Will Barr

“It’s the only class I took at Harvard where people would call each other out for not having done the reading.” Harvard students are lining up to take Hum 10: “Applications (essays required) shot up 40% this fall with 180 incoming freshmen vying for 90 spots.” “The class is definitely not for padding the GPA. Students read a hefty book a week and write regular essays. There is no pass/fail option. Digital devices are verboten, and attendance is taken in every lecture (pink slips for those who arrive late).” “In their applications and in interviews, students expressed the urge to be forced to tackle classics they otherwise wouldn’t read, the need to combat frayed attention spans and the desire for an antidote to The Machine. Several mentioned with disdain that people who aren’t in the class wondered why they didn’t ‘just Chat the books,’ i.e., use AI.”

Around the world, the total toxicity and ecological harm from agricultural pesticides are rising, despite recent United Nations commitments to halve pesticide use and risks by 2030, according to a new study in Science. The findings establish a global, toxicity-weighted baseline for pesticide use and identify a subset of pesticides, crops, and countries driving the most biodiversity impacts. scim.ag/3ZXmwxL

The U.S. is losing its competitive advantage in scientific research. This new working paper uses 44 million publications and shows a massive global shift: -Since 1980, the U.S. share of scientific output has fallen from ~40% to 15%. -In that time period, China has risen from near 0 to ~32% overall. -This is also true in top-journal papers. -This isn’t just more scientists; it's higher per-researcher productivity. The U.S. still leads in biomedical science. China now dominates engineering & physical sciences. Bottom line: Global science is democratizing. U.S. scientific dominance is no longer guaranteed.

The U.S. is losing its competitive advantage in scientific research. This new working paper uses 44 million publications and shows a massive global shift: -Since 1980, the U.S. share of scientific output has fallen from ~40% to 15%. -In that time period, China has risen from near 0 to ~32% overall. -This is also true in top-journal papers. -This isn’t just more scientists; it's higher per-researcher productivity. The U.S. still leads in biomedical science. China now dominates engineering & physical sciences. Bottom line: Global science is democratizing. U.S. scientific dominance is no longer guaranteed.

Two business school professors from the University of Technology in Sydney have sounded the alarm on the declining quality of academic literature in a new publication titled “The junkification of research”. Drawing parallels to the “enshittification” of online platforms, they argue that similar forces are now overwhelming scholarly publishing. The key drivers are threefold: 1) relentless “publish or perish” pressures in academia, 2) scientific publisher’s incentive to publish more to make more money, and 3) AI making paper production faster and easier. Taken together, they say, these drivers are a recipe for disaster. The authors call for a shift to not-for-profit models of scientific publishing and better evaluation systems. I strongly doubt either is going to happen. The problem is of course not new, and you all know that I have been drawing attention to this trend for more than a decade. It is interesting to see, however, that the awareness for the issue is increasing. Paper: Rhodes, C., & Linnenluecke, M. K., “The junkification of research” Organization (2025).

Protein synthesis is among the most energy demanding processes in a cell. Why are then some proteins continuously synthesized and immediately degraded ? blog.slavovlab.net/2025/08/1…