Authors hit by bad reviews on Goodreads before review copies are even circulated
https://www.thebookseller.com/news/authors-hit-by-bad-reviews-on-goodreads-before-review-copies-are-even-circulated
Are these reviewers even real? Trolls and bots...
**Archaeologists Found a 500-Year-Old Compass—Turns Out It May Have Belonged to Copernicus**
People will share a thousand takes about AI and writing but when you write a long piece people tend not to share it. People will go on and on about bad science but when you laboriously research something with cites and lit reviewing you KNOW people won't read or share it. I'm not saying things are hopeless I'm just saying we are in an attention economy and if you are too good to try to use your energy to support things you say you care about how do you think it's going to work?
🖥️ 🧠 **Causal effects of physical activity and screen time on childhood intelligence via Mendelian randomization: The mediating role of intracranial volume**
“_Our two-sample MR analysis revealed a positive causal effect of moderate to vigorous physical activity (PA) on childhood IQ (β = 0.42, 95 % confidence interval (CI): [0.12, 0.72], p = 6.26 × 10−3), whereas leisure screen time (LST) exhibited a negative causal effect (β = −0.35, 95 % CI: [ −0.60, −0.10], p = 5.59 ×10−3). Reverse MR analysis found no evidence of causations._”
Feng, J., Wan, Y., & Zhang, L. (2025). Causal effects of physical activity and screen time on childhood intelligence via Mendelian randomization: The mediating role of intracranial volume. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 74, 101586. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2025.101586.
#OpenAccess #OA #Article #Neuroscience #Psychology #ScreenTime #Exercise #IQ #Academia #Academics @psychology
💻 **Platform payments fuel AI slop flood across social media**
"_Monetization programs from TikTok, Meta, YouTube and X drive creators to mass-produce low-quality AI content for financial gain._"
🔗 https://ppc.land/platform-payments-fuel-ai-slop-flood-across-social-media/.
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #AISlop #Technology #Tech #SocialMedia @ai
Imaginary numbers are real
These odd values were long dismissed as bookkeeping. Now physicists are proving that they describe the hidden shape of nature
Karmela Padavic-Callaghan
Mathematics - Philosophy at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/17657
🇺🇸 💵 **Value Of The US Dollar Over The Last Six Months**
The value of the US dollar as tracked by the 'US Dollar Index Futures' has fallen against a basket of currencies over the last six months. Source: https://www.google.com/finance/quote/NYICDX:INDEXNYSEGIS?window=6M
#USA #US #UnitedStates #USDollar #Dollar #Economy #Economics @economics
💻 **AI swallows misinformation and spits it back at us: ‘It’s optimized to give useful information, but not for it to be correct’**
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Technology #Tech #Disinformation #Misinformation @ai
So duckduckgo has a 'no AI' version, at the link https://noai.duckduckgo.com/
I do wish they went for an opt-in so you could choose the ai version at something like 'ai-dot-duckduckgo'. But it's better than nothing.
**Unveiling the origins and genetic makeup of the “forgotten people”: A study of the Sarmatian-period population in the Carpathian Basin**
“_Our findings reveal minor East Asian ancestry in the Carpathian Basin (CB) Sarmatians, distinguishing them from other regional populations. Using F4 statistics, qpAdm, and identity-by-descent (IBD) analysis, we show that CB Sarmatians descended from Steppe Sarmatians originating in the Ural and Kazakhstan regions, with Romanian Sarmatians serving as a possible genetic bridge between the two groups._”
Schütz, Oszkár et al., (2025). Unveiling the origins and genetic makeup of the “forgotten people”: A study of the Sarmatian-period population in the Carpathian Basin. Cell. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2025.05.009.
#OpenAccess #OA #Article #Science #Archaeogenetics #Genetics #Roman #Migration #Academia #Academics @science
📖 **Newton's Principia: The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy by Newton**
"_Read or download for free_"
🔗 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76404.
#ProjectGutenberg #Read #IsaacNewton #Newton #Science #Physics #Ebook #Book #Bookstodon @bookstodon @science
#Image attribution: John Vanderbank, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Page URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Sir_Isaac_Newton_(4670220).jpg.
AI might undermine one of the better alternatives to the Kindle
https://www.engadget.com/ai/ai-might-undermine-one-of-the-better-alternatives-to-the-kindle-123039955.html?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Technology (UK Edition) @technology-uk-edition-FlipboardUK
**Scandinavia has its own dark history of assimilating Indigenous people, and churches played a role – but are apologizing**
#Finland #Colonialism #Christianity #Scandinavia #Nordic #Sami #Lutherans #Religion
Google’s emissions up 51% as AI electricity demand derails efforts to go green https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/27/google-emissions-ai-electricity-demand-derail-efforts-green #Artificialintelligence(AI) #Environment #Technology #Worldnews #Alphabet #Google #Energy
**Darius the Persian: An Archaeological Biography**
🔗 https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2025/06/27/darius-the-persian-an-archaeological-biography/.
Citation manipulation through citation mills and pre-print servers
https://rdcu.be/etMbV
💻 🧠 🖋️ **A.I. Is Homogenizing Our Thoughts**
"_Recent studies suggest that tools such as ChatGPT make our brains less active and our writing less original._"
🔗 https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/ai-is-homogenizing-our-thoughts
#Culture #Thinking #Writing #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Technology #Tech @ai @writing
🌍 **Global economy to slow amid 'most severe trade war since 1930s', says Fitch**
_“Our latest GDP forecasts reflect extreme volatility in US trade policy in recent months, which has increased uncertainty and will further weigh on growth,”_
🔗 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/global-economy-trump-trade-war-us-china-143342764.html
💻 **Gartner: More than 40% of agentic AI projects will fail by 2027**
"_More than 40% of agentic AI projects will be cancelled by the end of 2027 as organizations struggle with rising costs, unclear business value and inadequate risk controls, according to a new forecast from Gartner._"
🔗 https://www.rcrwireless.com/20250627/business/agentic-ai-gartner
Not a bot, just a chap in his fifties who occasionally reads things.
Toots are humanities, science, non-fiction, books, maps, charts and graphs related. Some toots containing videos may also find their way into the timeline.
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