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Paper Trail

Paper Trail

Written by: tell-tale
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About this listen

 Academic research papers and technical reports made accessible and engaging. Science
Episodes
  • The Math of a Failed Ban: Unpacking Australia's Social Media Experiment

    The Math of a Failed Ban: Unpacking Australia's Social Media Experiment
    May 8 2026
    This episode explores the counterproductive effects of government attempts to ban or control social media platforms, using Australia's "social media experiment" as a case study. Listeners will learn how such bans can inadvertently push users towards less regulated, more opaque corners of the internet, making content harder to monitor, and how quantitative analysis tracks these shifts and user circumvention methods like VPNs.
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    12 mins
  • The Algorithm’s News Diet: Why AI Trusts the Government but Falls for Repetition

    The Algorithm’s News Diet: Why AI Trusts the Government but Falls for Repetition
    May 1 2026
    This episode explores a new paper revealing two significant biases in AI systems when consuming news. It details how AI inherently trusts government sources more than traditional media and is highly susceptible to believing information simply because it's repeated often. Listeners will learn that these biases stem from statistical correlations in training data, not human-like trust, creating vulnerabilities in how AI processes information.
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    14 mins
  • The Mind at Work: Isolating the Cognitive Cost of Early Retirement

    The Mind at Work: Isolating the Cognitive Cost of Early Retirement
    May 1 2026
    This episode discusses research revealing that early retirement, particularly from cognitively demanding professions, can lead to a measurable decline in cognitive function, affecting areas like verbal fluency and memory. Listeners will learn how a "use it or lose it" principle applies to brain health, with the mental stimulation of work acting as a protective factor, and how a natural experiment demonstrated this causal link independently of other factors.
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    9 mins
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