Liz Renner
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lrrenner.bsky.social
Liz Renner
@lrrenner.bsky.social
330 followers 590 following 370 posts
Academic; cats, culture, child development, cultural evolution, social learning; she/her #BiInSci
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lrrenner.bsky.social
The UK could be mopping *up* right now (in a hypothetical world in which it was much less dysfunctional - sorry not sorry)
November 12, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
psych.peercommunityin.org
PCI Psychology is open for submissions! Did you know that you can easily submit your recommended preprint to any of the 20+ PCI Psych friendly journals? See all friendly journals here: psych.peercommunityin.org/about/pci_fr...
#PsychSciSky #SciPub
November 11, 2025 at 9:46 PM
lrrenner.bsky.social
LOVING that the Employer's storage system is on the fritz during the MOST IMPORTANT and STRESSFUL teaching week of the semester. I am going to have an aneurysm
November 10, 2025 at 6:18 PM
lrrenner.bsky.social
sweet sphynx grooming
A sphynx cat (on the left) licks another cat's face (on the right); she has her eye closed. They are both wrapped in a red blanket.
November 9, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
iwriteok.bsky.social
if you are the public defense investigator who just subpoenaed Sam Altman on stage know that i love you and think you are a wonder upon this earth.
November 7, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
jeffreymphd.bsky.social
Her sister wrote my favorite essay about her. She points out that RF would have been famous even if she'd never looked at DNA

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
Remembering my sister Rosalind Franklin
Rosalind Franklin died of ovarian cancer in 1958 aged 37 years. Sympathy and feminism have combined to give us her familiar image as a downtrodden woman scientist, brilliant but neglected, a heroine t...
www.thelancet.com
November 7, 2025 at 11:20 PM
lrrenner.bsky.social
Check in with your friends in higher education - they are not OK
lrrenner.bsky.social Liz Renner @lrrenner.bsky.social · 6d
In case you were wondering how things are going 😐
timeshighered.bsky.social Times Higher Education (THE) @timeshighered.bsky.social · 6d
Northumbria University attempts to move employees to cheaper pension scheme to bring down sky-high contribution rates
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/northumbria-freeze-staff-pay-if-they-refuse-switch-pensions
November 7, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
rebeccasear.bsky.social
"Heckenberger relied on the Kuikuro to guide him to the ancient earthworks—which they already knew about—and help him dig and map them. “We built a relationship of trust,” he recalls. “They taught me about their culture, and I taught them how to do archaeology.”" www.science.org/content/arti...
To unearth their past, Amazonian people turn to ‘a language white men understand’
A model partnership between archaeologists and the Kuikuro people has helped rewrite the history of early Amazonian societies
www.science.org
November 7, 2025 at 8:01 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
disabilitystor1.bsky.social
1.This is not the only known example we know of ChatGPT cheering on a vulnerable young person to die by suicide, this time it is a recent Texas A&M grad
2. Every single university that has invited OpenAI into our midst should be asked to account for their choices.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
Shamblin’s conversation partner wasn’t a classmate or friend – it was ChatGPT, the world’s most popular AI chatbot. A CNN review of nearly 70 pages of chats between Shamblin and the AI tool in the hours before his July 25 suicide, as well as excerpts from thousands more pages in the months leading up to that night, found that the chatbot repeatedly encouraged the young man as he discussed ending his life – right up to his last moments.
November 7, 2025 at 1:50 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
ucunorthumbria.bsky.social
Put more accurately - it is pension cuts or pay cuts. That's the 'choice'.
timeshighered.bsky.social Times Higher Education (THE) @timeshighered.bsky.social · 6d
Northumbria University attempts to move employees to cheaper pension scheme to bring down sky-high contribution rates
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/northumbria-freeze-staff-pay-if-they-refuse-switch-pensions
November 7, 2025 at 8:08 AM
lrrenner.bsky.social
In case you were wondering how things are going 😐
timeshighered.bsky.social Times Higher Education (THE) @timeshighered.bsky.social · 6d
Northumbria University attempts to move employees to cheaper pension scheme to bring down sky-high contribution rates
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/northumbria-freeze-staff-pay-if-they-refuse-switch-pensions
November 7, 2025 at 8:44 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
antiquity.ac.uk
NEW Were the Picts of northern Scotland wiped out by Viking conquest? New radiocarbon dates from the 1st millennium AD settlement of Buckquoy, Orkney paint a more complex picture of cultural interaction in the Northern Isles.

#AntiquityThread 1/15 🧵

@northernpicts.bsky.social🏺 #Archaeology
Double-sided comb made from bone.
November 7, 2025 at 8:13 AM
lrrenner.bsky.social
Normally I can push through and work under almost any circumstances. But today I'm frustrated about a lot of (work) things, and that is throwing me off balance. What a little thing to have such a weighty effect
November 6, 2025 at 9:38 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
rebeccasear.bsky.social
Evolutionary psychologists have long believed that men prefer physical traits in women which are cues to high potential fertility. A new review concludes: “current evidence base is too weak to support the claim that women’s feminine morphological traits are associated with reproductive potential”
A systematic review of the association between women’s morphological traits and fertility | Evolutionary Human Sciences | Cambridge Core
A systematic review of the association between women’s morphological traits and fertility
www.cambridge.org
November 5, 2025 at 9:02 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
dalupton.bsky.social
Our position statement rejecting the use of GenAI for reflexive qualitative research can be found here

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
<span>We reject the use of generative artificial intelligence for reflexive qualitative research</span>
We write as 416 experienced qualitative researchers from 38 countries, to reject the use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) applications for Big Q Qu
papers.ssrn.com
November 4, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
ubiquity75.xyz
Faculty are the primary stewards and enactors of the mission of research and teaching; knowledge creation and dissemination. The administration exists only in its capacity to forward that mission.
November 2, 2025 at 11:07 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
jedbrown.org
Publishing to arXiv, Zenodo, or similar with a Creative Commons license is insurance (and wholesome). Either the whole document or a report that at least contains relevant figures, etc. If forced to later sign a copyright assignment/exclusive license (can fight), the CC license remains irrevocable.
November 4, 2025 at 8:27 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
drnwillburger.bsky.social
A tiny but very charming #Etruscan amber pendant in the shape of a squatting #monkey, height 4.7 cm.
Found in Vetulonia, #Italy, dating late 8th/early 7th century BC.

Photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana

🏺 #archaeology
Small translucent amber figurine carved in the shape of a squatting monkey. The figure has a detailed face with expressive eyes and rests its chin on its hands, appearing thoughtful. It sits atop a rectangular platform supported by four rounded, balloon-like legs.
November 4, 2025 at 7:14 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
coreydanks.bsky.social
As holiday shopping season approaches, I'd like to remind everyone to shop small/local when you can. All of the large retailers are owned by rich dickheads—who sell garbage—while your local shops and artists make a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of that but have 1000x the heart
November 3, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
katjathieme.bsky.social
„This isn’t about machines becoming ‘generally intelligent‘—it’s about them being specifically and demonstrably better than humans at many of the cognitive tasks we’ve long considered the heart of scientific work.“

Which cognitive tasks?
Which tasks?
Which?
October 30, 2025 at 11:53 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
biotay.bsky.social
1/11 Play in cold-blooded animals

Review of evidence of play in fish, reptiles, and amphibians.
It is less common than in mammals, but it does exist.
Here are some examples and descriptions of how the authors explain it.

(paper) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-YtK3jIr6Y (paper) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149763423003974
November 3, 2025 at 7:48 PM
lrrenner.bsky.social
why cat love Q tip?
November 3, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
miriamposner.com
Cheating with an LLM is the easiest thing in the world for a student to do, but it creates a massive, laborious headache for a prof, if you intend to take it seriously. There’s meetings, emails, discussions, moral dilemmas. It’s just incredibly burdensome, on top of everything else right now.
corinnegressang.bsky.social Corinne Gressang @corinnegressang.bsky.social · 17d
I had 9 meetings about students using Chat GPT/LLMs on their papers today.

If you want to know why professors burn out, ask anyone trying to teach critical thinking and writing skills to Freshmen....
October 28, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
carlbergstrom.com
When the suspects appear to be white guys, it’s not a bombing — it’s an intentional explosion.
Explosion at Harvard Medical School NBC News 'Intentional' explosion at Harvard medical campus under investigation 1 day ago The New York Times 'Intentional' Explosion Took Place at Harvard Medical School, Officials Say 1 day ago ABC News Explosion at Harvard Medical School appears to have been intentional, authorities say. No on... 1 day ago The Guardian No one hurt after 'intentional' explosion at Harvard medical campus, officials say 17 hours ago
November 3, 2025 at 7:00 AM