cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3611920

...

This association agreement strengthens the EU's geopolitical alliance with like-minded countries. The association will lead to greater opportunities for deepening joint research across continents in many fields, such as digital transition, health, and technological innovation aiming at carbon neutrality.

Since 1 January 2025, under the transitional arrangement, Korean entities have been able to apply and be evaluated as prospective beneficiaries in Horizon Europe proposals for all calls implementing Pillar II already in the budget 2025.

...

Oxford University Press (OUP) will no longer publish a controversial academic journal sponsored by China’s Ministry of Justice after years of concerns that several papers in the publication did not meet ethical standards about DNA collection.

A statement published on the website of Forensic Sciences Research (FSR) states that OUP will stop publishing the quarterly journal after this year.

FSR is a journal that comes from China’s Academy of Forensic Science, an agency that sits under the Ministry of Justice. The academy describes FSR as “the only English quarterly journal in the field of forensic science in China that focuses on forensic medicine”. It has been published by OUP since 2023.

Several papers published in FSR have attracted criticism because they study genetic data from Uyghurs and other heavily surveilled ethnic minorities in China. Critics say subjects in the studies may not have freely consented to their DNA samples being used in the research and that the studies could help to enhance the mass surveillance of those populations.

One study, published in 2020, analysed blood samples from 264 Uyghurs in Ürümqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region in north-west China. The paper states that the people giving the samples consented to the research and that their data was anonymised.

The lead author on the study is affiliated with China’s state security apparatus via the Xinjiang Police College, which provided a research grant.

[...]

Yves Moreau, a professor of engineering at the University of Leuven in Belgium who focuses on DNA analysis, first raised concerns about OUP’s relationship with FSR and about several studies. He said he was grateful for OUP’s decision but that the brief public statement on the matter “fails to address the important issues at stake”.

[...]

In recent years there has been increasing scrutiny about the ethical standards of genetic research papers from China. Last year, a genetics journal from a leading scientific publisher retracted 18 papers from China due to concerns about human rights.

The concerns centre on whether or not vulnerable populations in China can freely refuse to participate, especially when researchers come from organisations, such as the police, affiliated with state security. There are also concerns that this kind of forensic DNA sampling could produce research that enhances the mass surveillance of those populations.

Moreau said: “Forensic genetics is an area where specific caution is needed because this is the research that powers police DNA identification and databases. While DNA identification is a valuable technique to help solve crimes, it can raise privacy and ethical issues.” He added that the mass surveillance of minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet made China a particularly challenging country to enforce international norms about ethical research and human rights.

[...]

The appearance of thousands of formulaic biomedical studies has been linked to the rise of text-generating AI tools.

Data from five large open-access health databases are being used to generate thousands of poor-quality, formulaic papers, an analysis has found. Its authors say that the surge in publications could indicate the exploitation of these databases by people using large language models(LLMs) to mass-produce scholarly articles, or even by paper mills — companies that churn out papers to order.

Researchers have been sneaking secret messages into their papers in an effort to trick artificial intelligence (AI) tools into giving them a positive peer-review report.

The Tokyo-based news magazine Nikkei Asiareported last week on the practice, which had previously been discussed on social media. Nature has independently found 18 preprint studies containing such hidden messages, which are usually included as white text and sometimes in an extremely small font that would be invisible to a human but could be picked up as an instruction to an AI reviewer.

A groundbreaking study published in July 2025 demonstrates that African savannah elephants use intentional gestures to communicate their goals, similar to great apes[^1]. The research team presented semi-captive elephants with desired and undesired items, recording their communication attempts when experimenters met, partially met, or failed to meet their goals[^1].

The study identified 38 different gesture types that elephants used almost exclusively when a visually attentive experimenter was present[^1]. The elephants showed three key criteria for intentional communication:

1. Audience directedness - signaling only when someone was watching
2. Persistence - continuing to gesture when goals were partially met
3. Elaboration - using new signals when communication failed

The research was conducted at the Jafuta Reserve in Zimbabwe, where elephants combined specific vocalizations with gestures in greeting behaviors[^6]. They used different types of signals including:

• Silent-visual gestures
• Audible gestures
• Tactile gestures
• Rumble vocalizations

The findings reveal that elephants, like apes, assess the communicative effectiveness of their gesturing and adjust their signals based on the audience's visual attention[^6]. This expands understanding of intentional communication beyond the primate lineage[^9].

[^1]: Royal Society Open Science - Investigating intentionality in elephant gestural communication

[^6]: Nature - Multimodal communication and audience directedness in the greeting behaviour of semi-captive African savannah elephants

[^9]: Pangea Trust - Gestures and greetings used by elephants show intentional multimodal communication

ETH Zurich researchers have developed a groundbreaking "living material" that actively captures carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through two mechanisms: biomass production and mineral formation[^1][^2].

The material combines cyanobacteria (photosynthetic bacteria) embedded within a printable hydrogel matrix. The cyanobacteria convert CO2 into biomass through photosynthesis while simultaneously triggering the formation of solid carbonate minerals - a process called microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP)[^1].

Key achievements of the material include:

• Sequestered 2.2 mg of CO2 per gram of hydrogel over 30 days
• Captured 26 mg of CO2 per gram over 400 days in mineral form
• Maintained viability for over one year
• Required only sunlight and artificial seawater to function
• Can be 3D printed into various structures[^1]

The research team demonstrated practical applications by creating:

• A 3-meter high tree-trunk structure at the Venice Architecture Biennale that can bind 18kg of CO2 annually
• Building facade coatings that could capture carbon throughout a building's lifecycle
• Lattice structures that passively transport nutrients through capillary action[^2]

"As a building material, it could help to store CO2 directly in buildings in the future," said Mark Tibbitt, Professor of Macromolecular Engineering at ETH Zurich[^2].

The material represents a low-maintenance, environmentally friendly approach to carbon capture that operates at ambient conditions using atmospheric CO2, contrasting with industrial methods requiring concentrated CO2 sources and controlled conditions[^1].

[^1]: Nature Communications - Dual carbon sequestration with photosynthetic living materials

[^2]: ETH Zurich - A building material that lives and stores carbon

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/8474021

A good series! I suggest watching the other episodes. Not too long and gets right down to the point.