The Conversation

What’s the difference between a state broadcaster and a public broadcaster? The dispute over the close relationship between the BBC chairman, Richard Sharp and the former prime minister Boris Johnson, has seen some people – including on one occasion a BBC presenter – refer to it as a “state broadcaster”.Continue Reading

What effect will lunar new year have on COVID spread in China? Our modelling shows most people have already been infected

China stuck rigidly to a zero-COVID policy until December 2022. This included travel restrictions, mass testing and mandatory quarantines. The rapid lifting of this strategy led to a surge of COVID infections across the country. There have been concerns that the Chinese lunar new year travel in January may causeContinue Reading

ChatGPT: our study shows AI can produce academic papers good enough for journals – just as some ban it

shutterstock Some of the world’s biggest academic journal publishers have banned or curbed their authors from using the advanced chatbot, ChatGPT. Because the bot uses information from the internet to produce highly readable answers to questions, the publishers are worried that inaccurate or plagiarised work could enter the pages ofContinue Reading

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday urged people with weak immune systems to take extra precautions to avoid Covid after the dominant omicron subvariants knocked out a key antibody treatment. These precautions include wearing a high quality mask and social distancing when it’s not possible to avoidContinue Reading

Gandhi's image is under scrutiny 75 years after his assassination – but his protest principles are being revived

Harshit Srivastava S3/Shutterstock Mohandas Karamchand “Mahatma” Gandhi remains, even 75 years after his assassination, a useful symbol for many in India. For secularists, the leader of the country’s independence movement represents an imagined India of the past. For the current government, he is a means by which it can softenContinue Reading