Good morning. In this edition:

• 🧪 Science journals’ growing legitimacy issue
• 🤖 OpenAI launches GPT-5
• 📝 Ultraprocessed foods data

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~3.73-minute read (992 words).

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"Success is built sequentially. It's one thing at a time."

–Gary W. Keller (b.1957)

The rate of fraud in scientific publishers is growing at an alarming pace, with sophisticated underground networks working to infiltrate top journals and publish fake papers, according to a new investigation.

By the numbers: The rate of fake papers generated by these operators roughly doubled every 1.5 years between 2016 and 2020, according to a study published this week in PNAS (that hopefully isn’t also fake). That’s significantly faster than the increase of scientific papers overall, which is doubling every ~15 years.

• The biggest example of mass research fraud occurred at academic publisher Wiley. Last year, it pulled 11,000+ papers and closed 19 journals after discovering many studies were generated by paper mills—factories for fabricated research featuring ghostwriters, complicit editors, and algorithmic nonsense.

Junk science, straight from the mill

How does a fake paper slip through peer review? Here’s the typical blueprint:

• A researcher pays for authorship—sometimes on a paper they never saw
• The study, often AI-generated, is filled with technical-sounding gibberish
• Key terms are distorted to dodge plagiarism detection (e.g., “bosom peril” instead of “breast cancer”)
• It’s submitted to journals where high volume can sometimes mean low scrutiny

Many experts say mass research fraud is a logical outcome of the current scientific publishing system, where researchers worldwide are often required to publish regularly in peer-reviewed journals to win grants or earn promotions. This constant pressure has contributed to a “publish or perish” environment, in which some scientists are motivated to cheat the system.

What’s at stake: Research fraud poses a growing threat to the legitimacy of the ~$30 billion/year academic publishing industry. “The entire structure of science could collapse if this is left unaddressed,” said PNAS study author Luis Amaral of Northwestern University.

📊 Flash poll: How would you best describe your personal confidence in the scientific community?

• A great deal of trust
• An average amount of trust
• Little or no trust
• Unsure/other

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BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📊 Higher US tariffs on 60+ countries and the EU officially take effect. | Toyota beats analysts’ expectations for revenue, but misses on earnings; slashes operating income forecast by $4+ billion “due to the impact of US tariffs and other factors.”
• 💵 President Trump nominates economic advisor Stephen Miran to serve on the Fed’s Board of Governors through January 2026; will replace Adriana Kugler, who resigned from her term early. | 401(k)’s going private; Trump signs executive order to allow alternative assets like private equity, crypto, and real estate into 401(k)s.
• 📉 Intel shares close down after Trump calls for CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign over China ties. | Eli Lilly shares fall ~14% following worse-than-expected trial data for new obesity pill.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with Modern Adventure

• 🙏 Kelley Mack, the actress best known for playing Addy in The Walking Dead, passes away at 33.
• 🏹 Hunger Games, Beast mode? MrBeast confirms he’s considering a new Hunger Games-like show with fake weapons and a million-dollar prize.
• 🏀 Green Dildo Coin, a crypto meme group, claims it’s behind the recent string of dildos being thrown onto court at WNBA games.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🤖 OpenAI launches GPT-5, its latest and most advanced AI model, for all ChatGPT users (free or paid); tech giant says new model is “a lot more useful,” particularly for writing, coding, and health care. | Google launches new AI coding agent named Jules.
• ⚛️ “Super alcohol” molecule once thought too unstable to exist created by University of Hawaii scientists in extreme, space-like conditions; discovery could reshape how scientists think about chemistry in space.
• 🧠 Lithium occurs naturally in the human brain, shields it from degeneration, and helps maintain normal function, first-of-its-kind study shows; replenishing the brain’s lithium supply appears to reverse memory loss and neurological signs of Alzheimer's.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

in partnership with PensionBee

• 🚨 FBI approves Senate Republican’s request to help track down Texas Democratic lawmakers who fled the state to block redistricting legislation; it’s unclear what steps the FBI can legally take.
• 🌍 Israel is taking over the entire Gaza Strip, per President Benjamin Netanyahu; he also said Gaza will eventually be transferred to “Arab forces that will govern it properly,” while Israel will retain a security perimeter.
• 🏛️ President Trump orders Commerce Dept. to begin work on a new US census that excludes immigrants who entered the US illegally; SCOTUS previously blocked Trump’s effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. | Federal judge orders temporary halt to construction at “Alligator Alcatraz,” an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, over potential environmental violations.

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☝️DuckDuckGo: 82,000 rubber duckies hit the Chicago River yesterday for the city’s 20th annual Ducky Derby, with each $10 “adopted” duck racing for a shot at glory and prizes. The event raised $600,000+ for Special Olympics Illinois.

🤔 Did You Know? Helicopters can trigger lightning strikes. While flying, they build up a negative charge, and if they pass near a positively charged cloud they can spark a bolt—even in calm skies.

📰 Worth a Read: Earth’s core appears to be leaking up and out of Earth’s surface

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Here are five stats from this past week that made our team go “whoa.” Hopefully you will, too.

🤖 OpenAI reached an agreement to offer the enterprise version of ChatGPT to US federal agencies at a cost of $1/agency for the next year.

🍿 By the end of this summer, Hollywood will have released eight sequels over the past two years of movies more than a decade old.

🍪 Ultraprocessed foods accounted for 55% of the calories Americans aged 1+ consumed from August 2021–August 2023, per new CDC research.

⛰️ Students at Seoul National University in South Korea can receive $540 in scholarship money if they climb six mountains by year’s end—or $216 if they climb three.

🎓 1 in 2 Americans who attended college think their major didn’t prepare them for the “job market,” but just 1 in 6 say they regret going to college, per a Preply study.

 🧼✨ At Rising Tide Car Wash, a team of mostly neurodivergent employees is scrubbing away stereotypes—and delivering top-tier service while they’re at it.

💊 Pill-ow talk: The world is potentially one step closer to male birth control with no side effects.

🏈 History lesson: With one colossal mistake, the NCAA lost control of college football.

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*A message from our partners

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☝️ Recipe #1: Chicken alfredo rice casserole

✌️ Recipe #2: Pumpkin sausage pancakes

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Pineapple coconut dream cake

+Clue for the Games newsletter: Today’s Conjoiner sequence isn’t uptight. In fact, it’s insane in the membrane.

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