ScienceCast and bioRxiv Join Forces to Improve Accessibility of Scientific Research Through Advanced AI Tools

November, 8th, 2023 — In an exciting partnership designed to bridge the gap between complex scientific information and a broad readership, ScienceCast and bioRxiv are proud to announce a collaborative initiative that redefines how scientific papers are consumed and understood by different audiences. 

The collaboration uses an innovative application of ScienceCast’s AI technology to generate nuanced summaries of scientific studies posted on bioRxiv. The revolutionary aspect is the production of three distinct summaries tailored to different levels of expertise: one for scientific peers and experts in the field, one for researchers from other domains, and a more simplified version for the lay public. These summaries offer comprehensive insights into the research drawn directly from entire papers—not just the abstracts.

Further enhancing accessibility and reflecting evolving consumption preferences, ScienceCast will also produce audio versions of these summaries. These will be available on ScienceCast's digital platform, sciencecast.org, allowing users to engage with the content on-the-go, making scientific knowledge more accessible than ever before.

“Scientists are writing papers at an unprecedented rate. For instance, there are half-million papers on COVID-19 that would take an individual approximately 150 years to read,” said Victor Galitski, the CTO of ScienceCast. “Clearly new models of disseminating, refereeing and consuming research are needed.”

“Our partnership with bioRxiv marks the beginning of this journey as a part of the Open Science Movement. The new tool, developed by the ScienceCast team in collaboration with AI expert Yacine Brahimi, will not only make information more accessible, it will also tailor it to the needs of specific readers, including science reporters, educators, policymakers, health professionals, and students.”

The current release is just the first step. ScienceCast plans to use AI to make scientific information ‘interactive’. One of the most anticipated developments is a tool that permits users to interact with the papers dynamically and 'question' the document directly. The AI will use data and inferences from the paper to provide immediate answers and build ontology and knowledge graphs linking seemingly unrelated scientific data.

“AI has the potential to make a huge impact on scholarly communication, and it is particularly good at summarizing complex scientific information”, said co-founder of bioRxiv Richard Sever. “We’re delighted to partner with ScienceCast to provide summaries of bioRxiv papers appropriate for different levels of reader expertise.”

“ScienceCast’s new approach to discoverability and accessibility using generative AI is an exciting development, and we are delighted to see an arXiv Labs member provide enhanced interoperability with bioRxiv and connect the science ecosystem”, said arXiv Scientific Director Steinn Sigurðsson. 

The collaboration represents a significant stride towards inclusivity and accessibility in the scientific community, providing various audiences with the tools they need to engage with and understand complex research better. As science continues to advance, partnerships like this ensure that knowledge dissemination evolves in tandem, reaching more curious minds wherever they are. For additional information, future updates, and to experience this revolutionary approach to scientific literature, visit http://sciencecast.org or http://biorxiv.org.


Innovating Science Communication: The Future of Science Publishing Unfolds with ScienceCast and ElevenLabs

Imagine a world where the vast amount of scientific research data becomes more easily digestible using innovative software tools. Where every professional and academic, irrespective of their expertise or field of study, can more easily access, understand, and apply the latest research findings. We are happy to announce a revolutionary collaboration between ScienceCast and ElevenLabs which promotes that iterative process improvement in scientific research.

As the world's leading Text-to-Speech (TTS) technology company, ElevenLabs has a well-earned reputation for driving innovation. Their unique AI models can convert text into lifelike speech, breaking down the barriers of complexity and comprehension in text-based communication. And now, this groundbreaking technology is about to transform the science publishing landscape, thanks to a strategic partnership with ScienceCast.

ScienceCast, a member of arXiv Labs (the collaboration space for arXiv.org), an innovator in a modern science publishing industry awash with increasing amounts of researchable digital data sets, is keen to partner with Eleven Labs to make scientific research and its supporting data more accessible.  ScienceCast intends to use  ElevenLabs' unparalleled TTS technology to summarize research on its podcast channels, to promote these summaries across social media communities and to promote more broad engagement of scientists on its online platform. 

The Power of AI & TTS

ElevenLabs' AI-driven TTS technology can read text with an understanding and expressiveness that rivals the human voice itself. With this technology, scientific publications can be delivered as engaging audio content, redefining the way professionals and academics consume research. It's no longer about laboriously scanning through pages of dense texts and complicated jargon - it's about sitting back, listening, and absorbing the knowledge.

With a dedication to accuracy and naturalness, ElevenLabs' technology breathes life into scientific literature. Every word is understood and spoken as intended, making it easy to grasp complex topics and theories. The possibilities are endless, and the implications are profound.

Taking Science Publishing into the 21st Century

By harnessing the power of ElevenLabs' AI and TTS tools, ScienceCast is pushing the boundaries of traditional science publishing. The goal is to create an inclusive, accessible, and efficient medium for the consumption of scientific literature, breaking the confines of traditional print and digital publishing.
ScienceCast's platform, coupled with ElevenLabs' TTS technology, offers researchers a novel way to disseminate their findings, while providing consumers with a more convenient, engaging, and time-efficient method of digesting this content. This opens up a world of opportunities for both professionals needing to keep up with the latest developments in their field and academics hoping to impart their knowledge and inspire the next generation of innovators.

The impact of this partnership is sure to echo throughout the scientific community. The power of advanced AI and TTS is about to revolutionize the accessibility and utility of scientific literature, making ScienceCast and ElevenLabs trailblazers in the new era of science collaboration.In summary, the union of ScienceCast's mission to use innovative software tools to promote scientific discovery and ElevenLabs' unrivaled TTS technology paints a promising picture of the future - one where scientific literature is no longer a dense, impenetrable wall of text but an engaging and accessible audio-visual journey. This partnership paves the way towards a future where the constant advancements in science are at everyone's fingertips, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in science collaboration.


The Formation of ScienceCast Board of Advisors

We are pleased to announce the formation of a Board of Advisors to assist us with strategic planning.  These Advisors include:

Richard Sever who is assistant director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and cofounder of the preprint servers bioRxiv and medRxiv. He also serves as executive editor for the Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives and Cold Spring Harbor Protocols journals and launched the precision medicine journal Cold Spring Harbor Molecular Case Studies. Previously he worked as an editor at Current Opinion in Cell Biology, Trends in Biochemical Sciences, and Journal of Cell Science. Richard received a degree in biochemistry from Oxford University and a PhD in molecular biology from Cambridge University.

Arsalan Farooq is a Product Leader - Cloud Application Platforms at Google.  He has a deep understanding of the technology landscape, from storage, databases and networking to public and hybrid cloud, microservices and cloud-native architectures.  He combines product vision, deep technical expertise, strategic thinking and focused execution to build innovative products. He has a particular talent for spotting trends early, then driving technology and product strategy to capture whitespace.  He holds a degree in computer science from CalTech and a degree in theoretical physics from Reed College.  He has participated as an investor, advisor and manager of many tech start-ups and serves as a Startup Advisor/Mentor for Alchemist Accelerator in San Francisco, Ca.

Charles Clark is a Fellow and former Co-Director of the Joint Quantum Institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland.  Dr. Clark has held a variety of technical and management positions at NIST and the Office of Naval Research, and received the Presidential Rank Award of Distinguished Executive. He has held visiting positions at the University of Oxford, Australian National University, National University of Singapore and University of Malaya. With our lead co-founder, Dr. Victor Galitski, he co-designed and taught "Exploring Quantum Physics" on the Coursera platform. Clark designed and teaches "Quantum Boot Camp," the introductory course of the University of Maryland Quantum Information Specialization. Dr. Clark is  a Co-Investigator on a recent proposal by ScienceCast to NSF entitled “Proto-OKN Theme 1: Quantum Understanding through Accessible Resource Knowledge Graphs (QUARK).

About.  At ScienceCast, we are building an online community where researchers can use innovative software tools to openly publish, collaborate on, search and find, evaluate and manage pertinent research using presentations presented in alternative formats, such as video and audio summaries.  We  encourage you to register at our website at www.sciencecast.org.

New arXivLabs collaboration links researchers’ videos on ScienceCast.org to their arXiv papers

The latest arXivLabs collaboration with the open access science community links arXiv articles to content published by authors at ScienceCast.org. ScienceCast provides a website where researchers can create explainer videos in a collaborative space and receive feedback on their work from other researchers through blog posts and chat functions. The platform also provides the ability for users to post datasets supporting the researcher’s work so that the work can be verified by reference to its data.

Readers can find ScienceCast content on arXiv.org by clicking on the “Code, Data, Media” tab on an article’s abstract page and then activating ScienceCast. Authors can use the ScienceCast.org website to create their supplementary content and link it to their papers.

“This collaborative effort will enable new researchers to reach a wider audience and garner feedback from a sophisticated community of scientists and academics,” said ScienceCast co-founder Andrew Jiranek, adding that researchers can use video presentations to support their job searches.

Like all arXivLabs projects, the ScienceCast integration is a community-built tool that extends the functionality of arXiv. Learn more about arXivLabs here: https://labs.arxiv.org/

From the arXiv abstract page, readers can find ScienceCast content by clicking the “Code, Data, Media” tab and activating the ScienceCast feature.



When the ScienceCast feature is activated on the arXiv abstract page, a preview and link to the video appear.