Validating predictions with ranger insights to enhance anti-poaching patrol strategies in protected areas This is an idea proposed in 2025 as a good starter project, and is currently being worked on by Hannah McLoone. It is co-supervised with Charles Emogor and Rob Fletcher. Biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate, underscoring the critical role of protected areas (PAs) in conserving threatened species and ecosystems.

Mapping urban and rural British hedgehogs This is an idea proposed in 2025 as a good starter project, and is currently being worked on by Gabriel Mahler. It is co-supervised with Silviu Petrovan. The National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme aims to provide robust population estimates for the beloved hedgehog. The People's Trust for Endangered Species has been coordinating the programme.

ZFS replication strategies with encryption This is an idea proposed in 2025 as a good starter project, and is currently being worked on by Becky Terefe-Zenebe. It is co-supervised with Mark Elvers. We are using ZFS in much of our Planetary Computing infrastructure due to its ease of remote replication. Therefore, its performance characteristics when used as a local filesystem are particularly interesting.

I made my first podcast appearance on the Foresight Institute’s podcast! The episode turned out to be a phenomenal one-hour summary of the most important ideas FreakTakes has covered. YouTube and Spotify embeddings are below.

Data Sustainability In the rapidly evolving landscape of bioinformatics, research data is the bedrock of discovery, innovation, and progress. But how secure is this foundation for the future?

Appalachian History Series Introduction On the fog‑soaked morning of May 14 1892, rifle‑shots rang out atop Pound Gap on the Kentucky–Virginia line. Within minutes five members of moonshiner Ira “Bad Ira” Mullins’s caravan lay dead, another gravely wounded, and the gunmen slipped into the hardwood forest.

May was a busy month for me in terms of output. [Article] Comparative review of Primo Research Assistant, Scopus AI and Web of Science Research Output First, I had two pieces of work published in the Katina Magazine that I am quite proud of. First, a comparative review of Primo Research Assistant, Scopus AI, and Web of Science Research Assistant—written by yours truly—was published.

If I were to write Chip War for biotech, this is how I would start the book

by Kimberly Lifton Medieval vernaculars are notoriously tricky for digital humanists to work with because they lack standardized spelling. Especially when using out-of-the-box libraries and software, most Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques simply do not work well for medieval languages. However, word-to-vector models have the capacity to handle noise like spelling variants when trained on a significant number of words.

AI and involution

By Kim Hartley & Michelle Barker May 2025 The Research Software Alliance (ReSA) is delighted to welcome the Research Data Alliance (RDA) as our latest Organisational Member, further deepening the longstanding, collaborative relationship between our two organisations. Over the years, ReSA and RDA have built a strong foundation of joint initiatives that advance the global research ecosystem.