Rᴏᴍᴀɴ Aʟᴛʜᴇʀ

AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage | Cory Doctorow AI is asbestos in the walls of our tech society, stuffed there by monopolists run amok. A serious fight against it must strike at its roots

“The collapse of the AI bubble is going to be ugly…AI is the asbestos in the walls of our technological society, stuffed there with wild abandon by a finance sector & tech monopolists run amok.“

Read this article by @pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy. Whether you agree with it all or not, it’s important.

Lunzer See

🧬 New year, new job! 🧬
I have started a position as Group Leader at #WasserCluster #Lunz (Austria). Stay tuned for job openings at all levels in the TRIDENT group @trident-wcl.bsky.social and collaboration opportunities in upcoming national and international #eDNA Projects.

"Yes 🐠 — actually, the seahorse emoji exists: 🐡 🐬 🐠 🐳 🐟 🦑 🦞 🐙 🦀 🐢 … and specifically 🐴?" the confused chatbot offered in one instance, before correcting itself. "✅ The official seahorse emoji is: 🦄—oops, no wait, that’s unicorn 😅. The real one is 🐉?" it continued. "Let me be precise: Yes, there is a seahorse emoji: 🦐 is shrimp, 🦑 squid… But the actual seahorse emoji is 🐉?" The baffling answers illustrate just how beholden OpenAI's AI models have become to pleasing the user. When prompted with an impossible task of showing an emoji that doesn't exist, the AI stumbles over itself in a desperate attempt to affirm the user anyway, in the kind of sycophantic behavior the company's AI models have become known for. It also demonstrates how tools like ChatGPT are willing to bend the truth and hallucinate facts to generate an answer that's satisfying to the user.

ChatGPT Goes Completely Haywire If You Ask It to Show You a Seahorse Emoji
Wait, there's no seahorse emoji, right? Right?
futurism.com/chatgpt-hayw...

5/5 This identifies karstic ecosystems as targets for conservation programmes & indicates they could have been possible refugia of #Pleistocene persistence. Being epicentres of genetic diversity, their protection is eminent in context of contemporary climatic changes.

4/5 We found a significantly higher diversity in karstic aquifers and a correlation between the genetic diversity of a species and the proportion of its distribution in the karst.

3/5 Led by #MarjorieCouton, we use a unique and spatially highly resolved data set containing a representative collection of thousands of #Niphargus amphipod individuals across Switzerland and analysed the genetic structure of ~1300 individuals of five species within their contemporary distribution.

2/5 #Genetic #diversity 🧬 is key to the long-term maintenance and adaptability of species to changing environments, yet has been only insufficiently studied for groundwater organisms.

The importance of #karstic #aquifers for the past and future #survival of #groundwater #amphipod #biodiversity: out now @consbiog.bsky.social‬ onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 🧬 🦐 🏔️

🧵1/5

"If water is life, then groundwater is its lifeblood."

A forum paper on collaborative global eDNA study in groundwater ecosystems!

doi.org/10.3897/subt...

A red kite parent calling and swooping to scare away a potential nest predator (c) Patrick Scherler, Swiss Ornithological Institute

Have you ever wondered why parents react stronger to danger with small than with older children? Because they are more vulnerable! This seems to be less the case when children are well fed - at least in red kites 😉 Check out our new paper in #ornithology @vogelwarte.bsky.social tinyurl.com/322wpbp6

From the Swiss Blue Community Eawag, Aquatic Research Institute:
The next few years in Legionella research.
blue-community.net/2...

Researchers from #Eawag have conducted an extensive meta-analysis of field studies worldwide to better understand how land-cover changes in the watershed influence freshwater food webs.

👉 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

@florianaltermatt.bsky.social #foodwebs #landuse

Our new paper, led by Andrew Burton-Jones, argues English-only science is unfair, costly and may no longer be necessary. With AI translation tools advancing rapidly, we ask what truly multilingual science could look like and how we might get there.
doi.org/10.3127/ajis...
#languagebarriers
1/4

So, has this reached us yet? Yes, it did. I did a quick #rstats analysis of the literature in ecology. 📊
🔗 See my new blog post: www.pieceofk.fr/the-rise-of-...

Apply now: #PhD #position “Advancing environmental DNA (#eDNA) approaches to future-proof #environmental #monitoring of #aquatic #ecosystems” 🧬 🔎 🦐 🧪 🐟 (4 years position)

➡️ apply.refline.ch/673277/1268/...

Thanks for sharing to suitable candidates! @eawag.bsky.social

🌿 Join Our Team as Postdoctoral Researcher in Regional Climate Downscaling at the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL in Switzerland and lead the development of regional, highresolution climate scenarios for Armenia. @wslresearch.bsky.social @wsl-dme.bsky.social apply.refline.ch/273855/1747/...

Comic. SALESMAN [pointing at dehumidifier on sale]: This dehumidifier model features built-in WiFi for remote updates. PERSON 2: Great! That will be really useful if they discover a new kind of water.

Dehumidifier

xkcd.com/3109/

David R. Hagen just solved a small mystery that I mentioned 13 years ago in the mouseover text of a comic drhagen.com/blog/the-mis...

Can AI chatbots have prejudices against insects?

In our latest #ScienceBlog article our colleague @marinamoser.bsky.social explores how popular AI chatbots' portrayal of different insects might affect science education and nature conservation.

www.naturkundemuseum-bw.de/en/research/...

ChatGPT Lost a Chess Game to an Atari 2600 And on the 'Beginner' difficulty level, too.

Deep Blue is 30 years old and was capable of defeating chess grand champions. It could be housed in a single cabinet.

ChatGPT spans untold data centers devouring massive amounts of electricity and it got its ass whipped by an 8 bit gaming console from the 1970s.

Screenshot of the title and author list from the Correspondence article "Six actions for ecologists in times of planetary crisis" from the Nature Ecology & Evolution homepage

Six actions for ecologists in times of planetary crisis: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

✅Explicitly recognize and address the #biodiversity crisis
✅Explore positive futures
✅Defend academic freedom
✅Go political
✅Inspire society
✅Address the colonial legacy of ecology

Free to read: rdcu.be/eqjlk

A horizontal bar chart titled "Percentage of Global fossil fuel emissions (since 1751) occurring in my lifetime." The chart shows how much of the total historical global fossil fuel emissions have occurred within the lifetime of individuals of different ages, from 5 to 100 years old. The vertical axis on the left lists ages in increments of 5 years, from age 5 at the top to age 100 at the bottom. The horizontal axis represents the percentage of fossil fuel emissions, marked in 10% increments from 10% to 90%. The black bars represent the proportion of fossil fuel emissions that have occurred during each age group's lifetime. The bars increase in length as the age increases, meaning older individuals have lived through a larger percentage of the cumulative emissions since 1751. Three specific age groups are highlighted with red bars and white text annotations: Age 30: "if you are 30 it is more than 50%" Age 50: "if you are 50 it is about 75%" Age 85: "if you are 85 it is about 90%" The source of the data is cited at the bottom: "CDIAC and globalcarbonproject.org." The graphic is credited to "@neilrkaye."

If you think climate change has gotten worse during your lifetime, you're right and there's a good reason.

If you're Gen X like me, more than 3/4 of fossil fuel CO₂ emissions have occurred in your lifetime. Even if you're a Millennial, it's at least half.

📊: @neilrkaye.bsky.social

Our member Prof. Serina Robinson recently appeared on SRF's 10vor10!

She joined CellX Biosolutions founder&@ethz.ch researcher Estelle Clerc to discuss the critical topic of #PFAS and the solutions that are being developed to remove them from the environment.

Watch the video here: bit.ly/43NXx1L

Illustration von einem Redakteur, der eine lange Textfahne tippt, die ein hinter ihm stehender Monopoly-Mann lesend hochhält, während er dem Redakteur Geldstücke in die Hand fallen lässt. Der Monopoly Mann liest vor: Die massiven Klimafolgen des ungebremsten fossilen Raubbaus am Planeten verursachen zunehmend katastrophalere Schäden? Er sagt: Wer soll das lesen!? Das ist doch viel zu lang! Er sagt weiters: Schreiben Sie: Karastrophale Naturereignisse verursachen massive Schäden.

In den Nachrichten gerade wieder „Natur verursacht Schäden in Millionenhöhe“. So lange wir nicht konsequent Ross und Reiter benennen, werden wir deren alles vernichtenden Ritt weder ändern, noch verlangsamen, geschweige denn aufhalten. So lange werden wir weiter jedes Jahr einen CO2 Rekord schreiben

Sicher bestimmen im Feld – mit KI zur Zweitmeinung Schwierig zu bestimmende Pflanzen? Da hilft ein unabhängiger Blick. Das neue Tool FlorID der WSL bietet genau das: eine verlässliche Zweitmeinung – direkt im Feld. FlorID nutzt KI der neuesten Genera...

🍁🌷🌼Interessiert an Tipps zur KI-basierten Pflanzenbestimmung mit FlorApp/FlorID der neuen Bestimmungstool für die #Flora der #Schweiz?🥀🌳

👉Dann melde dich an am "Festival der Natur"!

shorturl.at/1fEEv
festivaldernatur.ch

#Natur #Biodiversität #FestivalderNatur #PflanzenBestimmen

Climeworks’ capture fails to cover its own emissions The carbon capture company Climeworks only captures a fraction of the CO2 it promises its machines can capture. The company is failing to carbon offset the emissions resulting from its operations – wh...

How's Europe's largest DAC plant doing? "Climeworks does not capture enough carbon units to offset its own operations... Since the company began capturing in Iceland, it has captured a maximum of one thousand tons of CO2 in one year."

heimildin.is/grein/24581/...

Utilizing aquatic environmental DNA to address global biodiversity targets - Nature Reviews Biodiversity Aquatic eDNA-based technologies offer the potential for universal and standardized biodiversity monitoring. In this Perspective, Altermatt et al. discuss how these technologies can help to achiev...

🌊🧬Revolutionizing Biodiversity Monitoring?🧪

Could aquatic #eDNA be a game-changer for tracking biodiversity loss? From detecting invasive species to restoring ecosystems...🌍

Study by Altermatt, F., Couton, M., Carraro, L. et al.: www.nature.com/articles/s44...

TANK vs TESLA

"We've crushed fascism before and we'll crush it again"

- ⁠WW2 veteran Ken, 98, in the tank

Effective May 5, 2025, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) will decommission its snow and ice data products from the Coasts, Oceans, and Geophysics Science Division (COGS). As a result, the level of services for affected products below will be reduced to Basic—meaning they will remain accessible but may not be actively maintained, updated, or fully supported. This includes Sea Ice Index, Snow Data Assimilation System (SNODAS) Data Products, Glacier Photograph Collection, U.S. National Ice Center Arctic Sea Ice Charts and Climatologies in Gridded Format Gridded Monthly Sea Ice Extent and Concentration, 1850 Onward World Glacier Inventory. If you rely on these products in your work, research, education, or planning, we invite you to share your story at nsidc@nsidc.org. Your input can help us demonstrate the importance of these data sets and advocate for future support.

This is horrible. I don't even know what to say. Some of our most key polar data.

"As a result, the level of services for affected products below will be reduced to Basic—meaning they will remain accessible but may not be actively maintained, updated, or fully supported."

nsidc.org/data/user-re...

What I wish I knew: 33 thoughts for early career researchers Thirty three reflections I wish someone had shared with me early in my research career.

What I wish I knew: 33 thoughts for early career researchers
Reflections I wish someone had shared with me early in my research career.

predirections.substack.com/p/what-i-wis...