Mark Levesley Science Writer

Today, we mark the passing of Jane Goodall. A trailblazer in so many ways and someone for whom I have always had the greatest admiration, not just because of our shared fascination with chimps! A tower of strength and an inspiration to many, her tenacious and unwavering commitment to science education and the environment was formidable. RIP Dr Goodall.

Your rubbish = their trap 🌊🐟

Your rubbish does not belong on the beach when- it belongs in the bin. Protect our seas and oceans.

Scraping the rights barrel

Many of us involved in publishing have used WeTransfer for some time now. The files that we need to move from person to person are often huge pre-print PDFs, containing a lot of imagery … and often a lot of comments! And there are usually many of these files in a single project. So, WeTransfer has always been a useful conduit. You upload your files to WeTransfer, and it creates a link that it sends to others, allowing them to download the files.

I won’t be using this method any longer.

WeTransfer have changed its terms. Essentially, the terms now state that (from the 8th of August) any material that I pass through its servers can be accessed and inspected by its bots, and that WeTransfer can then use any of this material in any way it sees fit. It doesn’t matter if I am passing my own material through its servers or someone else’s intellectual property, the result is the same: WeTransfer will use it.

WeTransfer will then ‘scrape’ my work and that of other authors to train their AI models to write in our styles. The new terms even allow it to distribute our unchanged intellectual property for the company’s gain. This is all without the material’s authors being ‘entitled to compensation for any use of Content by us [WeTransfer] under these Terms’.

Obviously, WeTransfer has quietly slipped this into their conditions; it’s not something that they have had the decency to be open about. It’s not something that they make clear when you open a new transfer. Instead, when you open a new transfer, there’s just some greenwashing guff about why you should accept WeTransfer’s ‘cookies’ because it helps the environment, protecting delicate natural ecosystems from harm and allowing them to continue into the future. It’s a shame they don’t feel so strongly about protecting the publishing ecosystem, which it and others are slowly trying to destroy.

It is a privilege to have been on the judging panel for this year’s Young Science Writer Award run by the Association of British Science Writers. The winners will be announced on Thursday (15th May).
https://www.absw.org.uk/pages/YSWA
I have been very impressed with the entries. Some are based on personal experience, some are based on GCSE material and others have been sparked by simple curiosity. There is also very little ChatGPT-written material, which is easy to spot (although one wonders how long it will remain easy to spot). The best entries are those in which young writers have done referenced research, and synthesised relevant arguments and examples into a clear and logical essay.
I will add that the importance of careful proofreading is never to be overstated! My favourite blooper from this year, I assume from using speech-to-text, is: “… compounds, such as perchlorates which are hairdos to all known forms of life …”

Young Science Writer of the Year Awards | Association of British Science Writers Could you be the next ABSW Young Science Writer of the Year?

I am a writer. I depend on what I create to make my living, and that living comes from royalties. I put a lot of time and effort into creating unique, interesting books to help students around the world with their science studies. It's in my interest to work hard at this, since the more books I sell, the more I am remunerated.

Meta (and others) want to change this model. Meta want to use my intellectual property to train their AI engines for their Llama 3 project. They want to develop AI systems that will write like me and regurgitate my work, so that they can profit from it. Importantly, they don’t want to pay me.

The UK government is not helping matters. It is trying to pass a law that essentially says that 'AI companies can use anything in the public domain to train their models'. The problem is that a lot of my stuff is illegally in the public domain. Now, there is a part of this bill that says that I can ‘opt-out’. However, what the bill does not contain is any system to support authors that ‘opt-out’. What will happen is that I just say that I am opting out, but then it is my responsibility to prevent any of my publications from appearing illegally on the internet. And how am I supposed to do that?

My books are widely copied into illegally downloadable PDFs, which you can easily find on hundreds of dodgy hosting sites. This includes the LibGen database (screenshot attached), which Meta is making use of. Even well-regarded providers like the Times Educational Supplement host a massive amount of my work that others have simply copied and now present as their own work for their own personal gain. (Some of these are not terribly subtle, with whole worksheets simply plonked into a PDF with my name or my publishers' names (mainly Pearson and HarperCollins) still in plain sight.)

So, the UK government is essentially saying it will be legal for AI engines to use all the illegally copied material of mine on the internet so that Meta and others can profit from it. And they won’t have to pay me a bean.

If they want to license my work, then "Yes, let’s chat." But to simply use it is theft. Pure and simple.

There’s a petition here.
https://chng.it/Shch2FpQFx

Fascinating!

Scientists just revealed the mystery behind how glass frogs maintain transparency A new study reveals how glass frogs attain camouflage by storing their red blood cells in their livers.

Well that’s booster 4 and the flu jab done. Ready for Christmas now.

Thanks to for getting judicial review of plan for Oak Academy resources. Getting all schools to use exactly same resources takes choice away. Let teachers teach, & give schools the £43 million cost!

Oak National Academy — Judicial Review proceedings launched - The Society of Authors Trade organisations partner on Judicial Review proceedings in relation to the Government's new arm’s length body

https://twitter.com/IjeomaOparaPHD/status/1593350599785029633?s=20&t=VlNJjLCai-RBCGii-NOI9w

Good short videos here (4 min) from ESA - European Space Agency & plans for Space-Based Solar Power with their program. Videos can be downloaded. Makes good spark / enrichment / application / context for teaching uses of spectrum ( ) &

SOLARIS To prepare Europe for future decision making on Space-Based Solar Power, ESA has proposed a preparatory programme, called SOLARIS, for the upcoming ESA Council at Ministerial Level in November 2022.

Using artificial metal–organic–zymes, MOZs, to use photosynthesis 4 fuels. Research by A new equation to balance: 3CO2 + 2H2O --> CH4 + 2CO + 3O2 ! A way to go...but poss. tool in fight against while preserving https://interestingengineering.com/science/artificial-photosynthesis-system-effective?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=organic&utm_content=Nov14&fbclid=IwAR1mTasRyPct2672BgO-U0uw2oaA46jN1KLpOI4hMji3GkC97BsMkN8C3uM

A newly created artificial photosynthesis system is 10 times more effective than existing systems Chemists at the University of Chicago demonstrated a new system for artificial photosynthesis more productive than previous systems by an order of magnitude.

This is lovely.

If you cultivate a mushroom in a petri bowl on agar agar, its actual ′′ shape ′′ becomes visible. The essential part of a mushroom, the Mycel, is usually hidden from our eye. What we perceive as a ′′ mushroom ′′ is only its transient fruit body.

Credit: Aimee Cornwell
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