ChatGPT has proven it can help students with their homework, but now it is helping teachers create those very courses, a computer science professor told Fox News. A scientific journal was forced to retract a paper it published last month after it was discovered the authors used the artificial intelligence application ChatGPT to write it. The paper, published Aug. 9 in the journal Physica Scripta, was an attempt to uncover new solutions to a complicated math equation, but included the phrase "Regenerate response" on the third page -- something one eagle-eyed reader recognized was the phrase of a button on ChatGPT, according to a report from Nature. The authors of the paper have since acknowledged they used ChatGPT to help write the manuscript, something that wasn't caught during two months of peer review after the paper was submitted in May. The revelation led the U.K.-based publisher to retract the paper because the authors did not disclose their use of the AI app when they submitted it.

The Papermill Alarm looks for similarities to text found in bogus papers.Credit: Raimund Koch/Getty A software tool that analyses the titles and abstracts of scientific papers and detects text similar to that found in bogus articles is gaining interest from publishers. The tool, called the Papermill Alarm, was developed by Adam Day, who is director of scholarly data-services company Clear Skies in London, UK. Day says he ran all the titles listed in citation database PubMed through the system, and found that 1% of currently listed papers contain text very similar to that of articles produced by paper mills -- companies or individuals that fabricate scientific manuscripts to order. The Papermill Alarm does not say definitively whether an article is fabricated, but flags those that are worthy of further investigation. Day says his analysis is not intended to estimate the scale of paper-milling among PubMed entries, because it can recognize only papers that are similar to those from known paper mills.

The practice of science involves trying to find things out about the world by using rigid logic and testing every assumption. Researchers then write up any important findings in papers and submit them for possible publication. After a peer-review process, in which other scientists check that the research is sound, journals publish papers for public consumption. You might therefore reasonably believe that published papers are quite reliable and meet high-quality standards. You might expect small mistakes that got overlooked during peer review, but no major blunders. You'd be wrong in expecting this, though.

During just its third day in action, a facial recognition system used by Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) caught its first imposter. While that's a clear win for proponents of the tech, it might also be major blow to the privacy of the average airline passenger. On Monday, 14 airports in the U.S. launched a pilot program to test the effectiveness of a biometric scanning system during the security and boarding processes. Passengers simply stand in front of a camera that takes their photo. The system then compares that photo to the one on the person's passport to confirm their identity.