Mapping automatic social media information disorder. The role of bots and AI in spreading misleading information in society
“The analysis focused on four research questions: 1) the distribution of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation across different platforms; 2) recurring themes in fake news and their visibility; 3) the role of artificial intelligence as an authoritative and/or spreader agent; and 4) strategies for combating information disorder. The role of AI was highlighted, both as a tool for fact-checking and building truthiness identification bots, and as a potential amplifier of false narratives.”
Tomassi A, Falegnami A, Romano E (2024) Mapping automatic social media information disorder. The role of bots and AI in spreading misleading information in society. PLOS ONE 19(5): e0303183. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303183
Biblical Gilgal: A Common Place Name or a Cult Site near Jericho?
“Gilgal was a national cult centre of the Kingdom of Israel, and in several references its name appears alongside that of Bethel (1 Sam 7:16; 2 Kgs 2:1–2; Hos 4:15; 12:12; Amos 4:4; 5:4–5). Bethel, located in the highlands, was the seat of a national temple (see Amos 7:13) and the place where the golden calf, the animal sacred to the Storm God, represented the God of Israel in his temple.”
Earliest, most distant galaxy discovered with James Webb Space Telescope
“The two earliest and most distant galaxies yet confirmed, dating back to only 300 million years after the Big Bang, have been discovered using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of astronomers today announced.”
Assyrian conquest and ruralization: unveiling territorial dynamics in the provinces of Magiddû and Samerina
“This study has illustrated that the Assyrian territorial strategy implemented in the provinces of Magiddû and Samerina, established upon the remnants of the Kingdom of Israel, manifested as clusters of sites, termed ‘islands of control’. These ‘islands’ comprised a rural landscape overseen by the principal cities of Tel Dan, Megiddo and Samaria. This territorial approach mirrors a broader modus operandi adopted by the Assyrians across their empire to manage agricultural production.”
Squitieri, A. (2024) ‘Assyrian conquest and ruralization: unveiling territorial dynamics in the provinces of Magiddû and Samerina’, Levant, pp. 1–20. doi: https://www.doi.org/10.1080/00758914.2024.2351677.
“The article presents an edition, based on manuscripts from Nineveh, Ashur, and Tarbisu, of Sennacherib’s earliest accounts of its first campaign, waged against Marduk-aplu-iddina and his southern Babylonian allies in 704-702 BCE. It provides an overview of the Aramean tribes and Chaldean towns attacked by the Assyrian troops, and a discussion of many have been the author of the inscriptions hat celebrate the campaign.”
“The article presents an edition, based on manuscripts from Nineveh, Ashur, and Tarbisu, of Sennacherib’s earliest accounts of its first campaign, waged against Marduk-aplu-iddina and his southern Babylonian allies in 704-702 BCE. It provides an overview of the Aramean tribes and Chaldean towns attacked by the Assyrian troops, and a discussion of many have been the author of the inscriptions hat celebrate the campaign.”
“The article presents an edition, based on manuscripts from Nineveh, Ashur, and Tarbisu, of Sennacherib’s earliest accounts of its first campaign, waged against Marduk-aplu-iddina and his southern Babylonian allies in 704-702 BCE.”
“The article presents an edition, based on manuscripts from Nineveh, Ashur, and Tarbisu, of Sennacherib’s earliest accounts of its first campaign, waged against Marduk-aplu-iddina and his southern Babylonian allies in 704-702 BCE.”
Cavalier South vs Puritan North? Hypocrisy and Identity in the American Civil War
“This article highlights the ways Southern ministers claimed the puritan identity for the South and accused the North of hypocrisy, for having fallen far from the theological ideals of their puritan forebears. Furthermore, Southern ministers noted the hypocrisy of Northern puritans for having escaped religious tyranny only to impose it upon those who did not conform to their form of Christianity; they had thus fallen into the very sin which they had decried.”
Manger, E.G. (2024) ‘Cavalier South vs Puritan North? Hypocrisy and Identity in the American Civil War’, Studies in Church History, 60, pp. 431–452. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/stc.2024.16.
Cavalier South vs Puritan North? Hypocrisy and Identity in the American Civil War
“This article highlights the ways Southern ministers claimed the puritan identity for the South and accused the North of hypocrisy, for having fallen far from the theological ideals of their puritan forebears. Furthermore, Southern ministers noted the hypocrisy of Northern puritans for having escaped religious tyranny only to impose it upon those who did not conform to their form of Christianity; they had thus fallen into the very sin which they had decried._”
Manger, E.G. (2024) ‘Cavalier South vs Puritan North? Hypocrisy and Identity in the American Civil War’, Studies in Church History, 60, pp. 431–452. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/stc.2024.16.
“The fakes created during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century tell us another story, one of the rediscovery of the ancient Near East within the Orientalism movement. This fascination about the Orient and the past led certain individuals to create some fantastic stories and theories, such as those published by the writer Zecharia Stichin (1920–2010) who took the mythological battles of gods related in the authentic Babylonian Epic of Creation to be real astronomic phenomena.”
Michel, C. 2020. Cuneiform Fakes: A Long History from Antiquity to the Present Day. In: Michel, C. and Friedrich, M. ed. Fakes and Forgeries of Written Artefacts from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern China. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 25-60. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110714333-002
“The fakes created during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century tell us another story, one of the rediscovery of the ancient Near East within the Orientalism movement. This fascination about the Orient and the past led certain individuals to create some fantastic stories and theories, such as those published by the writer Zecharia Stichin (1920–2010) who took the mythological battles of gods related in the authentic Babylonian Epic of Creation to be real astronomic phenomena.”
Michel, C. 2020. Cuneiform Fakes: A Long History from Antiquity to the Present Day. In: Michel, C. and Friedrich, M. ed. Fakes and Forgeries of Written Artefacts from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern China. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 25-60. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110714333-002
"Focusing on classical philologists and biblical scholars in nineteenth-century Germany, it examines how Hyperkritik developed from a technical philological term into a pejorative label that was widely invoked to discredit the latest trends in classical philology and, especially, biblical scholarship."
"The ultimate goal, I suggest, was a translatio imperii; the establishment of an imperial monarchy in the west that could rival the Habsburg empire, and which in time, perhaps, might even come to imitate the universal glory of the Roman imperium. Not the American Atlantic seaboard, but rather the continent of Europe, with its arms, its learning, and its treasure, was the goal of Bacon’s early imperial vision."
#Image attribution: Yale Center for British Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Page URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anonymous_-_Sir_Francis_Bacon,_1st_Viscount_St_Alban_-_B1977.14.9772_-_Yale_Center_for_British_Art.jpg
"...menstruation has been understudied for decades, creating a knowledge vacuum in which patients with pain or heavy bleeding wait years for a diagnosis. In recent years, however, more scientists have begun to study the process and menstrual fluid — research that could uncover crucial information about human health that’s been unjustly ignored."
"We present a set of large pedigrees, reconstructed using ancient DNA, spanning nine generations and comprising around 300 individuals. We uncover a strict patrilineal kinship system, in which patrilocality and female exogamy were the norm and multiple reproductive partnering and levirate unions were common. The absence of consanguinity indicates that this society maintained a detailed memory of ancestry over generations."
Gnecchi-Ruscone, G.A., Rácz, Z., Samu, L. et al. Network of large pedigrees reveals social practices of Avar communities. Nature (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07312-4
"We present a set of large pedigrees, reconstructed using ancient DNA, spanning nine generations and comprising around 300 individuals. We uncover a strict patrilineal kinship system, in which patrilocality and female exogamy were the norm and multiple reproductive partnering and levirate unions were common. The absence of consanguinity indicates that this society maintained a detailed memory of ancestry over generations."
Gnecchi-Ruscone, G.A., Rácz, Z., Samu, L. et al. Network of large pedigrees reveals social practices of Avar communities. Nature (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07312-4
"Republicans, refusing to give Biden a 'win,' voted against the [cancer research] funding. Even though this would be a win for all Americans – and humanity – it apparently did not outweigh the politics of making a Democrat look good. This is the definition of party over country."