor who spent his career studying two seemingly disparate topics, emerging infectious diseases and networked misinformation, sees them merged into one the moment reports of a mysterious respiratory illness emerged from China in January.
Science Has an Ugly, Complicated Dark Side. And the Coronavirus is Bringing It Out.
Science Has an Ugly, Complicated Dark Side. And the Coronavirus is Bringing It Out.
Experts say the pandemic is letting bad science slip through the cracks.
10 Top Tips To Become A Blockchain Researcher
Paving the way for the future through research.
Update CoVid: A website aiming to collect and link the most relevant studies and guidelines
Update CoVid: A website aiming to collect and link the most relevant studies and guidelines
Target audience are healthcare professionals from all specialities.
Why False Claims About COVID-19 Refuse to Die
In recent months, claims with some scientific legitimacy have spread so far, so fast, that even if it later becomes clear they are false or unfounded, they cannot be laid to rest.
After the COVID-19 Pandemic There Can Be No Return to Closed Working
Many outside observers might reasonably assume that science usually works like this. Yet open science is very far from the norm for most research. Why is openly accessible science so important?
The Still Unsustainable Goal of University Ranking
The new and improved Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings 2020 were published this week with as much online fanfare as THE could muster. Unfortunately,
Scholarly Publishers Are Working Together to Maximize Efficiency During COVID-19 Pandemic
Scholarly Publishers Are Working Together to Maximize Efficiency During COVID-19 Pandemic
Scholarly publishers are working together to maximize the efficiency of peer review, ensuring that key work related to COVID-19 is reviewed and published as quickly and openly as possible. The group of publishers and scholarly communications organizations - initially comprising eLife, Hindawi, PeerJ, PLOS, Royal Society, F1000 Research, FAIRsharing, Outbreak Science, and PREreview - is... Read full article >
Women Academics Seem to Be Submitting Fewer Papers During Coronavirus
Editors of academic journals have started noticing a trend: Women - who inevitably shoulder a greater share of family responsibilities - seem to be submitting fewer papers, while men are submitting up to 50 percent more than they usually would.
EU Covid-19 Recovery Plan Should Prioritise R&D
The European Commission is working on an investment plan to fuel the EU’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, which Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has said must increase the “firepower” of the bloc’s 2021-27 budget, and R&D commissioner Mariya Gabriel has said must prioritise investment in R&D.
Arbitrariness in the Peer Review Process
The study replicates the NIPS experiment of 2014, showing that the ratings of peer review are not robust, and that altering reviewers leads to a dramatic impact on the ranking of the papers. This paper also shows that innovative works are not highly ranked in the existing peer review process, and in consequence are often rejected.
Delineating COVID-19 and Coronavirus Research
Many initiatives are keeping track of research on COVID-19 and coronaviruses. These initiatives, while valuable because they allow for fast access to relevant research, pose the question of subject delineation. We analyse here one such initiative, the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19).
Listserv For Scientists
A public forum for researchers to discuss the science of science, current events, and science policy issues.
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