World News
Find out what’s happening in Science & Society around the world. Discover changes to science policy and law, new scientific study results, Supreme Court rulings, debates about nature versus nurture, and news about the sharing of genetic information.
Wed, Jun 11
Tech CEOs, Trump and Society’s New AI Age
The scene at Donald Trump’s second inauguration was a diorama of political power at the dawn of a new era. Across much of the globe, authority has shifted away from Washington, Brussels and London, away from heads of state and traditional titans of media and industry. But even before Elon Musk became Donald Trump’s right-hand man, 2025 was to be the year that a handful of American tech companies – Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta – achieved something unprecedented: concentrated control over virtually every aspect of how we communicate, consume information and understand reality. These companies determine what news we see, their algorithms shape our beliefs and their artificial intelligence systems increasingly generate the content that fills our screens. What is new in 2025 is the completeness of their dominance. As with similar epochal watersheds in 1789, 1848, 1917, 1946 and 1989, the implications will eventually touch every facet of life on the planet.
Thu, Jun 05
WATCH: Mining the Need for Human Connection in an Age of Unreality
Mining the Need for Human Connection in an Age of Unreality AI companions aren’t solving problems—they’re creating them. Casey Mock reveals the venture-backed machinery designed to profit from the need for human connection and extract value from our increasingly fragmented reality.
Speaker: Casey Mock – https://re-publica.com/de/user/22435
Weitere Informationen: https://re-publica.com/de/session/min…
Mastodon: https://berlin.social/@republica
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@re_publica
Wed, Jun 04
New CRISPRs Expand Upon the Original’s Abilities
By scouring thousands of bacterial genomes for new CRISPR-Cas systems, researchers have discovered some that could expand the technology’s impact in research, biotechnology and medicine
Thu, May 29
A Texas Cop Searched License Plate Cameras Nationwide for a Woman Who Got an Abortion
Tue, May 27
Provost Launches AI Initiative and Steering Committee
Duke faculty, students, trainees and staff are engaging with artificial intelligence in a multitude of ways. A new initiative led by Provost Alec D. Gallimore seeks to reflect this diversity of approach, encourage engagement with tools and services, and contribute to a global conversation about the new horizons that AI can open up for us, and how to keep it from exacerbating some of our greatest challenges.
Early last year, Gallimore first envisioned bringing together Duke faculty and academic leadership who are leading work that develops, uses, studies, or otherwise engages with AI. To lead this new initiative, he tapped Yakut Gazi, vice provost for learning innovation and digital education; Michael Pencina, vice dean for data science and chief data scientist at the School of Medicine; and Joseph Salem, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and vice provost for library affairs.