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Deliberate ignorance is useful in certain circumstances, researchers say

Deliberate ignorance is useful in certain circumstances, researchers say

Sujata Gupta writes: In 1961, renowned German novelist Günter Grass openly criticized communist East Germany for building the Berlin Wall ostensibly to prevent West Germans from infiltrating the country. In reality, the wall was more effective at preventing East Germans from defecting. From that point on, East German secret police known as the Stasi shadowed Grass, a West German who frequently visited his neighbors to the East. In their notes, the Stasi refer to Grass with the code name “Bolzen,”…

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A day in the life of a woke third-grade teacher, as imagined by a far-right politician

A day in the life of a woke third-grade teacher, as imagined by a far-right politician

Ashley Ingle writes: The alarm blares, and I wake up with a renewed vigor to indoctrinate America’s youth. I ride my bike to work, smugly turning up my nose at real Americans who drive trucks. As I pedal, my thoughts are preoccupied with how I will infect children with my liberal agenda. No other ideas flow in and out of my mind on my commute, like wondering if I should donate plasma this weekend to make some extra cash to…

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You’ve never heard of him, but he’s remaking the pollution fight

You’ve never heard of him, but he’s remaking the pollution fight

The New York Times reports: This spring the Biden administration proposed or implemented eight major environmental regulations, including the nation’s toughest climate rule, rolling out what experts say are the most ambitious limits on polluting industries by the government in a single season. Piloting all of that is a man most Americans have never heard of, running an agency that is even less well known. But Richard Revesz has begun to change the fundamental math that underpins federal regulations designed…

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In pursuit of consensus, did Biden find the reasonable middle or give away too much?

In pursuit of consensus, did Biden find the reasonable middle or give away too much?

Peter Baker writes: After weeks of tense wrangling between the White House and House Republicans, the fiscal deal reached on Saturday to raise the debt ceiling while constraining federal spending bolsters President Biden’s argument that he is the one figure who can still do bipartisanship in a profoundly partisan era. But it comes at the cost of rankling many in his own party who have little appetite for meeting Republicans in the middle and think the president cannot stop himself from giving away…

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How the media is covering ChatGPT

How the media is covering ChatGPT

Columbia Journalism Review reports: With advancements in AI tools being rolled out at breakneck pace, journalists face the task of reporting developments with the appropriate nuance and context—to audiences who may be encountering this kind of technology for the first time. But sometimes this coverage has been alarmist. The linguist and social critic Noam Chomsky criticized “hyperbolic headlines” in a New York Times op-ed. And there have been a lot of them. “Bing’s A.I. Chat: ‘I Want to Be Alive. ’” “‘Godfather of AI’ says AI could kill…

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A lawyer used ChatGPT to help prepare a court filing. The program fooled him with fiction and lies

A lawyer used ChatGPT to help prepare a court filing. The program fooled him with fiction and lies

The New York Times reports: The lawsuit began like so many others: A man named Roberto Mata sued the airline Avianca, saying he was injured when a metal serving cart struck his knee during a flight to Kennedy International Airport in New York. When Avianca asked a Manhattan federal judge to toss out the case, Mr. Mata’s lawyers vehemently objected, submitting a 10-page brief that cited more than half a dozen relevant court decisions. There was Martinez v. Delta Air…

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Turkey’s Erdogan defies odds to win presidential election

Turkey’s Erdogan defies odds to win presidential election

The Wall Street Journal reports: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won Sunday’s runoff presidential election, establishing him as one of the great survivors in recent political history and securing his outsize role in global affairs for what could be years to come. The head of Turkey’s election board declared Erdogan the victor. Erdogan won 52.13% of the votes, with his challenger, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, claiming 47.87% with more than 99% of ballot boxes opened. The president’s victory also opens a new phase of his…

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Our brain prefers positive vocal sounds that come from our left

Our brain prefers positive vocal sounds that come from our left

PsyPost reports: Researchers have shown that the brain’s primary auditory cortex is more responsive to human vocalizations associated with positive emotions and coming from our left side than to any other kind of sounds. This bias can be explained by the way our brain is organized, but its evolutionary significance is not yet known. Sounds that we hear around us are defined physically by their frequency and amplitude. But for us, sounds have a meaning beyond those parameters: we may…

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Lessons from the Laschamps Excursion 42,000 years ago

Lessons from the Laschamps Excursion 42,000 years ago

Dirk Schulze-Makuch writes: After studying the reversal of Earth’s magnetic pole known to have occurred 42,000 years ago, a science team led by Alan Cooper from the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, Australia concludes that the event had significant environmental repercussions, especially at lower and mid-latitudes. That time period, known as the Laschamps Excursion, had anomalously high radiocarbon concentrations in the atmosphere, which were linked to a higher influx of radiation. When the reversal occurred, within a span of about…

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‘The intensity is increasing’: Ukraine says first steps in counteroffensive have begun

‘The intensity is increasing’: Ukraine says first steps in counteroffensive have begun

The Observer reports: Preliminary operations have already begun to pave the way for a counteroffensive against Russian occupying forces, a Ukrainian presidential adviser has said. “It’s a complicated process, which is not a matter of one day or a certain date or a certain hour,” Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview with the Guardian. “It’s an ongoing process of de-occupation, and certain processes are already happening, like destroying supply lines or blowing up depots behind the lines. “The intensity is…

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Scientists find way to make energy from air using nearly any material

Scientists find way to make energy from air using nearly any material

The Washington Post reports: Nearly any material can be used to turn the energy in air humidity into electricity, scientists found in a discovery that could lead to continuously producing clean energy with little pollution. The research, published in a paper in Advanced Materials, builds on 2020 work that first showed energy could be pulled from the moisture in the air using material harvested from bacteria. The new study shows nearly any material can be used, like wood or silicon,…

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Drastic climate action is the best course for economic growth, study finds

Drastic climate action is the best course for economic growth, study finds

Yale Climate Connections reports: For decades, many economists’ analyses seemed to justify inaction on weaning the economy from fossil fuels, saying the astronomical cost of such rapid transformation would strangle economic growth. These experts were heeded over scientists who warned that acting too slowly would court climate catastrophe. But in recent years, more economists have begun to agree that the short-term costs of aggressive action are not as high as once thought, while the long-term costs of inaction are much…

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Create an IPCC-like body to harness benefits and combat harms of digital tech

Create an IPCC-like body to harness benefits and combat harms of digital tech

Joseph Bak-Coleman et al write: Search engines, online banking, social-media platforms and large-language models, such as ChatGPT, are among the many computational systems that offer (or could offer) tremendous benefits. They provide people with unprecedented access to information. They help to connect hundreds of millions of individuals. And they could make all sorts of tasks easier, from writing computer code to preparing scientific manuscripts. Such innovations also come with risks. The speed at which content can be generated and shared…

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Clarence Thomas’s newest opinion would literally bring back child labor

Clarence Thomas’s newest opinion would literally bring back child labor

Ian Millhiser writes: On Thursday, the Supreme Court imposed strict new limits on the Clean Water Act. The Court’s decision in Sackett v. EPA is likely to do serious harm to the government’s ability to quell water pollution, including in major waterways such as the Mississippi River and the Chesapeake Bay. Meanwhile, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion that would so severely limit Congress’s power to legislate that he might as well have taken several volumes of the United…

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Study: At all levels of public office, threats now come with the job

Study: At all levels of public office, threats now come with the job

The Washington Post reports: Since taking office in 2021, Oakland City Council member Carroll Fife has received threats by phone, social media and in person, an extreme level of harassment she never imagined would come with serving her community. Fife said she has found animal parts strewn on her car, her tires flattened, and trash dumped at her doorstep. She tried in vain to get a restraining order against a man who said she would “feel the Second Amendment.” A…

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