Daniel Aldrich

When DOGE Unleashed ChatGPT on the Humanities

A.I. was used to cancel most previously approved grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities as the agency embraced Trump’s agenda. The prompt was simple: “Does the following relate at all to D.E.I.?"
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/a...

Our new #article: The role of social infrastructure in community-based disaster resilience: A case study of the 2024 Noto earthquake
TL;DR: leveraged social networks, leadership, and knowledge to coordinate rescues, manage shelters, and maintain cohesion
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

AI agent broke out of lab to go learn how to mine cryptocurency
arxiv.org/abs/2512.24873

Anthropic just mapped out which jobs AI could potentially replace. A ‘Great Recession for white-collar workers’ is absolutely possible The red jobs are what AI is doing now, Anthropic says. The blue ones are what it's coming for next.

The most AI-exposed group is 16 percentage points more likely to be female, earns 47% more on average, and is four times as likely to hold a graduate degree compared to the least exposed group. That’s lawyers, financial analysts, and software developers finance.yahoo.com/news/anthrop...

Tokyo manners poster

Experts raise concerns about US officials' nuclear power plans: 'We're going to have to have some things figured out' Safety risks, though rare, remain a public concern.

U.S. nuclear projects cost roughly $15,000 per kilowatt, about five times as much as in cheaper build nations such as South Korea. That makes new plants among the priciest forms of energy infrastructure on the planet finance.yahoo.com/news/experts...

Humanity heating planet faster than ever before, study finds Researchers identify sharp rise to about 0.35C every decade, after excluding natural fluctuations such as El Niño

Global heating accelerated from a steady rate of less than 0.2C per decade between 1970 and 2015 to about 0.35C per decade over the past 10 years. This is the highest seen since they started systematically taking the Earth’s temperature in 1880
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Testing showing LLMs like Claude have demonstrated "remarkable capabilities and new risks for AI-assisted science"
github.com/malizad/SocS...

New #article from Fakioglu et al: Place attachment of earthquake victims residing in Antakya (Hatay) after the Kahramanmaraş earthquakes on February 6, 2023
TL;DR: Sustainability and place-protective behavior increased place attachment
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

New #article from Eninnaya et al: Examining quality information flow in rural communities during disasters: findings from leaders in emergency
TL;DR: credibility hinges less on message content alone than on trust, embeddedness, and transparency
www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.neu.edu/doi/full/10....

New #article from Tanaka et al: When Flood Warnings Fail: Psychological Predictors of Information Clarity and Evacuation Intention
TL;DR: limitations of one-size-fits-all communication strategies
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

SONA disaster museum and actual disaster operations center (currently in hibernation) in Tokyo

Disaster response starts with social capital

Google pledges roughly three hours of its annual profit to fight climate change Google and others are committing $100 million to combat climate change.

Much sacrifice: Google pledges roughly three hours of its annual profit to fight climate change www.engadget.com/big-tech/goo...

Looking forward to bumping into you

Tokyo wandering

Our new #article with Kyne and Kyei: Development and Diffusion of the Social Capital Index (SoCI)
TL;DR: SoCI complements existing indicators and deepens understanding of relational capacity, vulnerability, and resilience
www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/15...

Disaster planning and resilience frameworks have often prioritized the physical over the social. But the invisible networks of trust and connection that shape how communities respond, and recover have been overlooked. Our new framework elevates them.

www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Global sea levels have been underestimated due to poor modelling, research suggests Analysis shows average levels are 30cm higher than thought, and up to 150cm in south-east Asia and Indo-Pacific

Sea levels around the world have been underestimated, with ocean levels an average of 30cm higher than previously believed. In some areas of the south, including SW Asia and the Indo-Pacific, they may be 100-150cm higher than previously thought.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

TerraPower gets OK to start construction of its first nuclear plant Plant won't be done until 2030 at the earliest, and it still needs an operating license.

New risks: US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued its first construction approval in nearly a decade allowing TerraPower to begin work on a site in Kemmerer, Wyoming. This new reactor is sodium-cooled and incorporates energy storage as part of its design arstechnica.com/science/2026...

Japan eyes remote Pacific island for nuclear waste TOKYO: Japan is looking into using a remote deserted Pacific island nearly 2,000km from Tokyo as a site for burying nuclear waste, officials said.Nuclear power is making a comeback worldwide, but find...

A house with no bathrooms: Japan is looking into using a remote deserted Pacific island nearly 2,000km from Tokyo as a site for burying nuclear waste some 15 years after #Fukushima www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/ja...

Faced with rising electricity prices, Americans are stealthily adding DIY solar systems. And they aren’t telling utilities | CNN Balcony solar can be installed almost anywhere, is cheap, easy to set up and reduces bills. It’s increasingly appealing to Americans struggling with soaring energy costs, but it exists in a legal gray...

Chan is one of a growing number of Americans turning to plug-in solar — also called “balcony solar” as it’s often slung over balconies — to help bring down soaring energy bills. www.cnn.com/clean-energy...

The yoghurt delivery women combatting loneliness in Japan As loneliness deepens in one of the world's fastest-ageing nations, a network of women delivering probiotic milk drinks has become a vital source of routine, connection and care.

Social capital through commerce? The yoghurt delivery women combatting loneliness in Japan share.google/Mel75Bg3La8X...

‘Nazi heaven’: Inside Miami campus Republicans’ racist group chat The chat is the subject of a Florida International University police investigation.

Nazi heaven: secretary of Miami-Dade County’s Republican Party started a chat for conservative students. Within 3 weeks it was filled with racist slurs, dozens of ways for violently killing Black people, and slurs for gay people and Jews
www.miamiherald.com/news/politic...

New #article from Turmel lessard and Morin : Losing your home after major flooding in Quebec: A look at how men adapt

TL;DR: people postponed their retirement or used savings set aside for it, reused goods, established relationships with their new neighbors

www.erudit.org/en/journals/...

New #article from Bayoulou et al: Social perceptions of gender-based violence among displaced communities in Burkina Faso and their interactions with protection systems
TL;DR: gender-based violence is embedded in social norms and structural inequalities
www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8...

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The train has left the station: Agentic AI and the future of social science research | Brookings A new era of agentic AI agents has begun. What does it mean for social scientists? Solomon Messing and Joshua Tucker discuss.

Worth the read: The train has left the station: Agentic AI and the future of social science research www.brookings.edu/articles/the...

Goldman finds ‘no meaningful relationship between AI and productivity at the economy-wide level,’ but a 30% boost for 2 specific use cases | Fortune Have you got “AI-nxiety?” Goldman took a closer look at the last earnings season and found a mismatch between hype and reality.

AI hype: Two primary areas are driving these substantial gains: Customer support and software development.
In these targeted functions, the technology is already delivering on its transformative promises, significantly streamlining core business operations fortune.com/2026/03/03/g...

Meet three scientists who said no to Epstein The warning signs included a web search, a mother’s doubts, and inklings of a “sexist attitude”

Many of the scientists Epstein courted were already well-established and well-funded. So why didn’t they all just say no? Science talked with three who did just that. Here’s how Epstein approached them, and why they refused to have anything to do with him. www.science.org/content/arti...