tag:www.freshnews.org,2005:/feedburner-feed 2026-05-17T04:32:46+00:00 tag:www.freshnews.org,2005:Post/2887916 2026-05-17T04:00:05Z 2026-05-17T04:00:05Z

ArXiv says it will ban authors for one year if they submit papers containing AI-generated slop, such as hallucinated citations, placeholder text, or chatbot meta-comments left in the manuscript. "If generative AI tools generate inappropriate language, plagiarized content, biased content, errors, mistakes, incorrect references, or misleading content, and that output is included in scientific works, it is the responsibility of the author(s)," said Thomas Dietterich, chair of the computer science section of ArXiv, on X. "We have recently clarified our penalties for this. If a submission contains incontrovertible evidence that the authors did not check the results of LLM generation, this means we can't trust anything in the paper." 404 Media reports: Examples of incontrovertible evidence, he wrote, include "hallucinated references, meta-comments from the LLM ('here is a 200 word summary; would you like me to make any changes?'; 'the data in this table is illustrative, fill it in with the real numbers from your experiments.'" "The penalty is a 1-year ban from arXiv followed by the requirement that subsequent arXiv submissions must first be accepted at a reputable peer-reviewed venue," Dietterich wrote. Dietterich told [404 Media] in an email on Friday morning that this is a one-strike rule -- meaning authors caught just once including AI slop in submissions will be banned -- but that decisions will be open to appeal. "I want to emphasize that we only apply this to cases of incontrovertible evidence," he said. "I should also add that our internal process requires first a moderator to document the problem and then for the Section Chair to confirm before imposing the penalty." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BeauHD tag:www.freshnews.org,2005:Post/2887596 2026-05-16T23:00:05Z 2026-05-16T23:00:05Z

Memorial Day isn’t until May 26, but sales on our favorite gear have already started.

Louryn Strampe tag:www.freshnews.org,2005:Post/2886792 2026-05-16T22:00:06Z 2026-05-16T22:00:06Z

We’ve complained a great deal about RFK Jr.’s stint running HHS and its effects on the health of Americans in the short and long term because, well, there’s a lot to complain about. His anti-vaxxer stances have begun infecting national vaccine policy, of course, and his stance of essentially ignoring an ongoing 17 month measles outbreak have generated national headlines. Regarding measles cases, by the way, the official case count in America is at roughly 80% of the total of last year already, which was itself the highest case count in several decades. I’ll take this moment to remind you that it’s May, not even half way through the year. But there has also been an insane amount of chaos at HHS and its child agencies under Kennedy. And that chaos isn’t slowing down, it seems, with the announcement that FDA chief Marty Makary will be resigning his post. And, because this is the dumbest of timelines in which we live, the reason behind it appears to be Trump’s push to allow for flavored e-cigarettes to entice the nation’s youth. Makary’s insiders said the former Johns Hopkins University cancer surgeon resigned after Trump forced his hand on authorizing fruit-flavored e-cigarettes. Makary had reportedly been resisting the sign-offs out of concern that the kid-friendly flavors could again entice youth use and addiction—something public health officials and experts have for years worked to combat. But Makary’s stance was in conflict with Trump’s “save vaping” campaign promise—and with the tobacco industry’s interests. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had called Makary over a weekend to scold him for not moving fast enough to authorize flavored vapes, particularly menthol, mango, and blueberry flavors from the Los Angeles manufacturer Glas. The FDA authorized those flavored products days later and issued a new policy that would make it easier to market flavored vapes. The ArsTechnica post goes on to note that Makary had pissed off a bunch of lobbyists for tobacco, pharma, and biotech firms, all while health professionals have been complaining about his participation in Kennedy’s anti-vaxxer nonsense at the FDA as well. He essentially managed to piss off everyone, courting zero allies, which is a remarkable achievement itself. But the larger story here is that HHS is suffering from a rather damning lack of leadership. Not by performance, but through vacancies of Senate-confirmed people to actually run things. The firing or resignation of Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary is more intra-MAHA chaos at a beleaguered and battered Department of Health and Human Services.  When you don’t have a CDC Director, an FDA Commissioner, or a Surgeon General, the obvious question is: Why do you have this HHS Secretary? Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is the cause of much of the chaos that has resulted in these job vacancies. HHS is rotting from the head.  It really is incredible to realize that those three positions, important as they are, are currently being helmed by acting leadership members at best. There’s a reason those positions exist. They’re not unimportant. But currently, we have essentially temp employees filling them. Does anyone really believe that American health is a ship that can be successfully steered without a rudder? That’s what’s happening right now, because Trump and Kennedy can’t seem to get anyone across the finish line in the Senate for these roles. And if the ship crashes, we’re all going to pay for it.

Timothy Geigner tag:www.freshnews.org,2005:Post/2888830 2026-05-16T14:00:05Z 2026-05-16T14:00:05Z

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Wood heating is reintroducing lead into the air of local communities and homes, a systematic investigation by academics has found. Overwhelming evidence of lead's neurotoxicity meant the metal was banned as an additive in petrol more than 25 years ago. The research by academics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst began by analysing samples of particle pollution from five suburban and rural towns in the north-east US. They looked for tiny particles of potassium that are given off when wood is burned and also particles containing lead. Samples from seven winters revealed associations between potassium and lead. When there were more wood burning particles in a daily sample, there was more lead in the air, with clear straight-line relationships in four of the five towns. The project was extended to 22 other towns across the US. The relationships between lead and potassium varied from place to place, being strongest in the Rocky Mountains. By factoring in the effects of temperature, moderate to strong associations in their analysis strengthened the conclusion that the extra lead came from wood burning. The lead concentrations were less than the US legal limits, but any exposure to the metal is harmful. [...] Although less than legal limits, lead particles are routinely measured in UK cities in winter when people are also burning wood. This is normally attributed to waste wood covered with old lead paint, but the Umass Amherst study suggests the metal is coming from the wood itself. This means that any wood burning could increase exposure in neighborhoods and at home. Tricia Henegan, a PhD student at Umass Amherst and the first author on the research, said: "The most logical answer [to the question of how lead ends up in wood] is that it comes from uptake in the soil, probably riding along with the nutrients and water that trees need. Once in the tree, it deposits in the tree's tissues and remains until that tree is burned." Other research has found that it can then become part of the smoke. "The use of wood as an energy source is a relic of the past, one that should not be relived if given a choice. Although wood fuel use can feel nostalgic, it does have negative consequences on air quality, and therefore public health." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BeauHD tag:www.freshnews.org,2005:Post/2888183 2026-05-16T11:00:05Z 2026-05-16T11:00:05Z

Google has confirmed it is testing a 5GB storage limit for some new Gmail accounts, with users able to unlock the standard 15GB by adding a phone number. Android Authority reports: While the company didn't mention which regions are impacted, user reports from yesterday were mostly from African countries. That said, if Google's tests prove successful, this could possibly become the norm for new sign-ups in more regions. The company could be testing ways to discourage users from creating multiple Gmail accounts to access free cloud storage. However, if you already have a Gmail account with 15GB free storage, it shouldn't be impacted by this change. The language on Google's support page mentions "up to 15GB of storage." However, it's a recent change. An archived version of the support page from February did not use the words "up to." Whether the test has been running since early March or Google updated its language before it ever started the test, it's evident that the company could roll out the change globally as well. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BeauHD