13 March 2026

Summarize your research visually

Word cloud generators are always fun. This one creates a word cloud based on a Google Scholar profile.

Cloud of words in various colors and sizes based on a Google Scholar profile. Some of the largest words include crayfish sand crabs marmorkrebs decapoda digging new parthenogenetic procambarus benedicti lepidopa marbled north pet trade crab marble neurons albuneidae american crustacean decapod model academic america authorship clarkii coordination crayfi effects

That “maple leaf” is one of the shape options is one of my favourite things. Unsurprisingly, the author of this tool is Canadian. ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ

Another favourite thing is that it creates alt text for the image. Hooray for accessibility!

External links

Scholar Google 

11 March 2026

Grammarly’s identity theft

Grammarly is stealing the names of living scientists and science writers. It is using those names to sell “expert review” by generative AI, but without the input or even permission of the listed authors. And there isn’t an easy way to check if your name is being used this was. You more or less have to create a free account and poke around in it.

So far, Richard van Noorden has found in Grammarly’s system scientists and science writers like:

  • Ivan Oransky
  • Mary Roach
  • Rebecca Skloot
  • Ed Yong
  • Melinda Wenner Moyer
  • Deborah Blum
  • Michael E. Mann
  • Carl Zimmer
  • Maryn McKenna
  • Carl Bergstrom
  • Elisabeth Bik
  • Michael Eisen
  • Anna Abalkina

To name a few that might be familiar. 

Ingrid Burrington coined what might be the Word of the Year for 2026 for these: “sloppelganger.”

Grammarly has said that you can opt out of being listed as an “Expert reviewer” by emailing: expertoptout@superhuman.com.

If you have an online body of work of any size, I highly recommend you use that email.  

Update: Well, that was short-lived. Surekha Davies is reporting that Grammarly is deactivating the “Expert review” feature tomorrow (12 March 2026).

But they aren’t saying “This was wrong and we should not do this,” no. It’s only gone “while we reimagine how to make it more useful for customers and more respectful of the experts whose work it surfaces.”

I suspect this might be corporate speak for, “We are totally putting this back as soon as the legal department tells us how we can avoid the lawsuits.”

External links

Grammarly will keep using authors’ identities without permission unless they opt out