Behind the Paper
The real stories behind the latest research papers, from conception to publication, the highs and the lows
Behind the Paper: How the Red Sea dried up and flooded back
The Red Sea underwent complete desiccation prior to the Messinian Salinity Crisis, but this event ended rapidly about 6.2 million years ago as a result of a catastrophic flood from the Gulf of Aden according to an analysis of seismic data, biostratigraphy, and strontium isotope dating.
The South American Microbiome Archive
South America hosts some of the world’s most biodiverse gut microbiomes, yet remains largely understudied. We built the largest collection of South American gut microbiomes to better understand this diversity and guide future sampling efforts. See what we found and why it matters.
When the Wrong AI Gets Called “Bullshit”
A provocative paper claimed “ChatGPT is Bullshit,” applying Frankfurt’s philosophy to AI. But the more I examined the evidence, the more I realised the critique fit another model entirely — DeepSeek. This post shares how I challenged the argument and reframed the debate.
