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Frank Swain

@frank-swain.bsky.social
275 followers 134 following 768 posts

Freelance science writer | frankswain.com

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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 3h
my friend was quite excited to see tomatoes growing wild on the river bank near my house. I explained why it meant we probably shouldn't go swimming there...
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 14h
@alomshaha.bsky.social Sorry to be the nth person to ask you this, but: I have a 13 year old nephew with an interest in science. Any tips for a birthday gift? He has a digital microscope he likes (surprisingly powerful, though it saves images to an SD card, which may as well be a stone tablet)
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 15h
This isn’t even all the emergency alerts I’ve received this week #climatecrisis
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Prof Bill McGuire @profbillmcguire.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Mind-boggling - just mind-boggling Now expected to peak at an extraordinary 4.2C in December
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
every time I learn something new about LLMs it boggles me. What do you mean you make models smaller by deleting weights at random and seeing if it still works? like engineering better fighter jets by machine gunning them and seeing if they still fly
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It’s funny because שִׁבֹּלֶת even *looks* like a captcha
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Great work here by @issielapowsky.bsky.social teasing apart the various use cases that often get bundled as "writing", and what benefits and drawbacks AIgen brings to them www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Using AI to Write at Work Is Basically Fine — Unless You’re a Writer
Most publishers draw the line at using artificial intelligence to write copy. Those in other fields have accepted it as the default setting for written communication.
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It's likely we're already past peak utility for AI-powered web search. The corpus is going to become more and more polluted with AI-generated slop until Chat is eating its own excretions and vomiting them back into your mouth, like some demented bird www.techpolicy.press/millions-of-...
techpolicy.press
Millions of Volunteers Are Keeping the Internet Human. For Now.
We’re never going back to the human internet we had. But we can hope for a better internet than the AI-dominated one that is emerging, writes Sarah Gilbert.
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This might be a dumb question, but are there these AI discoveries "million monkeys" approaches that grind through all the possibilities to find a solution? (ie is this an achievement of maths, or scale?)
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Emily Gorcenski @emily.gorcen.ski · 28/09/2026
Here’s the most incredible story you’ll read today. A small plane with four people aboard crashes in a field. Another pilot witnesses it. That pilot happens to be flying a bunch of skydivers. They offer to jump to assist, are given permission. The skydivers happen to be EMTs. Everyone survives.
wisn.com
Skydivers alert emergency crews, assist after plane crashes near East Troy airport
Four people were aboard the single-engine plane when it went down in a cornfield near Carvers School Road in East Troy at about 1:30 p.m.
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I wanted to know if Europe's wildfire line is moving northward. So I did what anyone would and mapped thousands of burn scars. If you now live in one of the red cells, your chance of being within 25km of a wildfire next year is 50% (based on rolling 10 year average).
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
a strange and beautiful visitor to my house last night …
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Great job going here www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/44...
linkedin.com
New Scientist hiring Deputy News Editor in London Area, United Kingdom | LinkedIn
Posted 11:04:52 AM. Location: New Scientist Headquarters, HSK, London, W8 5HYContract Type: Full Time/Permanent/Hybrid…See this and similar jobs on LinkedIn.
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A great essay on what AI is, and is for. "Modern AI products are not scientific achievements, they are, at best, engineering ones if not purely infrastructural ones" www.possibilityspace.org/blog/posts/i...
possibilityspace.org
Possibility Space
Why I Love AI
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
the only acceptable kind of doomscrolling www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Watch scientists decipher burnt scrolls without unrolling them
By making and burning their own papyrus, researchers have come up with a method that might help to read glowing text from unopened scrolls from Herculaneum.
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Jérôme OLLIER @jeromeollier.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Dramatic gannet dive wins Bird Photographer of the Year competition - @sparkes.bsky.social @newscientist.com www.newscientist.com/article/2589...
newscientist.com
Dramatic gannet dive wins Bird Photographer of the Year competition | New Scientist
Henley Spiers took the top award in the annual contest, with shots of guillemots, penguins and a protective tawny frogmouth also in the running for the prize
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
There’s a huge question unanswered in this article - /why/ does Meta ban ads on ‘social issues’ ? www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
Meta bans ads for Virginia Woolf play in Spain because they relate to feminism
Theatre told that Facebook and Instagram filter out ads mentioning ‘social topics’ such as civil rights or feminism
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Keep thinking about how being physically strong was seen as inherently virtuous when work meant manual labour, right up to the point machines took over (RIP John Henry). Now we have a knowledge economy, and many people who believe intelligence is a virtue, but the machines are coming for that too.
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Laura Howes @laurahowes.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I get a sneak peek at the votes coming in, but I have to say I was not expecting the non-zero number of people currently voting for David MacMillan to get a 2nd #ChemNobel.
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
20 years ago my dad had to buy a hearing aid programmer on the Chinese black market just to tune his devices properly. Now here I am in 2026 having to do the exact same thing. The tech has advanced, accessibility has not. 😑
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Wow, this is the second case I’ve seen this week of someone impersonating a science journalist 😬
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
A weird thing about this obsession with AI "superintelligence" that's smarter than humans is... we already have that? It's called society? I suspect that tools to foster empathy (eg group identity) and collaboration (eg mass literacy) have much greater ability to generate intelligence than AI
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The bad news: a new invasive species is spreading across the UK The good news: it's delicious Great reporting from Joni Wildman: www.newscientist.com/article/2516...
newscientist.com
Are mushroom-growing kits seeding a biodiversity crisis across Europe? | New Scientist
What began as a seemingly harmless and delicious hobby may have released an invasive species across the continent. Experts fear that these desirable fungi, now classed in the UK as "high risk", could ...
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Simon Fisher @profsimonfisher.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
A decade ago, a “weird” kitten was found on a road near a Bolivian forest. Too small to be a housecat, he had a scrunched-up face, short round ears, long whiskers, & a coat of leopard-like spots. DNA analysis now reveals him as the very first of a newly discovered species & I think I'm in love. 😻🧬🧪👇
nationalgeographic.com
Meet the First New Cat Species Discovered in 100 Years
A small, spotted tiger cat from Bolivia may just be the beginning of a wave of new small cat species.
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dame @dame.is · 17/09/2026
the leap from traditional software development to agentic software development is like when digital photography overtook film you can now make SO much software so easily (even non-developers) like how anyone can take infinite photos without having to consider restraints of film (cost, time, skill)
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Animal biologists: what is the mechanism by which animals “mate for life”? ie Do they decide every day that their partner is the fittest? Or is there some familiarity factor that grows over time? (if so: how is this encoded?)
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Also worth mentioning that the AI companies are (quite effectively so far) framing the public/regulator's concept of "AI risks" in very narrow technical terms (computer did X) rather than societal impact. Like Philip Morris defining risks of smoking as "sometimes the ember falls off the cigarette"
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Mixed feelings about this, not least because 'fast fashion' is defined as any clothing on sale/discount(??), + bundled with vaguely-defined "high carbon" products. Hard to see how any positive impact would be measured. OTOH, I hate ads. www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
Bristol becomes first UK city to ban Black Friday adverts
New rules prohibits the promotion of flights, cars and travel agents on council-owned billboards.
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Instead of wasting your attention on the fever dreams of AI doomers, we can talk about the genuine threats of the tech: such as the psychological impact of chatbots, and the people trying to measure this effect, so we can push for safer and more humane models: open.spotify.com/episode/4dcY...
open.spotify.com
We Measure What AI Can Do. We Should Measure What It Does to Us.
Your Undivided Attention · Episode
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
ok listen maybe the AI engineers quitting in protest are onto something but also maybe they are essentially these people www.devonlive.com/news/devon-n...
devonlive.com
Pensioners attack traffic lights over wild 'deadly weapon' claims
An online movement say that the sensors on traffic lights can cause heart attacks, brain cancer, anxiety and even sudden death
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
There's a move common to pieces like this that needs unpacking. The author explains their high p(doom) and says something like "this might sound like crazy sci-fi, but we all talk about it really seriously". This is not persuasive! All of these people are cooking their brains in the same juice!
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Dr Dean Burnett @drdeanburnett.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Aa it's #nationalsuicidepreventionmonth , I've seen that clip of Jimmy Carr's take on suicide going around. Even if 100% well intended, it reveals a profound misunderstanding of #mentalhealth and suicidal intentions that could genuinely endanger vulnerable people. #TW
instagram.com
Dean Burnett on Instagram: "Because it's #nationalsuicidepreventionmonth , I've seen that clip of Jimmy Carr offering his take on suicide that's doing the rounds. But even if it's 100% well intended, the attitude and 'insights' it offers reveal a profound misunderstanding and/or ignorance of #mentalhealth and suicidal intentions, in ways that could genuinely cause substantial harm to vulnerable people. #media #TW #psychology"
18 likes, 6 comments - drdeanburnett on September 14, 2026: "Because it's #nationalsuicidepreventionmonth , I've seen that clip of Jimmy Carr offering his take on suicide that's doing the rounds. But even if it's 100% well intended, the attitude and 'insights' it offers reveal a profound misunderstanding and/or ignorance of #mentalhealth and suicidal intentions, in ways that could genuinely cause substantial harm to vulnerable people. #media #TW #psychology".
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The great thing about AI is how much it’s accelerating my dumb over-ambitious ideas. Abandoned projects on my desktop are increasing exponentially. I learn and forget new softwares daily. I am nested comfortably in the broken flotsam of my mad dreams. There is no NDRI powerful enough to stop me.
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Fun fact: next August you can watch an eclipse from Eclipse Bay in Diego Garcia
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Something that's been on my mind: as the web transforms from pages you visit to something an AI summarises for you, what does it mean to be a journalist? How is essential knowledge recorded and provided to society? frankswainwasalreadytaken.substack.com/p/what-is-th...
frankswainwasalreadytaken.substack.com
What is the role of the journalist in the age of AI?
Agentic search is intercepting readers before they make it to the news page. How does the mass media perform its democratic function without mass or media?
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Pwnallthethings @pwnallthethings.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
This is a good example of how you need quite a lot of detail of how these systems *actually* work to understand what the risks are, and how over-indexing on sci-fi can lead you a bit astray on what the future looks like
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I see guys saying stuff like “AI must be stopped because something more powerful than us could take control of the world and work against our best interests!” And I mean, congrats on discovering structural inequality my dude? Go speak to your local feminist to learn what you can do about it
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
watching: The AI Doc, a talented filmmaker delivers something that’s light on facts and heavy on opinions, albeit from an impressive roster of the most important voices in AI [plus Yuval Noah Harari, for some reason] youtube.com/watch?v=Hp2h...
youtube.com
THE AI DOC: OR HOW I BECAME AN APOCALOPTIMIST | Official Trailer (2026) 4K
YouTube video by JoBlo Movie Network
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
"ADDLED" would be a really good title for a book chronicling the author's struggles with attention deficit disorder, you can have that for free
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
"This is a powder in a vial with a molecular formula, not a drug" is such a excellent distillation of a very common issue among codebro-types: confusing the ability to define a problem with actually having a solution to that problem.
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Hmmm
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Climate crisis vignette: everyone here in Barcelona (my friends, the delivery guy, the receptionist at the dentist) is _buzzing_ because today's temperature is not expected to exceed 30 °C, for the first time in about three months.
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
A great example of how AI is reshaping the web: there was a lot of concern that genAI would allow people to mass produce news/social posts as a misinformation tactic. But this is based on the idea of the web being a big library of documents, where a shared reality emerges from the aggregate of
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Matthew Sparkes @sparkes.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
After months of covering AI making mathematical breakthroughs I had a little experience of my own. I set ChatGPT on an esoteric dice problem that some humans had just made a big discovery on, and it found a solution to a slightly larger version of the problem. www.newscientist.com/article/2587...
newscientist.com
I made a free AI chatbot solve a decade-long maths problem in 13 minutes | New Scientist
After months covering the shocking rise of AI mathematics, reporter Matthew Sparkes decided to put a free chatbot to the test – and was shocked at the speed at which it solved an outstanding problem
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
There Is No Antimemetics Division (2025)
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
now trending: Covid-19, for some reason
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
why am I reading this transcript in the "how is babby formed?" voice?
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
"Geoffroi is not a real person. But his life story is created from the statistical reality of the Paris Basin in 1624 CE." Argh that is not how statistics work! You can't turn an omelette back into eggs! 😖
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Frank Swain @frank-swain.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
What’s the world coming to if we can’t trust opinion pieces by hedge fund billionaires?
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