How the History of Littering Should Impact the Solution
LIttering has wreaked havoc on ecosystems all over the world. What do we do now to amend the global problem of chronic waste?
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Data Literacy in South Asia: From Outsourced to a Lead in Tech
Opinion By Sabah Ul-Hasan (@sabahzero) on behalf of The Biota Project Blog (@thebiotaproject) What is outsourcing? Reverberating effects from British colonization of South Asia and the ‘modern’ world I live in the United States, and I was recently in a room full of scientists when someone made a wonderfully distasteful joke about receiving a call from customer support and that the person on the other end of the phone line had a “funny accent.” If you’re unfamiliar with the term “outsourcing,” fear not. There’s an entire NBC television series about…
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Decolonizing Ecology for Socially Just Science
Opinion By Suzanne Xianran Ou (@suzanneou) and Adriana L. Romero-Olivares (@fungi_lover) Science attempts to describe nature at all scales, including globally. But scientists and the institutional structures and gatekeepers, such as governments, universities, and science journal editors, who determine what is considered “good science” in our modern world, represent countries with great economic power, collectively known as the Global North. To move forward with a broad perspective and as a globally connected scientific community, we must be inclusive of all scientists around the world, including those from countries with less…
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What the Tech Industry Can Teach Academia
OPINION By Sami Benchekroun Without taking risks and challenging the status quo, the majority of the world’s biggest scientific breakthroughs would not have been possible. That’s why it’s all the more surprising that academia itself is often reluctant to embrace new ways of working and sharing results. Scientists work on their research in secrecy for months or years and then wait an average of 100 days from the moment they submit their paper until it is published in a journal. Early-stage findings are hidden, failures are rarely shared, and the…
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