Dog that hunts invasive'sea vomit' honoured as animal of the year A working dog from the Scottish Highlands has been named animal of the year by a charity for hunting down an invasive marine creature called the carpet sea squirt. This organism, also nicknamed sea vomit, is particularly harmful to coastal wildlife and economies. Working at low tide with her owner, Dr Texa Sim, black labrador Sgiath has found hundreds of colonies of the sea squirt, which - if left uncontrolled - can smother and kill native species. Sgiath is thought to be the UK's first sea squirt-hunting dog. She's a natural says Dr Sim proudly.

A conference just ended, so it's that time of year! Here are some papers I liked with the usual caveats about recall. Before I go to the list, let me say that I really really enjoyed ACL this year. I was completely on the fence about going, and basically decided to go only because of giving a talk at Repl4NLP, and wanted to attend the business meeting for the discussion of diversity in the ACL community, led by Joakim Nivre with an amazing report that he, Lyn Walker, Yejin Choi and Min-Yen Kan put together. All in all, I'm supremely glad I decided to go: it was probably my favorite conference in recent memory.