Latest news with #UniversityofTübingen
Arabian Business
13-07-2025
- Science
- Arabian Business
Ancient 200,000-year-old UAE site joins UNESCO World Heritage List
The UAE marked a milestone in heritage preservation as the UNESCO World Heritage Committee officially inscribed Sharjah's Faya Palaeolandscape on the World Heritage List. Recognised under the Cultural Landscape category, Faya was the only Arab site added this year and the second from the UAE after Al Ain's cultural sites were inscribed in 2011. Located in Sharjah's central region, Faya Palaeolandscape holds one of the world's oldest and most continuous records of early human habitation in arid environments, dating back more than 200,000 years. Faya Palaeolandscape in the UAE It is the first desert Paleolithic site on the World Heritage List, offering invaluable insight into human evolution and prehistoric life in Southeast Arabia. This inscription affirms the UAE's and Sharjah's global standing in heritage protection and acknowledges over three decades of archaeological research led by the Sharjah Archaeology Authority in collaboration with institutions such as the University of Tübingen and Oxford Brookes University. The site has yielded 18 archaeological layers, providing critical evidence of human settlement in desert environments. Sharjah formally submitted the nomination in February 2024 following 12 years of dossier preparation. Faya's inclusion came after a rigorous evaluation based on UNESCO's standards of Outstanding Universal Value. The achievement reflects Sharjah's long-standing vision to integrate heritage, education and sustainable development, in line with the commitment of Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah. Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi, official ambassador of the nomination file, expressed gratitude to the World Heritage Committee for recognising Faya's significance. She said the inscription affirms Sharjah's role in early human history and highlights the Arabian Peninsula's position in the story of human migration from Africa. She said: 'The stone tools found at Faya are testimony to the ingenuity of our ancestors and the deep roots of cultural tradition in our region. 'We remain fully committed to protecting this site and ensuring its legacy continues to inspire future generations.' Eisa Yousif, Director-General of the Sharjah Archaeology Authority, said the inscription reflects shared ownership of world heritage. 'Faya now belongs to all peoples of the world, just as it did over 200,000 years ago,' he said, noting that this milestone represents the culmination of scientific research, cultural preservation and international cooperation. The UAE and Sharjah have adopted a comprehensive conservation plan for 2024–2030 to protect Faya's universal value, with a continued focus on research, education and sustainable tourism. For more than a decade, Faya has also been a key site in UNESCO's Human Evolution, Adaptations, Dispersals and Social Developments (HEADS) Programme, alongside world-renowned locations such as Klasies River Caves and Wonderwerk Cave. Faya's inscription brings the total number of World Heritage sites to 1,226 across 168 countries, including 955 cultural, 231 natural and 40 mixed sites. The Arab region now hosts 96 such sites across 18 countries.
Dubai Eye
11-07-2025
- Science
- Dubai Eye
UNESCO inscribes Sharjah's Faya to World Heritage List
The UAE is marking a major milestone in heritage preservation, with the UNESCO officially adding Sharjah's Faya Palaeolandscape to the World Heritage List. It's the first desert Paleolithic site ever inscribed and only the second UAE site to receive this global recognition, following Al Ain's cultural sites in 2011. Located in Sharjah's central region, Faya offers one of the oldest records of human life in arid environments—dating back over 200,000 years. The site was recognised under the Cultural Landscape category and stands as the only Arab site added this year. The inscription follows over three decades of archaeological research led by the Sharjah Archaeology Authority, in collaboration with institutions such as the University of Tübingen and Oxford Brookes University. Officials say the site's stone tools and 18 archaeological layers provide critical insight into early human migration and adaptation. Sharjah formally submitted the nomination in February 2024 following 12 years of dossier preparation. Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi, ambassador of the nomination file, said the recognition highlights Sharjah's role in human history and the region's deep cultural roots. The UAE and Sharjah have adopted a comprehensive conservation plan for 2024–2030 to protect Faya's universal value, with a continued focus on research, education and sustainable tourism. Faya's inscription brings the total number of World Heritage sites to 1,226 across 168 countries, including 955 cultural, 231 natural and 40 mixed sites. The Arab region now hosts 96 such sites across 18 countries.
TAG 91.1
11-07-2025
- Science
- TAG 91.1
UNESCO inscribes Sharjah's Faya to World Heritage List
The UAE is marking a major milestone in heritage preservation, with the UNESCO officially adding Sharjah's Faya Palaeolandscape to the World Heritage List. It's the first desert Paleolithic site ever inscribed and only the second UAE site to receive this global recognition, following Al Ain's cultural sites in 2011. Located in Sharjah's central region, Faya offers one of the oldest records of human life in arid environments—dating back over 200,000 years. The site was recognised under the Cultural Landscape category and stands as the only Arab site added this year. The inscription follows over three decades of archaeological research led by the Sharjah Archaeology Authority, in collaboration with institutions such as the University of Tübingen and Oxford Brookes University. Officials say the site's stone tools and 18 archaeological layers provide critical insight into early human migration and adaptation. Sharjah formally submitted the nomination in February 2024 following 12 years of dossier preparation. Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi, ambassador of the nomination file, said the recognition highlights Sharjah's role in human history and the region's deep cultural roots. The UAE and Sharjah have adopted a comprehensive conservation plan for 2024–2030 to protect Faya's universal value, with a continued focus on research, education and sustainable tourism. Faya's inscription brings the total number of World Heritage sites to 1,226 across 168 countries, including 955 cultural, 231 natural and 40 mixed sites. The Arab region now hosts 96 such sites across 18 countries.
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
People are starting to sound like AI, research shows
Artificial intelligence chatbots have largely been 'trained' by being fed reams of information from the internet, some of it the outcome of years of hard work by some of the world's leading doers and thinkers. But now it seems that it is people - including university lecturers and others described as intellectuals - who are being trained by AI, even if unwittingly. A team of researchers based at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Human Development have analysed over a million recent academic talks and podcast episodes, finding what they described as a "measurable" and "abrupt" increase in the use of words that are "preferentially generated" by ChatGPT. The team claimed their work provides "the first large-scale empirical evidence that AI-driven language shifts are propagating beyond written text into spontaneous spoken communication." After sifting through 360,000 YouTube broadcasts and twice as many podcasts, the researchers found that since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, speakers have become increasingly inclined to pepper their broadcasts with words that the chatbot uses regularly, such as delve, comprehend, boast, swift and meticulous. The team's research suggests that AI's "linguistic influence" is spreading beyond academia, science and technology, where early use of large language models was more common, to education and business. Not only is the shift detectable in the "scripted or formal speech" heard in lectures posted on YouTube, but it can also be found in more "conversational" or off-the-cuff podcasting, according to the team, which warned that the machines' growing influence could erode "linguistic and cultural diversity." In similar findings released in Science Advances, an "extensive word analysis" of medical research papers published between 2010 and 2024 showed "an abrupt increase in the frequency of certain style words" after AI tools were made widely available. Last year, according to the research led by Germany's University of Tübingen, "at least 13.5%" of biomedical papers bore the hallmarks of being "processed by LLMs."
New Indian Express
04-07-2025
- Health
- New Indian Express
Study estimates 13 per cent of biomedical abstracts published in 2024 involved use of AI
NEW DELHI: At least 13 per cent of research abstracts published in 2024 could have taken help from a large language model, as they included more of 'style' words seen to be favoured by these AI systems, suggests an analysis of more than 15 million biomedical papers published from 2010 to 2024. Powered by artificial intelligence, large language models are trained on vast amounts of text and can, therefore, respond to human requests in the natural language. Researchers from the University of Tübingen, Germany, said the AI models have caused a drastic shift in the vocabulary used in academic writing, with speculation about their influence in scientific writing being common. The study, published in the journal Science, revealed the emergence of large language models has sparked an increase in the usage of certain "stylistic words", including 'delves', 'showcasing', 'underscores', 'potential', 'findings' and 'critical'. The authors explained that the shift in words used during 2023-2024 were not "content-related nouns", rather style-affecting verbs and adjectives that large language models prefer. For the analysis, the researchers used a public health approach, common during the COVID-19 pandemic, for estimating excess deaths. The method involves comparing deaths during the pandemic with those before to assess the impact of COVID-19 on death rates. The approach modified for this analysis was termed as an "excess word" framework by researchers. The findings show an "unprecedented impact" of AI models on scientific writing in biomedical research, "surpassing the effect of major world events such as the COVID-19 pandemic". "We study vocabulary changes in more than 15 million biomedical abstracts from 2010 to 2024 indexed by PubMed and show how the appearance of (large language models) led to an abrupt increase in the frequency of certain style words," the authors wrote.
