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Business Upturn
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Upturn
Takeda and Nature Announce Call for Applications Now Open for 2026 Innovators in Science Award
Osaka, Japan & Cambridge, Mass., United States: Takeda ( TSE:4502/NYSE:TAK ) today announced that applications are now open for its Innovators in Science Award. This prestigious global award, originally launched in 2016, celebrates groundbreaking research with a focus on emerging scientific leaders who are advancing the frontiers of scientific discovery and fostering innovation that has the potential to transform lives. In 2026, the Takeda Innovators in Science Award with Nature will recognize promising early-career scientists in the areas of gastrointestinal and inflammatory diseases, neuroscience, and oncology. Takeda will award three category winners – one from each area of focus – with a $75,000 prize. One grand prize winner, to be announced live at the Innovators in Science Award gala on April 9, 2026, will also receive an additional $175,000 award, for a total grand prize of $250,000. To address challenges that are unique to emerging scientists, category winners and shortlisted applicants will be invited to participate in a 12-month career development program administered by Nature. The program will offer training to develop skills such as grant writing, research communication and lab management. Winners will also have access to mentorship opportunities. As one of the largest prizes of its kind, the Innovators in Science Award reinforces Takeda's commitment to promoting scientific excellence and fostering a culture of partnership between industry and academia. 'Since 2016, our Innovators in Science Award has uplifted researchers who are not afraid of asking big questions, thinking outside the box and doggedly pursuing discoveries to advance science,' said Andrew Plump, M.D., Ph.D., president of R&D at Takeda. 'We are proud to shine a spotlight on rising scientists who are driving bold, transformative breakthroughs in their fields. Through funding, mentorship, and collaboration opportunities, we aim to support their continued professional growth.' Springer Nature will independently administer the award on behalf of Takeda, with responsibility for reviewing applications and selecting judges and winners. 'For 150 years, Nature has earned the trust of the global research community by publishing groundbreaking advances across all areas of science and technology. We recognize the vital contributions of early-career researchers and are committed to supporting their growth and success,' added Nature's publisher Richard Hughes. 'We are proud to partner with Takeda on the Innovators in Science Award—an initiative designed to celebrate and elevate the work of exceptional early-career scientists. We invite researchers around the world to apply, and we remain dedicated to providing a rigorous evaluation process and amplifying the voices and achievements of the award winners across our platforms.' The Call for Applications is now open at and will remain open through September 16, 2025. Shortlisted applicants will be announced in January 2026 and category winners will be announced in February 2026, ahead of the live grand prize announcement at the gala on April 9, 2026, in Boston. About the Innovators in Science Award Launched in 2016, the Takeda Innovators in Science Award provides scientific leaders with the support and recognition needed to drive bold, transformative breakthroughs in their fields. Since its inception, the award has celebrated the outstanding contributions of 10 established and early career researchers with $2M of unrestricted funding. This global award recognizes researchers who are advancing the frontiers of scientific discovery, fostering innovation that has the potential to transform lives. In 2026, the Innovators in Science Award honors groundbreaking research by early career scientists in gastrointestinal and inflammatory diseases, neuroscience and oncology. Past winners include: Elham Azizi, Ph.D., for her innovative models that helped identify determinants of immunotherapy response in leukemia for the first time; Elaine Y. Hsiao, Ph.D., for her discoveries of how the gut microbiome influences the brain and behavior; and Viviana Gradinaru, Ph.D., for enabling targeted gene delivery across the blood-brain barrier for research and clinical purposes. For more information, visit About Takeda Takeda is focused on creating better health for people and a brighter future for the world. We aim to discover and deliver life-transforming treatments in our core therapeutic and business areas, including gastrointestinal and inflammation, rare diseases, plasma-derived therapies, oncology, neuroscience and vaccines. Together with our partners, we aim to improve the patient experience and advance a new frontier of treatment options through our dynamic and diverse pipeline. As a leading values-based, R&D-driven biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Japan, we are guided by our commitment to patients, our people and the planet. Our employees in approximately 80 countries and regions are driven by our purpose and are grounded in the values that have defined us for more than two centuries. For more information, visit . Important Notice For the purposes of this notice, 'press release' means this document, any oral presentation, any question and answer session and any written or oral material discussed or distributed by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited ('Takeda') regarding this release. This press release (including any oral briefing and any question-and-answer in connection with it) is not intended to, and does not constitute, represent or form part of any offer, invitation or solicitation of any offer to purchase, otherwise acquire, subscribe for, exchange, sell or otherwise dispose of, any securities or the solicitation of any vote or approval in any jurisdiction. No shares or other securities are being offered to the public by means of this press release. No offering of securities shall be made in the United States except pursuant to registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or an exemption therefrom. This press release is being given (together with any further information which may be provided to the recipient) on the condition that it is for use by the recipient for information purposes only (and not for the evaluation of any investment, acquisition, disposal or any other transaction). Any failure to comply with these restrictions may constitute a violation of applicable securities laws. The companies in which Takeda directly and indirectly owns investments are separate entities. In this press release, 'Takeda' is sometimes used for convenience where references are made to Takeda and its subsidiaries in general. Likewise, the words 'we', 'us' and 'our' are also used to refer to subsidiaries in general or to those who work for them. These expressions are also used where no useful purpose is served by identifying the particular company or companies. Forward-Looking Statements This press release and any materials distributed in connection with this press release may contain forward-looking statements, beliefs or opinions regarding Takeda's future business, future position and results of operations, including estimates, forecasts, targets and plans for Takeda. 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These forward-looking statements are based on assumptions about many important factors, including the following, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements: the economic circumstances surrounding Takeda's global business, including general economic conditions in Japan and the United States; competitive pressures and developments; changes to applicable laws and regulations, including global health care reforms; challenges inherent in new product development, including uncertainty of clinical success and decisions of regulatory authorities and the timing thereof; uncertainty of commercial success for new and existing products; manufacturing difficulties or delays; fluctuations in interest and currency exchange rates; claims or concerns regarding the safety or efficacy of marketed products or product candidates; the impact of health crises, like the novel coronavirus pandemic, on Takeda and its customers and suppliers, including foreign governments in countries in which Takeda operates, or on other facets of its business; the timing and impact of post-merger integration efforts with acquired companies; the ability to divest assets that are not core to Takeda's operations and the timing of any such divestment(s); and other factors identified in Takeda's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F and Takeda's other reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, available on Takeda's website at: or at . Takeda does not undertake to update any of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release or any other forward-looking statements it may make, except as required by law or stock exchange rule. Past performance is not an indicator of future results and the results or statements of Takeda in this press release may not be indicative of, and are not an estimate, forecast, guarantee or projection of Takeda's future results. View source version on Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with Business Wire. Business Upturn takes no editorial responsibility for the same.
Hindustan Times
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
America is on the precipice of an academic brain drain
Matthias Doepke was impressed when he moved to America as a graduate student in the 1990s. Academic pay was better than in his native Germany and university departments were slick and organised. But what he appreciated most was the attitude. 'You come to the US and you have this feeling that you are totally welcome and you're totally part of the local community,' he says. In 2012 he became a professor of economics at Northwestern University in Illinois, and in 2014 became a naturalised citizen. But in April Dr Doepke resigned from Northwestern; he is now a professor at the London School of Economics. He is clear about why he and his family left: the election of Donald Trump as president. 'Once the election happened,' he says, 'it was clear we weren't going to stay.' Mr Trump's government is taking a chainsaw to American science, pulling grants, revoking researcher visas, and planning enormous cuts to the country's biggest funders of research (see chart 1). Academics talk of a 'war on science'. Few have followed Dr Doepke's example and moved overseas just yet. But plenty of data suggest they soon might. An exodus from the world's scientific superpower beckons. Springer Nature publishes Nature, the world's most prestigious scientific journal. It also runs a much-used jobs board for academics. In the first three months of the year applications by researchers based in America for jobs in other countries were up by 32% compared with the same period in 2024. In March Nature itself conducted a poll of more than 1,200 researchers at American institutions, of whom 75% said they were thinking of leaving (though disgruntled academics were probably more likely to respond to the poll than satisfied ones). And just as American researchers eye the exit, foreigners are becoming more reluctant to move in. Springer Nature's data suggests applications by non-American candidates for American research jobs have fallen by around 25% compared with the same period last year. Attitudes are souring at the bottom of the academic totem pole as well. Searches for American PhDs on FindAPhD, a website that does exactly what its name suggests, were down by 40% year on year in April. Interest from students in Europe has fallen by half. Data from another website, Studyportals, show less interest in domestic PhDs among Americans, and a rise in interest in international studentships compared with 2024 (see chart 2). Greener pastures Why is America losing its allure? The most straightforward reason is money, or the looming lack of it. Mr Trump's administration has cancelled thousands of research grants since January, when he took office. Grant Watch, a website, calculates that at least $2.5bn-worth have been rescinded so far, leaving researchers without salaries and unable to pay expenses. Much more could be coming. The White House's budget for 2026 aims to slash science spending. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world's biggest funder of biomedical research, faces a nearly 40% cut. The National Science Foundation (NSF), another big federal funder, may lose 52%. Such cuts must be approved by Congress. But if the budget is enacted, The Economist calculates that more than 80,000 researchers could lose their jobs. American funding for academic science would fall significantly behind that of either China or the European Union, after adjusting for costs. Funding is not the only issue. Many scientists, especially those who are citizens of other countries, are beginning to feel intimidated. In the first four months of 2025 at least 1,800 international students or recent grads had their visas revoked without explanation, only to have them restored again in April. Senior scientists report difficulty obtaining visas for incoming researchers, and have advised junior colleagues from overseas not to travel home, lest they be detained on their return. Others allege that the government is meddling with their research. Kevin Hall, a researcher at the NIH, quit in April after two such incidents. First, he says the NIH asked him to edit a section of a paper that mentioned 'health equity'. ('Equity' is an unpopular word among Mr Trump's supporters.) Later Dr Hall published a study showing that ultra-processed foods did not activate the same addiction pathways in the brain as drugs do—contradicting the views of administration officials. Dr Hall alleges the NIH edited his responses to a journalist, without his approval, to downplay his findings. (The NIH told The Economist that it does not respond to false allegations by former employees.) Some other countries spy in all this an opportunity to beef up their own scientific capabilities. Several Canadian universities, including the Toronto's University Health Network and Laval University in Quebec, have announced funding worth tens of millions of dollars explicitly aimed at diverting researchers from America. On May 5th Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, gave a speech in Paris urging scientists to 'choose Europe', highlighting a wodge of new money and the bloc's social safety-net. The University of Helsinki has been targeting Americans with adverts on social media, promising them 'freedom to think'. China is likely to be another beneficiary. According to the South China Morning Post, the country is redoubling its efforts to lure Chinese-born scientists from America by offering big salaries. Between 2019 and 2022 the share of non-native artificial-intelligence (AI) researchers who left America for China after their PhD doubled, from 4% to 8%. Springer Nature's data suggest that in the first quarter of this year applications for jobs in China from scientists based in America were up by 20% compared with the same period last year. That matters, for much of America's scientific pre-eminence has been built by researchers who were not born there. Since 1901, researchers based in America have won 55% of academic Nobel prizes, and more than a third of these scientists were foreign-born. Immigrant inventors produce an outsize share of patents, too. The Paulson Institute, a think-tank, reckons that in 2022 almost two-thirds of top-tier AI researchers working in America hailed from overseas. Losing even some of those would be a blow to American innovation. Other countries might gain, but the disruption would harm science as a whole. At around $40bn, Mr Trump's planned funding cuts are too big for other countries to make up by themselves. (The extra funding promised by Mrs von der Leyen, for instance, is worth only €500m, or $566m, over three years.) Many researchers will probably leave science altogether. Everyone would lose—even if America lost most. Get 360° coverage—from daily headlines to 100 year archives.
Mint
06-05-2025
- Health
- Mint
To boost your mood, treat your brain to good food. Here's why
We've long known that food can offer us comfort—a bowl of soup on a sick day, chocolate after a heartbreak, an ice cream shared in silence can do wonders. But have you ever wondered if that 'sense of comfort' the food offered was deeper than nostalgia or craving? What if the food we eat is quietly recalibrating the brain itself... shaping our moods, sharpening or dulling our emotional edges, and tipping the scales between calm and chaos? Modern science is affirming what many have intuitively sensed: our guts and our minds are in constant, biochemical conversation. And as the emerging field of nutritional psychiatry reveals what's on our plate doesn't just affect our waistlines, it shapes our sense of joy, resilience, and clarity. According to a 2022 study published by Springer Nature, Associations of Neurotransmitters and the Gut Microbiome with Emotional Distress in Mixed Type of Irritable Bowel Syndrome , serotonin—one of the brain's key mood regulators—is predominantly produced in the gut. 'More than 90 percent of the body's serotonin is synthesized in the gastrointestinal tract," the report notes, reinforcing the intimate, biological bond between our emotional state and our digestive health. The conversation between gut and brain extends even further. A 2025 article in npj Mental Health Research, headlined Probiotics reduce negative mood over time: the value of daily self-reports in detecting effects , reveals that individuals with certain psychological traits—particularly those who are more risk-averse— experience a notable reduction in negative mood when taking probiotics. 'In the future," the authors note, 'probiotics may potentially be targeted to individuals to reduce the risk of clinical onset of mental health conditions." Emerging research now points to dietary fiber and fermented foods as among the most powerful modulators of gut-brain health. 'Prebiotic fibers found in bananas, onions, and asparagus serve as fuel for beneficial gut bacteria," Nikhil Kapur, founder and director of Atmantan Wellness Centre, explains. 'Meanwhile, fermented foods like kimchi and kefir introduce probiotics—microorganisms that can influence neurotransmitter production and even reduce anxiety." What Kapur is saying isn't esoteric wellness jargon; it's backed by science. About 90% of serotonin—the so-called 'feel good" neurotransmitter—is produced in the gut. But this serotonin production relies heavily on dietary inputs like tryptophan, an amino acid, Kapur notes. 'A diet lacking these building blocks will invariably affect mood." The gut microbiome, a teeming ecosystem of trillions of microorganisms, also produces gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), our body's natural tranquilizer. When this microbial balance is disrupted—a condition called dysbiosis—it can trigger inflammation, impair neurotransmitter production, and derail emotional stability. Despite mounting evidence, many people continue to view diet and mental health as unrelated. 'One common misconception is that mental health is purely psychological or neurological, with no bearing on nutrition," Kapur notes adding, 'But this ignores the gut's role in everything from neurotransmitter production to inflammation regulation." Dr Astik Joshi, a New Delhi-based child and adolescent psychiatrist, concurs: 'While the evidence base linking specific diets to mood disorders isn't yet universally established, there is strong clinical consensus that diets lacking essential micronutrients—like B-vitamins, iron, or zinc—can increase one's likelihood of developing mental health issues." Another misconception is the dismissal of emotional eating as a mere lack of willpower. 'The microbiome influences our cravings," says Kapur. 'When gut health is compromised, it can set off a vicious cycle of craving more unhealthy foods, which further destabilize mood." While the connection between food and mood is rather evident, it's necessary to note that nutritional psychiatry isn't meant to replace traditional treatments. Rather, it complements them, offering dietary interventions that support emotional well-being. Dr Purnima Nagaraja, a consulting psychotherapist at Dhrithi Wellness Clinic in Hyderabad, has long integrated nutrition into her practice. Our first line of intervention is often dietary, she says. 'We make adjustments to restore balance, especially in strict vegetarian diets. Since plant-based sources of B12 are limited, we turn to fortified foods or consider supplements when necessary." Protein intake is another focal point. Since vegetarian diets can be overly carbohydrate-heavy, Nagaraja encourages the inclusion of more protein through milk, curd, and paneer. 'These foods not only provide protein but also act as natural probiotics. We've seen fermented foods alleviate symptoms of anxiety and, in some cases, support children on the autism spectrum," she explains. And then there's water—often the most overlooked yet essential nutrient. Even mild dehydration (just a 1–2% fluid loss) can manifest as fatigue, irritability, anxiety, or depressive symptoms. Hydration, experts say, is crucial to biochemical and hormonal balance in the brain. 'I emphasize the importance of nutrition with every patient, even if I have just a minute during a busy outpatient day," says Dr. Charan Teja Koganti, neuro-psychiatrist at KIMS Hospital. And water, he says, is always part of that conversation. 'I often tell my patients, 'How did you reach the hospital—by car? And can a car run without fuel?' The brain is the same. It cannot function optimally without its fuel: water, glucose, and oxygen." Often, when we're under stress, we mistake thirst for hunger. Dr. Koganti explains, 'This confusion arises because the neural signals for both thirst and appetite originate from the same region of the brain—the hypothalamus. As a result, we may end up eating when our body is simply asking for water." The biological pathways connecting poor diets to mental health issues are complex but increasingly well understood. Chronic inflammation—often fueled by ultra-processed foods—disrupts neuronal signaling and hinders the brain's ability to form new synaptic connections. 'Ultra-processed foods, high in sugar and additives, can cause wild fluctuations in blood glucose levels," says Kapur. 'These crashes impair decision-making, concentration, and trigger mood swings." The stress axis of the body—the HPA (Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal) axis—is also sensitive to nutritional status. Dysbiosis and poor diets can throw this axis off balance, resulting in erratic cortisol levels associated with anxiety and depression. Two important factors implicated in nutritional psychiatry are oxidative stress and inflammation, explains Koganti. 'Any diet that is pro-inflammatory can worsen mental health conditions, especially in a vulnerable population. These include processed foods, fried foods, sugars, sugary beverages, red meat, and refined carbohydrates. On the other hand, a diet richwith anti-inflammatory foods helps with your mood, cognition, and behaviour. These include turmeric, ginger, garlic, brightly-coloured fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats," he adds. Looking ahead, experts worry that the ubiquity of processed foods and irregular eating habits could reshape not only our physical health, but our emotional resilience. Joshi sees an urgent need for psychiatry to evolve. 'Traditional psychiatry focuses on pharmacological solutions but we cannot ignore the critical role of diet in both prevention and recovery." As the science of nutritional psychiatry gains traction, it offers a powerful lens for rethinking wellness. Parallelly, it also demands a more holistic view of mental healthcare—one that bridges therapy, medication, and yes, the dinner. Tanisha Saxena is a Delhi-based independent journalist. She writes stories that are on the intersection of art, culture and lifestyle.
Associated Press
01-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
New Book on the future of the workplace
In his newly published book, The (R)Evolution of the Office Workspace, Claus Sneppen examines the future of the workplace. COPENHAGEN, DENMARK, May 1, 2025 / / -- For many leaders, the post-pandemic ideal remains a 'return to a new normal' - a revival of the office as we knew it, just adding flexibility. But this vision will prove unrealistic. The office is no longer a static entity, and today's office workplace is caught between two opposing forces: long-term investments in systems, structures, and spaces designed for stability, and the relentless pace of digital transformation reshaping how knowledge work is actually done. In his newly published book, The (R)Evolution of the Office Workspace (Springer Nature, Future of Business and Finance Series), Claus Sneppen, Associated Partner at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, examines this deep and accelerating disruption. He argues that while office infrastructures—whether physical layouts, IT systems, or governance structures—are inherently long-term and near-static, the digital worklife they're supposed to support is fast-moving, dynamic, and constantly evolving. This creates a growing mismatch between how offices are built and how work actually happens. The pandemic didn't cause this tension - it exposed and accelerated it. Hybrid and remote work models are no longer temporary fixes but enduring components of the modern office workplace. As a result, organisations must now manage a complex balancing act: digital vs. physical, autonomy vs. collaboration, employee expectations vs. leadership control. Despite early predictions of a return to pre-pandemic norms, remote work remains deeply embedded. Middel-managers are under pressure to bridge the gap between top-down expectations and the lived realities of their teams. Economic uncertainty adds further pressure, challenging organisations to decide whether to double down on traditional office models or embrace flexibility as a strategic asset. 'The future of the office is not about what leaders wish for - it's about objective evaluation and adaptation,' says Sneppen. 'Success in the hybrid era demands more than incremental change. It requires a rethinking of how we design office workspaces, lead teams, and structure organisations.' Organisations that will thrive are those that embrace change - not reactively, but strategically. This means developing hybrid models grounded in agility, data, and foresight. It means letting go of outdated assumptions and acknowledging that today's workforce values flexibility, autonomy, and meaning over presence and predictability. Ultimately, a sustainable hybrid and flexible office model must be seen as a continuous process - not a one-time solution. The real question isn't whether the office will change. It's how quickly leaders can evolve with it. For media inquiries, interviews, or review copies, please contact: Claus Sneppen 📞 +45 26211221 📧 [email protected] Claus Sneppen Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies +45 26 21 12 21 email us here Legal Disclaimer: EIN Presswire provides this news content 'as is' without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
The Hindu
22-04-2025
- Science
- The Hindu
Weird phrase plaguing scientific papers traced to glitch in AI data
Earlier this year, scientists discovered a peculiar term appearing in published papers: 'vegetative electron microscopy'. This phrase, which sounds technical but is actually nonsense, has become a 'digital fossil' – an error preserved and reinforced in artificial intelligence (AI) systems that is nearly impossible to remove from our knowledge repositories. Like biological fossils trapped in rock, these digital artefacts may become permanent fixtures in our information ecosystem. The case of 'vegetative electron microscopy' offers a troubling glimpse into how AI systems can perpetuate and amplify errors throughout our collective knowledge. Bad scan, error in translation 'Vegetative electron microscopy' appears to have originated through a remarkable coincidence of unrelated errors. First, two papers from the 1950s, published in the journal Bacteriological Reviews, were scanned and digitised. However, the digitising process erroneously combined 'vegetative' from one column of text with 'electron' from another. As a result, the phantom term was created. Decades later, 'vegetative electron microscopy' turned up in some Iranian scientific papers. In 2017 and 2019, two papers used the term in English captions and abstracts. This appears to be due to a translation error. In Farsi, the words for 'vegetative' and 'scanning' differ by only a single dot. An error on the rise The upshot? As of today, 'vegetative electron microscopy' appears in 22 papers, according to Google Scholar. One was the subject of a contested retraction from a Springer Nature journal, and Elsevier issued a correction for another. The term also appears in news articles discussing subsequent integrity investigations. 'Vegetative electron microscopy' began to appear more frequently in the 2020s. To find out why, we had to peer inside modern AI models – and do some archaeological digging through the vast layers of data they were trained on. The large language models behind modern AI chatbots such as ChatGPT are 'trained' on huge amounts of text to predict the likely next word in a sequence. The exact contents of a model's training data are often a closely guarded secret. To test whether a model 'knew' about 'vegetative electron microscopy', we input snippets of the original papers to find out if the model would complete them with the nonsense term or more sensible alternatives. The results were revealing. OpenAI's GPT-3 consistently completed phrases with 'vegetative electron microscopy'. Earlier models such as GPT-2 and BERT did not. This pattern helped us isolate when and where the contamination occurred. We also found the error persists in later models including GPT-4o and Anthropic's Claude 3.5. This suggests the nonsense term may now be permanently embedded in AI knowledge bases. By comparing what we know about the training datasets of different models, we identified the CommonCrawl dataset of scraped internet pages as the most likely vector where AI models first learned this term. The scale problem Finding errors of this sort is not easy. Fixing them may be almost impossible. One reason is scale. The CommonCrawl dataset, for example, is millions of gigabytes in size. For most researchers outside large tech companies, the computing resources required to work at this scale are inaccessible. Another reason is a lack of transparency in commercial AI models. OpenAI and many other developers refuse to provide precise details about the training data for their models. Research efforts to reverse engineer some of these datasets have also been stymied by copyright takedowns. When errors are found, there is no easy fix. Simple keyword filtering could deal with specific terms such as 'vegetative electron microscopy'. However, it would also eliminate legitimate references (such as this article). More fundamentally, the case raises an unsettling question. How many other nonsensical terms exist in AI systems, waiting to be discovered? Implications for science and publishing This 'digital fossil' also raises important questions about knowledge integrity as AI-assisted research and writing become more common. Publishers have responded inconsistently when notified of papers including 'vegetative electron microscopy'. Some have retracted affected papers, while others defended them. Elsevier notably attempted to justify the term's validity before eventually issuing a correction. We do not yet know if other such quirks plague large language models, but it is highly likely. Either way, the use of AI systems has already created problems for the peer-review process. For instance, observers have noted the rise of 'tortured phrases' used to evade automated integrity software, such as 'counterfeit consciousness' instead of 'artificial intelligence'. Additionally, phrases such as 'I am an AI language model' have been found in other retracted papers. Some automatic screening tools such as Problematic Paper Screener now flag 'vegetative electron microscopy' as a warning sign of possible AI-generated content. However, such approaches can only address known errors, not undiscovered ones. Living with digital fossils The rise of AI creates opportunities for errors to become permanently embedded in our knowledge systems, through processes no single actor controls. This presents challenges for tech companies, researchers, and publishers alike. Tech companies must be more transparent about training data and methods. Researchers must find new ways to evaluate information in the face of AI-generated convincing nonsense. Scientific publishers must improve their peer review processes to spot both human and AI-generated errors. Digital fossils reveal not just the technical challenge of monitoring massive datasets, but the fundamental challenge of maintaining reliable knowledge in systems where errors can become self-perpetuating. Aaron J. Snoswell is research fellow in AI accountability; Kevin Witzenberger is research fellow, GenAI Lab; and Rayane El Masri is a PhD candidate, GenAI Lab – all at Queensland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation.
