NEW RESOURCES

National Center for Atmospheric Research: Scientists Gain Powerful Tool To Scrutinize Changing U.S. Weather Patterns. “An extraordinary new dataset of high-resolution weather simulations that span more than four decades over the continental United States is now available to the Earth system science community.”

National Library of Australia: Collecting with Fijian Australians at the National Library. “The National Library has worked closely with Fijian Australians to make sure their contribution to Australian life is appropriately represented in the collection across all the formats that the Library collects. As a result, the National Library now holds one of the most substantial records of Fijian Australian life in the country.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Mastodon actually has 407K+ more monthly users than it thought. “The service, which competes with X (formerly Twitter) and other newcomers like Threads, Bluesky, Pebble and Spill, had been undercounting its users due to a network connectivity error, according to founder and CEO Eugen Rochko, and actually has 407,814 more monthly active users than it had been reporting previously. The adjustment also included a gain of 2.34 million registered users across an additional 727 servers that had not been counted due to the error.”

Retraction Watch: Signs of undeclared ChatGPT use in papers mounting. “Ostensibly authored by researchers in China, ‘Revitalizing our earth: unleashing the power of green energy in soil remediation for a sustainable future’ includes the extraneous phrase ‘Regenerate response’ at the end of a methods section. For those unfamiliar, ‘Regenerate response’ is a button in OpenAI’s ChatGPT that prompts the chatbot to rework an unsatisfactory answer.”

USEFUL STUFF

Musings About Librarianship: List of academic search engines that use Large Language models for generative answers. “This is a non-comprehensive list of academic search engines that use generative AI (almost always Large language models) to generate direct answers on top of list of relevant results, typically using Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) Techniques. We expect a lot more!”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NBC News: Verified accounts spread fake news release about a Biden $8 billion aid package to Israel. “A doctored White House news release posted online falsely claimed that the Biden administration had authorized $8 billion in emergency aid to Israel on Saturday. The fact that it was faked didn’t stop it from being posted across the internet and rising to the top of Google search results.”

Indian Express: National Film Archive of India seeks donations for digitisation, restoration of films. “National Film Archive of India, which is now a part of the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), has sought funds in the form of sponsorships and donations for carrying out film digitisation and restoration projects.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Visa Applicants’ Social Media Data Doesn’t Help Screen for Terrorism, Documents Show. “A disputed rule that forces millions of applicants for a visa to enter the United States to disclose their social media profiles to the government has done little to help screen for possible terrorists, newly disclosed documents show.”

Hürriyet Daily News: SPK fines man for stock market manipulation via social media advice. “The Capital Markets Board (SPK) has issued a substantial fine of around 3.9 million Turkish Liras ($141,200) on an individual with a significant following on social media for alleged stock market manipulation through advice provided to his followers. The fine comes as a result of Halil İbrahim Babadağı’s recommendations to buy or hold certain stocks on his social media account.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

National Academies: Innovation Aided Completion of 2020 Census, But Coverage and Data Quality Issues Persist. “The U.S. Census Bureau’s ability to adjust its approaches and innovate enabled it to complete the 2020 census despite the difficulties raised by the COVID pandemic and other challenges, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report reviews the 2020 census and the quality of data collected and makes recommendations for the 2030 census.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat.