The number of papers indexed in the databases Scopus and Web of Science, for example, has recently been increasing exponentially, at a rate of 5.6 percent per year. By one estimate, researchers around the globe are devoting a collective 15,000 years of work to peer review every year—work that, if paid, would cost $1.5 billion for the share done in the US alone. Increasingly, researchers are finding it hard to donate that kind of time.

We hear a lot about echo chambers, usually as something being done to us. Facebook, LinkedIn, and other platforms learn what we like, then give us more of it. Before long, the algorithm has surrounded us with people who see the world pretty much the way we do.

But that's only half the story.

We help.

In the five years since the Taliban’s return to power, the walls have been closing in on the women and girls of Afghanistan.

As the regime has tightened its grip, it has banned girls from education after the age of 12, ejected many women from the workplace and created legal frameworks for child marriage and husbands beating their wives. Taliban rule has ushered in a new era of women being whipped for minor infractions and constant inspections by ‘vice and morality’ officials, with men compelled to become enforcers in their own homes. Even the borders of the online world have been creeping inward, with a new spate of smartphone bans and internet restrictions.

Marking the grim anniversary, a dozen women and girls have, at great risk to their safety, documented their lives for the world to see

https://archive.is/20260811131012/https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/i-love-disgusting-how-peter-mandelsons-secret-history-brought-chaos-to-downing-street

Edward Jeep had been carrying his Canadian passport for barely a month when the government told him it was no longer valid.

The fifty-five-year-old Washington, DC–based US military retiree was travelling in Europe. He had flown from Cardiff to Amsterdam and entered the Schengen Area using the Canadian passport issued to him in May. While he was abroad, two messages arrived from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. The first, on June 13, said IRCC had placed the proof of citizenship issued to him under review and required him to surrender his certificate. A week later, another notice said his passport had been revoked and had to be returned within fifteen days.

Professional Biologist, author and educator Lorne Fitch, shares a disturbing list of reasons Albertans should be concerned about the state of conservation in Alberta.

The current troubling state of affairs is the result of the policies and attitudes of both the United Conservative Party (UCP) provincial government and the Liberal federal government in Ottawa under the leadership of Mark Carney. How many reasons are there for citizens to be concerned about the pathway of conservation in Alberta? Fitch provides a list of 20.

Some of the white quartz were foraged nearby but most came from a bag of rocks for tumbling. This is after stage 1 of tumbling.

Amazon’s campaign to prevent a first collective agreement at its only unionized Canadian warehouse just suffered another legal defeat.

On August 4, the British Columbia Labour Relations Board (BCLRB) ordered that bargaining between Amazon Canada and Unifor Local 114 must be resolved through binding first-contract arbitration, accepting a mediator’s conclusion that the company, not the union, was responsible for the breakdown in negotiations. The Board also stripped Amazon of its right to lock out workers, rejecting the company’s argument that forcing arbitration would violate its Charter rights.