Ever wondered what happens when a human telemarketer calls a bot? In this paper we explore how trust (or the illusion of it) is built with bots designed to intercept spam calls doi.org/10.1177/1750...

We’re holding an IPrA pre-panel conversation on agency on 3 March. If interested you can register here:www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/unleashed-agency-for-s...

Good to know what I’ve been drinking for years on a daily basis

A person holding a traditional preparation of mate with crushed dried yerba mate leaves steeping in hot water in a cup made of a gourd and a specialised metal straw

🧉 #YerbaMate makes the third most popular caffeinated drink in the world, but it’s unrelated to tea and coffee. The first reconstruction of its genome is helping us understand how multiple species have evolved to synthesise caffeine.
https://buff.ly/4jnWk82

global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Delighted to find a few copies of the volume on Morality in Discourse. Great start to 2025

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DKY766/s...

UK HE shrinking This is a live page of all the redundancies, restructures, reorganisations, and closures taking place across the sector at the moment. Solidarity to all. This sector is vital to the country’s…

Shocking number of cuts at universities in the UK qmucu.org/qmul-transfo...

AI simulations of 1000 people accurately replicate their behaviour Using GPT-4o, the model behind ChatGPT, researchers have replicated the personality and behaviour of more than 1000 people, in an effort to create an alternative to focus groups and polling

Instead of focus groups?! www.newscientist.com/article/2457...

Your friends shape your microbiome — and so do their friends Analysis of nearly 2,000 people living in remote villages in Honduras reveals who’s spreading gut microorganisms to whom.

www.nature.com/articles/d41... interesting read

They’ve done it before. Migrants are needed

Oxford relying on ‘Deliveroo-style’ contracts with most tutorials not taught by full-time staff Leading university accused of relying on young academics employed on gig-economy terms

www.theguardian.com/education/20... certainly not new and not the only university - have these reporters just woken up?

You say bap, I say bread cake, but do delivery apps mean regional food names are becoming a thing of the past? | Rachel Cooke A sourdough-and-rocket monotony is spreading outwards from the M25. I worry about what we’re losing

Lovely little piece. I for one loe the likes of Gail’s www.theguardian.com/food/2024/no...