universities

In March 2025, the University of Oxford announced a partnership with OpenAI to digitize public-domain books from the Bodleian Library. According to the announcement, the digitized works will become searchable and more widely accessible. The collaboration has drawn attention among librarians, researchers and open-access advocates discussing the role of AI companies in digitizing cultural heritage collections.

Norman Finkelstein, in an interview, takes issue with Harvard's antisemitism inquiry, which stated that Israeli Jewish students "don't feel wanted" on campus and that Harvard must be inclusive to correct for antisemitism. Finkelstein responds that he supports inclusivity but challenges the framing of the inquiry's findings. The remarks touch on the ongoing controversy over antisemitism, campus climate and the treatment of Jewish students at elite US universities.

University of Arizona researchers analysing satellite data report that the world's drylands are greening in increasingly extreme boom-and-bust cycles, with short pulses of vegetation growth followed by sharp crashes. The findings suggest that rising plant growth in arid regions masks growing instability, which could undermine assumptions about how dryland ecosystems will respond to climate change.

Discussion over a Medicare for All plan is picking up, with supporters arguing a single-payer system would guarantee universal health coverage and cut administrative costs, while critics warn of higher taxes and disruption to existing insurance. The debate reflects a long-running divide in US politics over how far government should go in reforming healthcare.

The University of Southern California has ended its practice of selling donated cadavers to the US Navy, which reportedly used them for training connected to the Israeli military. The decision follows scrutiny of the arrangement and its ethical implications regarding consent and the use of donated bodies. Critics had called the programme inappropriate, and the university's move is being discussed as part of wider debates over institutional ties to Israel's war effort.

Physicists report new evidence that gravity can collapse the dimensions of space, supporting the idea that gravity is holographic — that the universe's three-dimensional structure may be encoded on a lower-dimensional surface. Researchers stress the implications are not yet understood, and what this means for the nature of reality remains an open question driving discussion among cosmologists and science commentators.

The United Nations has declared September 29 as the International Day for Universal Access to Information. The designation gives global recognition to the right of the public to seek and receive information, including from governments and public bodies. Observers see it as a boost for transparency, press freedom and open-government efforts, and it is expected to be marked annually with events promoting access-to-information laws worldwide.

Officials say ROTC students subdued and killed a gunman at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. The account of students intervening to stop an armed person on campus has drawn widespread attention, with discussion focusing on the unusual role the cadets played and renewed questions about campus safety and how the incident unfolded.

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has set out a plan for universal free social care, urging the government to 'rip the plaster off' and confront the issue of how to fund and reform the system. The proposal would remove means-testing and charges for care, positioning Burnham as a voice for bolder reform in the Labour Party ahead of potential leadership discussion.

Eyal Weizman, professor of spatial and visual cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, and founder of the research agency Forensic Architecture, is taking part in a discussion about his book "Ungrounding: The Architecture of Genocide". The conversation covers his investigations into destruction in Gaza and the built environment's role in the Israel-Palestine conflict, drawing attention amid ongoing fighting.

Databricks has agreed to pay $22.8 million for naming rights to the University of California, Berkeley's football field, a landmark corporate deal for college sports. The data software company, founded by Berkeley alumni, is framing the investment as part of a broader push tied to its Bay Area roots, its growth ambitions, and its deepening relationship with the university's talent pipeline.

Researchers from Purdue University are travelling to a remote island group in the Pacific Ocean to investigate possible remnants of Amelia Earhart's aircraft. The aviator vanished during her 1937 attempt to fly around the world, and her disappearance remains one of aviation's great mysteries. The expedition has drawn attention as it could finally shed light on what happened to her plane.

Around 4,600 SEIU-represented staff at Oregon's seven public universities are preparing to walk off the job on Monday unless contract talks produce a deal. The threatened strike threatens disruption across the state's university campuses, affecting operations and services for students at the start of the week.

A study using artificial intelligence at the Large Hadron Collider challenges the theory that the universe has ten dimensions. The AI analysis of particle collision data casts doubt on predictions from string theory, which requires extra spatial dimensions beyond the four we observe. If confirmed, the findings would force physicists to rethink one of the leading candidate frameworks for unifying quantum mechanics and gravity.