Tag: Science Communication

Something big is happening in the global scientific community, and Brazil seems to be left out again

Illustration of a black-and-white toy robot sitting on a red wooden table indoors, with the focus on the object and a blurred background.

This text discusses a shift currently taking place in global scientific research driven by coding agents, and how Brazil appears, once again, to be on the sidelines of this development. Available only in Portuguese.

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“Zombie” and “ghost” references in AI – how they differ and how they arise

A photograph of a person standing behind a fogged-up, condensation-covered window, with their hand resting on the surface.

Two distinct types. One type is “ghost citations” (reference hallucinations), one of the most curious and frustrating phenomena in generative AI. Basically, the AI invents an author, a book title, or a web link that appears entirely legitimate but does not exist in the real world. The other, “zombie citations,” arise because they perpetuate references to real authors who were retracted [whether deleted or not] from the original databases, and due to shortcomings in programs like Google Scholar, they continue to be cited. Available only in Spanish. Read More →

Diogenes’ lantern and the researcher’s self-examination: scientific integrity under pressure

A photograph of a hand holding a lit flashlight against a forest backdrop in daylight.

Using the metaphor of Diogenes’ lantern, Ricardo Limongi and Marcio Pimenta discuss contemporary scientific practice. More than merely offering a critique, the image of the lantern invites a deeper reflection: how to turn the light inward, engaging in self-examination, ethical responsibility, and integrity while confronting a context that is often unfavorable to researchers in Brazil. Read More →

SciELO and Crossref are joining forces to spotlight the Brazilian open research community next March

Crossref Logo

After hearing strong interest from the community in the region during the first Crossref Metadata Sprint, we wanted to bring the opportunity to participate and co-create directly to Latin America. Brazil’s rich experience as a leader in open research sharing offers a unique groundwork for the success of the event, happening in São Paulo, from March 4-6, 2026. Read More →

Scientific Integrity in the Age of AI and the challenges of transparency: Fraud, manipulation, and the new transparency challenges

Digital image of blue light beams.

Artificial intelligence radically transforms the challenges of scientific integrity. From paper mills to automated fraud generation, we face a crisis that requires new forms of transparency, detection and governance to preserve trust in science—combining technology, institutional reforms and international cooperation. Read More →

Ofelia Sepúlveda and the library as an extension of our minds

Photograph of a person studying among the shelves of a library.

Ofelia Sepúlveda passed away in Santiago, Chile, on November 17, at the age of 95. Of Chilean origin, Ofelia Antonia Sepúlveda Contreras became closely connected to Brazil over her 25 years living there as an international staff member of PAHO/WHO, working at BIREME, where she coordinated the Network of Health Sciences Libraries and Documentation Centers and, later, the Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Information System, one of the center’s key functions. Read More →

Bad science—what’s next?

Photograph of a glass beaker cracked due to exposure to ethanol

The dissemination of dubious quality research is a problem that is increasingly worrying scientific journals editors. The various cases during the covid-19 pandemic have put the problem on everyone’s radar. The need to discuss this issue is becoming more and more pressing. Read More →

AI chatbots and the simulation of dialog: what does Bakhtinian theory have to say?

Digital image of text message conversation balloons on a translucent background that simulates a smartphone screen

Proposal of a model for the discursive analysis of interactions with AI chatbots in the light of Bakhtinian concepts in which a controlled polyphony is observed, where all voices are reconciled in a “simulated dialog” that can impoverish critical thinking. We advocate the urgency of AI literacy development considering its ideological, political, and educational implications. Read More →

International Metrics Make Latin American Urban Journals Invisible

Graph assembled by the authors showing a comparative overview between countries and indexing data for Brazilian and Latin American scientific journals classified as A1/A2/A3/A4/B1 in the 2013-2016 quadrennium and in Qualis Único.

Study shows how global scientific evaluation criteria put urban journals from the Global South at a disavantage, reinforcing epistemic inequality in the production and circulation of knowledge. As an alternative, databases such as SciELO and Redalyc have proven to be auspicious in increasing the visibility and recognition of local scientific production. Read More →

Art as a Vehicle and Jerzy Grotowski’s Investigations Beyond the 20th Century

Photograph of Jerzy Grotowski, a white man with medium-length white hair, beard and moustache

Dossier on director Jerzy Grotowski highlights the relevance of his theatrical practices and cross-cultural approaches, featuring articles that revisit his legacy to propose new perspectives for contemporary theatrical art. Read More →

Metamorphosis, friction or symbiosis between body and animated forms in the work of Ilka Schönbein

Black and white photograph of Ilka Schönbein's show “Métamorphoses”, in which dolls and puppets with a slightly macabre appearance stand above a wooden platform, being manipulated by the artist.

The works of puppeteer and dancer Ilka Schönbein challenge perceptions of life and death, provoking reflections on eroticism and finitude. Her creations reveal a poetic singularity that provokes disquieting strangeness in the relationship between the human and the animate. Read More →

Presence as a field of research in the performing arts

A dark multi-level stage with reflections and abstract and colorful geometric patterns inspired by nature projected onto the surfaces.

Throughout its work, the Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença has given visibility to various themes in the performing arts, focusing on the concept of presence. We present articles that discuss this subject in dialogue with philosophy and media arts, going beyond the hic et nunc of the stage event. Read More →

Performing Arts research highlighted on the blog “SciELO in Perspective”

Photomontage of four issues of the “Brazilian Journal of Presence Studies”, showing different covers with different themes and people. In the center, there is a vertical column with three stylized “P*” logos; the logos at the ends are black, while the central logo is white.

The Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença Special Week, taking place this week, will explore themes such as the notion of presence, methodological diversity, and social issues in Performing Arts research. The program includes analyses, discussions and a detailed overview of the journal’s social impact, highlighting its importance and activities within the scope of Open Science. Read More →

An Analysis of the Epistemological Foundations of Machine Learning

Photograph of a robotic hand and a human hand reaching towards each other against a plain background, nearly touching fingertips.

Outlined here is a critical review of the logical-epistemic foundations of machine learning, focusing on the limitation of AI systems’ autonomy in generating knowledge. It contrasts this possibility with the theoretical constraints posed by Chaitin’s incompleteness theorem, which argues that AI cannot surpass human cognitive capacity. Read More →

How to translate academic writing into podcasts using generative AI [Originally published in the LSE Impact blog in June/2024]

Image of a work of art made up of several lilac letters in a formation that looks like a cloud, generated by Google DeepMind

One of the benefits of generative AI is the ability to transform one media from text, to speech, to imagery to video. In this post Andy Tattersall explores one aspect of this ability, by transforming his archive written blogposts into a podcast format, Talking Threads, and discusses why and how this could be beneficial for research communication. Read More →