John O’Donoghue
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drjohnodonoghue.bsky.social
John O’Donoghue
@drjohnodonoghue.bsky.social
3.2K followers 1.7K following 230 posts
Chemistry Educator, Researcher & Author at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) | RSC Education Coordinator | New book out now: Onscreen Chemistry https://books.rsc.org/books/monograph/2272/Onscreen-ChemistryThe-Portrayal-of-Chemical | Views my own
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drjohnodonoghue.bsky.social
John O’Donoghue @drjohnodonoghue.bsky.social · Feb 6
In advance of my book release next week, here is an article I did for @chemistryworld.com about the image of “mad scientists”… I’m particularly proud of the article title 🤣 expect many more puns in the book #ChemSky #SciComm www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/expl...
Exploring the on-screen image of chemists
From Frankenstein to Breaking Bad and beyond
www.chemistryworld.com
Reposted by John O’Donoghue
derycke.bsky.social
“Universities are not tech companies. Our role is to foster critical thinking, not to follow industry trends uncritically.”
November 2, 2025 at 7:07 AM
drjohnodonoghue.bsky.social
Good article from Richie Kirwan about the Joe Wicks health/protein bar documentary which had plenty of ridiculous dark lab imagery & scaremongering. I also witnessed someone tell a stranger on the #London tube this week that they should check the ingredients of a bar they were eating #SciComm #Food
Screenshot of Joe Wicks documentary
October 9, 2025 at 9:07 AM
Reposted by John O’Donoghue
compoundchem.com
The 2025 #NobelPrize in Chemistry was awarded today for the development of metal-organic frameworks, molecular sponges with applications in gas storage, water purification and more: www.compoundchem.com/2025/10/08/2...

#ChemSky 🧪
Infographic on the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M. Yaghi for the development of metal-organic frameworks. The infographic explains that metal-organic frameworks are molecular sponges built up from metal ions and organic compounds that act as linkers. Small molecules such as gases can move into and out of cavities in these frameworks. The graphic highlights some of the MOFs the laureates have developed and concludes by looking at possible future uses of MOFs, including gas storage and extracting water from air.
October 8, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Reposted by John O’Donoghue
cenmag.bsky.social
The 2025 #NobelPrize in Chemistry has been awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi “for the development of metal–organic frameworks.” Stay tuned for the full story to come! cen.acs.org/people/nobel...

#ChemNobel #Chem #Chemistry #chemsky 🧪
The 2025 chemistry Nobel goes to MOFs
Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi win the prize for developing metal–organic frameworks
cen.acs.org
October 8, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Reposted by John O’Donoghue
samillingworth.com
UPEN (the Universities Policy Engagement Network) just published my piece on Slow AI.

Encouraging to see academics & policymakers valuing reflection over speed.

upen.ac.uk/resources/th...

How do you pause with AI?

#GenAI #AI #SlowAI #SciComm #Policy
The Case for Slow AI in Academic and Policy Engagement – UPEN
upen.ac.uk
October 1, 2025 at 12:38 PM
drjohnodonoghue.bsky.social
A great round up the issues in academic publishing, particularly the metrics. I feel AI is also highlighting these issues since many AI models have been inadvertently trained on retracted papers. Goodhart's law states: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." #Research
October 1, 2025 at 7:06 AM
Reposted by John O’Donoghue
eicathomefinn.bsky.social
'In a preprint posted on medRxiv on 12 September1, researchers identified more than 400 such papers published in 112 journals over the past 4.5 years'.

Link to preprint: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
Journals infiltrated with ‘copycat’ papers that can be written by AI
Tools such as ChatGPT can be used to generate almost-identical research papers that pass standard plagiarism checks. Hundreds are thought to have been published.
www.nature.com
September 24, 2025 at 6:31 AM
drjohnodonoghue.bsky.social
You couldn’t make it up! 🤣
September 23, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Reposted by John O’Donoghue
neillewisjr.bsky.social
I've shared this quote before but I'll share it again, as it's one I've been thinking about a lot as I've watched how our oligarchs have been behaving over the past few months.
At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, “Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough.” Enough. I was stunned by the simple eloquence of that word—stunned for two reasons: first, because I have been given so much in my own life and, second, because Joseph Heller couldn’t have been more accurate. For a critical element of our society, including many of the wealthiest and most powerful among us, there seems to be no limit today on what enough entails.
December 27, 2024 at 11:07 PM
Reposted by John O’Donoghue
olivia.science
Getting close to 50k views and I'm wondering is it just everybody is scared to say this and pleased I did? Because if there's so many of us who agree, trust me I'd know if 1k people disagreed with me let alone 50k, why are we letting AI ruin our universities?

Together we can turn back the tide.
olivia.science Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece, we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to relevant work to further inform our colleagues. Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI (black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf. Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al. 2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA). Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe. Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles
September 21, 2025 at 11:08 AM
Reposted by John O’Donoghue
irishexaminer.bsky.social
Why OpenAI’s solution to AI hallucinations would kill ChatGPT tomorrow
Hallucination is built in — if ChatGPT no longer provides definite answers, people will stop using it
dlvr.it
September 15, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by John O’Donoghue
ewcspottesmith.bsky.social
Spot on, and so glad @cenmag.bsky.social published this piece. I consider myself extremely lucky — in my PhD, I was well resourced, had a lot of freedom, and I worked in a mostly positive group culture. Still, I was horribly overworked and had severe mental health struggles. #AcademicSky ⚗️ 🧪 (1/4)
September 11, 2025 at 7:54 AM
drjohnodonoghue.bsky.social
This is now the second use of the term “cold spots” I’ve seen in relation to commuting to university in the UK. What is the definition of a cold spot? Is it time or distance based? Either way, we have freezing spots in Ireland! 🤣 we have students & staff commuting across the entire country #HigherEd
eicathomefinn.bsky.social Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · Sep 10
Hot off the press, the British Academy's Cold Spots: Mapping Inequality in SHAPE Provision in UK Higher Education report. Read it if you care about universities or access to the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences for the rising generation. 1/5
Cold spots: Mapping inequality in SHAPE provision in UK higher education
This British Academy report reveals that many parts of the UK are becoming subject cold spots – areas with no provision in a subject within a commutable distance. These are often in rural, coastal or ...
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk
September 10, 2025 at 8:03 AM
drjohnodonoghue.bsky.social
This is spectacular 👏
adzebill.bsky.social Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · Aug 31
Wikipedia editors trying to fend off the onslaught of AI crap have crowdsourced some telltale signs of LLM-generated writing; it might be handy for editors and proofreaders generally. Thanks to @ellenrykers.com for pointing me to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...
Wikipedia:Signs of AI writing - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
September 2, 2025 at 3:28 PM
drjohnodonoghue.bsky.social
After presenting the feedback from our project at the Variety in Chem Ed & Physics HigherEd conference in Liverpool this week, we’ve collected a LOT more at @dublinmaker.bsky.social! Our research ambassadors are engaging with hundreds, while I cut up fliers #DublinMaker #VicePhec25 #ChemEd #SciComm
The research ambassadors for Day 1 Getting busy at Dublin Maker You’ll find us upstairs We need more fliers
August 31, 2025 at 8:32 AM
drjohnodonoghue.bsky.social
I was just reminded of an interesting “chemistry from theatre” nugget. Before electric lighting, candles were the only way to light up theatres and stage shows. Then, in 1816, Thomas Drummond invented the “limelight”, which he originally designed for lighthouses #Chemistry #Thread #ChemSky
Old theatre lit using candles Candles on stage
August 26, 2025 at 7:50 PM
drjohnodonoghue.bsky.social
“All we need now is for Starmer to take a dislike to The 2 Johnnies, and he’ll have alienated every different genre of Irish person between the ages of 25 and 35” 🤣
carlkinsella.bsky.social Carl Kinsella @carlkinsella.bsky.social · Aug 23
“You can’t simply proscribe Sally Rooney and be done with it. You can’t reach into the London Underground and pull her books out of the hands of commuters who want to live vicariously and cathartically through her throuples and hunks on the verge of tears.”

This week’s Surrealing.
Surrealing in the Years: Starmer has chosen the wrong opponent in Sally Rooney
The Irish author will make mincemeat of the UK’s prime minister should it come to that.
jrnl.ie
August 23, 2025 at 10:26 AM
drjohnodonoghue.bsky.social
This time last week we had a great time in @rsc.org Burlington House #London for my book launch. Thanks to everyone who joined us, especially @andrestrujado.bsky.social for this absolutely fantastic silver mirror coke bottle! Onscreen Chemistry is available now in bookstores #BookLaunch #ChemSky
300 years of chemistry in Trinity Onscreen Chemisyry Book Silver mirror Coke bottle
August 21, 2025 at 2:54 PM
drjohnodonoghue.bsky.social
Hello little Red-tailed BumbleBee, welcome to our garden today. On the menu you’ll find flowers from courgettes, onions, and tomato’s as well as pansies, roses and hydrangeas. I finally found some time to enjoy our garden after a busy academic year #Summer #Garden #Pollinators
A red tailed bumble bee on an onion flower
July 9, 2025 at 3:41 PM
Reposted by John O’Donoghue
jdtonkin.bsky.social
Publication rates before and after tenure: clear decline post-tenure in non-lab-based fields and sustained in lab-based fields. Super interesting.
arxiv.org/pdf/2411.10575
July 7, 2025 at 11:49 PM
drjohnodonoghue.bsky.social
We need a ban on disposable vapes in Ireland as soon as possible!
cenmag.bsky.social C&EN (Chemical & Engineering News) @cenmag.bsky.social · Jul 4
The researchers found that one of the disposable vapes they studied released more lead during a day’s worth of use than almost 20 packs of tobacco cigarettes. cen.acs.org/business/con... #chemsky 🧪
Disposable vapes release a lot of heavy metals, especially as they get used up
And the longer a device is used, the more heavy metals and metalloids in its vapor
cen.acs.org
July 4, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Reposted by John O’Donoghue
carlhendrick.substack.com
NEW POST on AI, learning and why knowing stuff still matters. carlhendrick.substack.com/p/the-most-i...
June 14, 2025 at 5:32 AM
Reposted by John O’Donoghue
radiodeadair.com
Deep Blue is 30 years old and was capable of defeating chess grand champions. It could be housed in a single cabinet.

ChatGPT spans untold data centers devouring massive amounts of electricity and it got its ass whipped by an 8 bit gaming console from the 1970s.
ChatGPT Lost a Chess Game to an Atari 2600
And on the 'Beginner' difficulty level, too.
www.extremetech.com
June 11, 2025 at 12:29 AM
Reposted by John O’Donoghue
rsc-eic.bsky.social
Our colleague, and Onscreen Chemistry author, @drjohnodonoghue.bsky.social‬ spoke to the @chemistryworld.com‬ team about his book. Watch the webinar: www.chemistryworld.com/webinars/ons...

And read more on Breaking Bad in your May print issue of EiC and at: edu.rsc.org/analysis/the...
May 23, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Reposted by John O’Donoghue
emilynordmann.bsky.social
Very pleased to have this out in the wild now, @jillymackay.bsky.social, Hronska and I looked at how HE staff understand the terms blended, hybrid, and hyflex learning and whilst there is relative consensus regarding blended and hyflex (when known), the use of hybrid is a bit of a mess #AcademicSky
How do higher education staff understand the terms hybrid, hyflex and blended learning? Choice, modality and uncertainty Emily Nordmanna*, Barbora Hronskaa and Jill R.D. MacKayb aSchool of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland; bRoyal (Dick) Veterinary School, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland Received: 19 September 2024; Revised: 13 February 2025; Accepted: 31 March 2025; Published: 15 May 2025 Many universities implemented blended and hybrid delivery for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic, and as such, the use of terms that relate to various manifestations and implementations of blended learning has increased significantly by all higher education stakeholders. However, the meaning ascribed to these terms is often inconsistent and can lead to confusion, making it difficult to set expectations clearly for both staff and students. This study aimed to investigate how higher education staff understand and use these terms and to identify sources of confusion and barriers to adopting standardised definitions. We surveyed 152 higher education staff and asked them to provide definitions of each term as well as completing a categorisation task. An applied thematic analysis identified two factors that were present across definitions: choice (no choice, student choice and choice not specified) and modality (mixed but separate, dual delivery and mixed not otherwise specified). Our findings reveal significant discrepancies in understanding, particularly regarding hybrid learning, which was often conflated with other modalities and involved definitions where neither choice nor modality was clearly specified. Blended learning was most consistently defined and identified as involving separate online and in-person components with no student choice as to the modality in which they could engage with each component. Hyflex learning, despite being less familiar to many participants, was accurately associated with dual delivery and … Bar chart showing that you might as well be guessing when it comes to what people will say is hybrid
May 20, 2025 at 7:06 AM