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PLOS staff are unionizing. How its leadership responds is a test of its vision for inclusive publishing.
The post Guest Post — The PLOS Union appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
We ask the 2023 SSP Fellows: “What was the highlight of attending SSP 2023 for you?”
The post Ask the Fellows: SSP 2023 Annual Meeting appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
A silicon wafer, a thin material essential for manufacturing semiconductors, at a chip-packaging facility in Santa Clara, Calif.
T-Mobile and Major League Baseball (MLB) are renewing their partnership. In addition to sponsoring various pro-baseball events, the carrier announced today that its subscribers would continue receiving free MLB.TV subscriptions through 2028.
MLB and T-Mobile have offered the deal for the past eight years as part of its T-Mobile Tuesdays promotion, which gives subscribers access to weekly discounts and freebies. MLB.TV lets you stream home and away broadcast feeds around the league — live or on-demand. (However, it’s subject to dreaded regional blackouts, so you shouldn’t count on it to watch teams nearby.) In addition, for the first time this season, the service lets you stream minor-league games for your favorite major-league team’s affiliates in the MLB app.
Speaking of the minor leagues, the two corporations are partnering on an automated ball-strike (ABS) system, which lets Minor League Baseball (MiLB) players and officials “review, challenge and analyze calls.” This season, T-Mobile will power the system with a “5G Private Mobile Network” during some minor-league games. You may recall that MLB has been experimenting with robot umps in the independent Atlantic League since 2019. Last year, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said the league aims to introduce the system to the big leagues by 2024. From a labor perspective, it’s hard not to see this as a first step toward automating umpires’ jobs, but at least fans can direct their vitriol over (perceived) bad calls to a machine instead of a human.
T-Mobile says its baseball partnership will also include a little-league sponsorship, part of which consists of the carrier donating millions of dollars toward equipment and grants for aspiring young sluggers. It’s also continuing to sponsor the All-Star Week Home Run Derby and batting practice broadcast. Finally, T-Mobile plans to expand its 5G coverage in baseball stadiums across North America, envisioning eventual “immersive 5G-connected experiences for fans” and better in-stadium speeds and reception for its subscribers.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/t-mobile-extends-free-mlbtv-deal-for-subscribers-through-2028-182807920.html?src=rssMLB.TV / T-Mobile
A person's hands holding a smartphone (with a glowing magenta outline) displaying a Major League Baseball game stream on its screen. In the background, a sunny beach.
What does the decline of the English major mean for society at large, and university presses in particular?
The post Fallout from the Implosion of Humanities Enrollments appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Robert Harington talks to Annie Callanan, Chief Executive of Taylor & Francis, in this new series of perspectives from some of Publishing’s leaders across the non-profit and profit sectors of our industry.
The post Chefs de Cuisine: Perspectives from Publishing’s Top Table — Annie Callanan appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Robert Harington talks to Ziyad Marar, President of Global Publishing at SAGE, and author of "Happiness Paradox" and "Intimacy", and most recently “Judged: The Value of Being Misunderstood"
The post Chefs de Cuisine: Perspectives from Publishing’s Top Table — Ziyad Marar appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
In this episode of SSP’s Early Career Development Podcast, hosts Meredith Adinolfi (Cell Press) and Sara Grimme (Digital Science) speak to Ben Denne, Director of Publishing for Academic Books (Cambridge University Press), about the books side of scholarly publishing.
The post SSP’s Early Career Development Podcast Episode 13: Industry Primer — Books Within the Scholarly Publishing Landscape appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Robert Harington and Alison Mudditt, CEO of PLOS, in conversation in this series of perspectives from some of Publishing’s leaders across the non-profit and profit sectors of our industry.
The post Chefs de Cuisine: Perspectives from Publishing’s Top Table – – Alison Mudditt appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Robert Harington talks to Antonia Seymour, CEO of IOP Publishing, in this new series of perspectives from some of Publishing’s leaders across the non-profit and profit sectors of our industry.
The post Chefs de Cuisine: Perspectives from Publishing’s Top Table — Antonia Seymour appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Science is the reason you aren't reading this by firelight nestled cozily under a rock somewhere however, its practice significantly predates its formalization by Galileo in the 16th century. Among its earliest adherents — even before pioneering efforts of Aristotle — was Animaxander, the Greek philosopher credited with first arguing that the Earth exists within a void, not atop a giant turtle shell. His other revolutionary notions include, "hey, maybe animals evolved from other, earlier animals?" and "the gods aren't angry, that's just thunder."
While Animaxander isn't often mentioned alongside the later greats of Greek philosophy, his influence on the scientific method cannot be denied, argues NYT bestselling author, Carlo Rovelli, in his latest book, Animaxander and the Birth of Science, out now from Riverhead Books. In in, Rovelli celebrates Animaxander, not necessarily for his scientific acumen but for his radical scientific thinking — specifically his talent for shrugging off conventional notion to glimpse at the physical underpinnings of the natural world. In the excerpt below, Rovelli, whom astute readers will remember from last year's There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important than Kindness, illustrates how even the works of intellectual titans like Einstein and Heisenberg can and inevitably are found lacking in their explanation of natural phenomena — in just the same way that those works themselves decimated the collective understanding of cosmological law under 19th century Newtonian physics.
Excerpted from Animaxander and the Birth of Science. Copyright © 2023 by Carlo Rovelli. Excerpted by permission of Riverhead, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Did science begin with Anaximander? The question is poorly put. It depends on what we mean by “science,” a generic term. Depending on whether we give it a broad or a narrow meaning, we can say that science began with Newton, Galileo, Archimedes, Hipparchus, Hippocrates, Pythagoras, or Anaximander — or with an astronomer in Babylonia whose name we don’t know, or with the first primate who managed to teach her offspring what she herself had learned, or with Eve, as in the quotation that opens this chapter. Historically or symbolically, each of these moments marks humanity’s acquisition of a new, crucial tool for the growth of knowledge.
If by “science” we mean research based on systematic experimental activities, then it began more or less with Galileo. If we mean a collection of quantitative observations and theoretical/mathematical models that can order these observations and give accurate predictions, then the astronomy of Hipparchus and Ptolemy is science. Emphasizing one particular starting point, as I have done with Anaximander, means focusing on a specific aspect of the way we acquire knowledge. It means highlighting specific characteristics of science and thus, implicitly, reflecting on what science is, what the search for knowledge is, and how it works.
What is scientific thinking? What are its limits? What is the reason for its strength? What does it really teach us? What are its characteristics, and how does it compare with other forms of knowledge?
These questions shaped my reflections on Anaximander in preceding chapters. In discussing how Anaximander paved the way for scientific knowledge, I highlighted a certain number of aspects of science itself. Now I shall make these observations more explicit.
A lively debate on the nature of scientific knowledge has taken place during the last century. The work of philosophers of science such as Carnap and Bachelard, Popper and Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos, Quine, van Fraassen, and many others has transformed our understanding of what constitutes scientific activity. To some extent, this reflection was a reaction to a shock: the unexpected collapse of Newtonian physics at the beginning of the twentieth century.
In the nineteenth century, a common joke was that Isaac New‐ ton had been not only one of the most intelligent men in human history, but also the luckiest, because there is only one collection of fundamental natural laws, and Newton had had the good fortune to be the one to discover them. Today we can’t help but smile at this notion, because it reveals a serious epistemological error on the part of nineteenth-century thinkers: the idea that good scientific theories are definitive and remain valid until the end of time.
The twentieth century swept away this facile illusion. Highly accurate experiments showed that Newton’s theory is mistaken in a very precise sense. The planet Mercury, for example, does not move following Newtonian laws. Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, and their colleagues discovered a new collection of fundamental laws — general relativity and quantum mechanics — that replace Newton’s laws and work well in the domains where Newton’s theory breaks down, such as accounting for Mercury’s orbit, or the behavior of electrons in atoms.
Once burned, twice shy: few people today believe that we now possess definitive scientific laws. It is generally expected that one day Einstein’s and Heisenberg’s laws will show their limits as well, and will be replaced by better ones. In fact, the limits of Einstein’s and Heisenberg’s theories are already emerging. There are subtle incompatibilities between Einstein’s theory and Heisenberg’s, which make it unreasonable to suppose that we have identified the final, definitive laws of the universe. As a result, research goes on. My own work in theoretical physics is precisely the search for laws that might combine these two theories.
Now, the essential point here is that Einstein’s and Heisenberg’s theories are not minor corrections to Newton’s. The differences go far beyond an adjusted equation, a tidying up, the addition or replacement of a formula. Rather, these new theories constitute a radical rethinking of the world. Newton saw the world as a vast empty space where “particles” move about like pebbles. Einstein understands that such supposedly empty space is in fact a kind of storm-tossed sea. It can fold in on itself, curve, and even (in the case of black holes) shatter. No one had seriously contemplated this possibility before. For his part, Heisenberg understands that Newton’s “particles” are not particles at all but bizarre hybrids of particles and waves that run over Faraday lines’ webs. In short, over the course of the twentieth century, the world was found to be profoundly different from the way Newton imagined it.
On the one hand, these discoveries confirmed the cognitive strength of science. Like Newton’s and Maxwell’s theories in their day, these discoveries led quickly to an astonishing development of new technologies that once again radically changed human society. The insights of Faraday and Maxwell brought about radio and communications technology. Einstein’s and Heisenberg’s led to computers, information technology, atomic energy, and countless other technological advances that have changed our lives.
But on the other hand, the realization that Newton’s picture of the world was false is disconcerting. After Newton, we thought we had understood once and for all the basic structure and functioning of the physical world. We were wrong. The theories of Einstein and Heisenberg themselves will one day likely be proved false. Does this mean that the understanding of the world offered by science cannot be trusted, not even for our best science? What, then, do we really know about the world? What does science teach us about the world?
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hitting-the-books-anaximander-carlo-rovelli-riverhead-books-143052774.html?src=rssNewton's cradle, illustration
Illustration of a Newton's cradle.
The Levelling Up White Paper makes explicit reference to the Net Zero agenda, stating that the transition “could have large and long-lasting effects on virtually every aspect of the economy, including jobs and skills, infrastructure and technology, and investment and innovation”.
While there are fears that this transition could impose a considerable cost both on society more broadly and also on those individuals and communities that are least able to bear those costs, there is also a very clear opportunity for a so-called “Green Industrial Revolution” to advance the levelling up agenda in profound ways.
Making the transition
The impact can be profound in a number of ways. Firstly, the transition from fossil fuels to clean fuels can produce good-quality jobs in previously deprived areas. Research from the University of Michigan shows that there is a good crossover between the skills required to perform jobs in fossil fuel-based industries and to do jobs in renewable energy sectors.
For instance, they highlight how transferable jobs are in fossil fuel industries to those in renewable sectors. The research evaluated the career options for the approximately 80,000 coal-fired generator workers in the US in case of closure. The results showed that their skills are applicable in renewable energy industries, such as solar. They do find, however, that government interventions are necessary to direct solar investments toward former coal communities.
This was also evident during our research, where participants from deprived communities in France were given the chance to develop skills in vital renewable energies, such as solar power. Not only did these programs provide participants with valuable skills but the resultant solar energy also helped to provide clean, sustainable, and affordable energy to the local community.
Green jobs
The potential for the net zero economy to support deprived communities was reinforced by a recent report from the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit. The report, which was based on data from the CBI, highlights that many of the 20,000 businesses currently operating in the net zero economy are spread throughout the United Kingdom. What’s more, the jobs provided by these businesses are high quality, with an average wage of £42,600. This compares to £33,400 for the average UK employee.
“The economic activity of these businesses brings substantial impacts across the UK,” the report explains. “Areas such as the North East, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the South West have a higher concentration of businesses within the net zero economy, compared to traditional concentrations of activity in London and the South East.”
What’s more, the economic impact of the net zero economy was found to be stronger in each of the regions of the United Kingdom than it was in London. The net zero economy has proven to be highly productive, even in areas with historically low productivity. In the Midlands (East and West), for instance, it’s more than 2.5 times more productive compared to the regional average.
Constituency-level economic modeling reveals the potential for net zero hotspots throughout the UK, with the researchers identifying 20 areas where the net zero economy made a significant contribution to the local economy as measured by GVA. These include a number of areas covered by our own research.
“From insulation fitters to heat pump engineers and agritech pioneers, businesses in the net zero economy are adding £70 billion to the UK economy,” Peter Chalkley, Director of ECIU, explains. “Billions of pounds of private sector investments are being made in net zero with the hot spots of activity being outside of London in places like Tyneside, Merseyside and Derbyshire.”
Part of the solution
A paper for the Economy 2030 Inquiry reminds us that net zero isn’t going to solve the regional inequalities that are at the heart of the levelling up agenda on its own. The report is nonetheless positive about the impact that targeted investment could have to communities that are so often deprived of the support they so desperately need.
“Smart net-zero investment should be embedded in a wider economic strategy – especially as it could have the additional benefit of bolstering the government’s Levelling Up agenda,” the report states.
The broad range of businesses in the net zero economy indicates that as the UK moves towards net zero and more businesses become part of this sector, it will further diversify economic activity.
Currently, regions like the North East, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the South West have the highest concentration of net zero businesses relative to total businesses in the area. Hence, the expansion of the net zero economy holds great promise for regions throughout the UK to drive growth and narrow regional disparities.
We’ve seen firsthand in France how investing in green jobs can provide not only employment but also energy security to deprived communities. If they can form part of the 20 “hotspots” identified by the ECIU then that would help to build some welcome momentum behind the levelling up campaign.
This article was co-written with Professor Zografia Bika
Image credit: Bill Mead via Unsplash
Researchers understand the structure of brains and have mapped them out in some detail, but they still don't know exactly how they process data — for that, a detailed "circuit map" of the brain is needed.
Now, scientists have created just such a map for the most advanced creature yet: a fruit fly larva. Called a connectome, it diagrams the insect's 3016 neurons and 548,000 synapses, Neuroscience News has reported. The map will help researchers study better understand how the brains of both insects and animals control behavior, learning, body functions and more. The work may even inspired improved AI networks.
"Up until this point, we’ve not seen the structure of any brain except of the roundworm C. elegans, the tadpole of a low chordate, and the larva of a marine annelid, all of which have several hundred neurons," said professor Marta Zlatic from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. "This means neuroscience has been mostly operating without circuit maps. Without knowing the structure of a brain, we’re guessing on the way computations are implemented. But now, we can start gaining a mechanistic understanding of how the brain works."
To build the map, the team scanned thousands of slices from the larva's brain with an electron microscope, then integrated those into a detailed map, annotating all the neural connections. From there, they used computational tools to identify likely information flow pathways and types of "circuit motifs" in the insect's brain. They even noticed that some structural features closely resembled state-of-the-art deep learning architecture.
Scientists have made detailed maps of the brain of a fruit fly, which is far more complex than a fruit fly larva. However, these maps don't include all the detailed connections required to have a true circuit map of their brains.
As a next step, the team will investigate the structures used for behavioural functions like learning and decision making, and examine connectome activity while the insect does specific activities. And while a fruit fly larva is a simple insect, the researchers expect to see similar patterns in other animals. "In the same way that genes are conserved across the animal kingdom, I think that the basic circuit motifs that implement these fundamental behaviours will also be conserved," said Zlatic.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/scientists-create-the-most-complex-map-yet-of-an-insect-brains-wiring-085600210.html?src=rssNeuron system
System of neurons with glowing connections on black background
If you love technology as much as we do and have writing chops to boot, we want to hear from you. Engadget is looking for freelance news writers in the US! Interested applicants should send a cover letter, resume and links to three writing samples to jobs at engadget dot com. Here’s the deal:
Engadget is looking for ambitious and enthusiastic freelance writers capable of telling compelling stories about technology, science and the future of everything. The ideal candidate will put important news in proper context with minimal fluff, find an interesting and original angle from which to tackle a story, explain complicated subjects simply and clearly, and do this all reasonably quickly.
As a writer at Engadget you'll be an essential part of our dedicated and passionate news team. Our ideal candidates will have some solid professional media experience under their belt, but we're also open to early-career writers who are ready to hustle. You'll gain valuable experience and exposure in a fast-paced, online newsroom. Plus, you'll have access to some of the finest writers and reporters in the business who can offer invaluable lessons on how to thrive in the modern media landscape.
Freelance contributing writers will take on between three and five assignments per day (we're looking for coverage on East Coast hours, with shifts such as 8AM-1PM ET and 1PM-5PM ET available). We are currently looking for writers located in the US, or anyone willing to work during US business hours. Shifts will be a minimum of four hours, paid hourly at $28.
We're looking for:
Preferably someone who already has some professional tech/science/auto bylines under their belt.
A familiarity with and sincere interest in consumer technology.
A writer with a strong, lively voice who can turn in clean copy quickly.
Works well with others, and is receptive to feedback.
Experience with Photoshop or other photo editing software is a plus.
Engadget CES 2019
Engadget CES 2019
Robert Harington talks to Charles Watkinson, Associate University Librarian for Publishing at the University of Michigan and Director of the University of Michigan Press, in this new series of perspectives from some of Publishing’s leaders across the non-profit and profit sectors of our industry.
The post Chefs de Cuisine: Perspectives from Publishing’s Top Table – Charles Watkinson appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Robert Harington talks to Jasmin Lange, Chief Publishing Officer at Brill, in this new series of perspectives from some of Publishing’s leaders across the non-profit and profit sectors of our industry.
The post Chefs de Cuisine: Perspectives from Publishing’s Top Table — Jasmin Lange appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
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