Author: The Conversation

Over the past week, the US has realised and revealed that an active fleet of Chinese spy balloons has been operating across the northern hemisphere for several years. This all started to become apparent when a Chinese balloon, some 60 metres high and carrying a sensor payload of more than a tonne, was sighted by people in offices and homes in Billings, Montana. The white balloon, highlighted against a bright blue sky, was described as like a second moon. The saga continues to evolve. After the balloon was shot down off the South Carolina coast, three more objects were similarly engaged in northern Alaska, Canada’s Yukon…

Since the discovery of penicillin in the late 1920s, antibiotics have “revolutionized medicine and saved millions of lives.” Unfortunately, the effectiveness of antibiotics is now threatened by the increase of antibiotic-resistant bacteria globally. Antibiotic-resistant infections cause the deaths of up to 1.2 million people annually, making them one of the leading causes of death. There are several factors contributing to this crisis of resistance to antibiotics. These include overusing and misusing antibiotics in treatments. In addition, pharmaceutical companies are over-regulated and disincentivized from developing new drugs. The World Health Organization estimates that 10 million people will die from such infections by the year 2050. The…

The surgeon general is the “nation’s doctor” in the United States. They are tasked with giving Americans the “best scientific information” about their health. Late last month, the current US surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, warned 13 is too young to join social media. He said it poses a risk to young people’s “self-worth and their relationships”, adding: I, personally, based on the data I’ve seen, believe that 13 is too early […] the skewed and often distorted environment of social media often does a disservice to many of those children. Is 13 too young? What should parents think about when it comes…

A group of US scientists this week proposed an unorthodox scheme to combat global warming: creating large clouds of Moon dust in space to reflect sunlight and cool the Earth. In their plan, we would mine dust on the Moon and shoot it out towards the Sun. The dust would stay between the Sun and Earth for around a week, making sunlight around 2% dimmer at Earth’s surface, after which it would disperse and we would shoot out more dust. The proposal, which involves launching some 10 million tonnes of Moon dust into space each year, is in some ways ingenious –…

Humans are naturally afraid of the dark. We sometimes imagine monsters under the bed and walk faster down unlit streets at night. To conquer our fears, we may leave a night light on to scare away the monsters and a light over the porch to deter break-ins. Yet, in huddling for safety under our pools of light, we have lost our connection to the night sky. Star counts by public awareness campaign Globe at Night revealed that, between 2011 and 2022, the world’s night sky more than doubled in artificial brightness. Yet local interventions can create meaningful change. Light pollution is cutting us…

The buzz around artificial intelligence (AI) technologies like ChatGPT is palpable. People are both optimistic and frightened by the possibilities of these tools. Clearly, these technologies will change how people write. But in terms of what people write, these technologies seem to be embracing the status quo. In fact, the way these tools are currently built appears to homogenise writing – making everything sound the same. And writing that sounds the same is not just boring; it also perpetuates inequity. When writing tools prioritise one way of writing over another, they reinforce existing hierarchies that unfairly position Standard American English (SAE) and the Queen’s English over other languages…

Twitter is ending free access to its application programming interface, or API. An API serves as a software “middleman” allowing two applications to talk to each other. An API is an accessible way to collect and share data within and across organizations. For example, researchers at universities unaffiliated with Twitter can collect tweets and other data from Twitter through their API. Starting Feb. 9, 2023, those wanting access to Twitter’s API will have to pay. The company is looking for ways to increase revenue to reverse its financial slide, and Elon Musk claimed that the API has been abused by scammers. This cost is…

Today, if you want to find a good moving company, you might ask your favourite search engine – Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo perhaps – for some advice. After wading past half a page of adverts, you get a load of links to articles on moving companies. You click on one of the links and finally read about how to pick a good ’un. But not for much longer. In a major reveal this week, Google announced plans to add its latest AI chatbot, LaMDA, to the Google search engine. The chatbot has been called the “Bard”. I hope William Shakespeare’s descendants sue.…

ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. Within two months of its release it reached 100 million active users, making it the fastest-growing consumer application ever launched. Users are attracted to the tool’s advanced capabilities – and concerned by its potential to cause disruption in various sectors. A much less discussed implication is the privacy risks ChatGPT poses to each and every one of us. Just yesterday, Google unveiled its own conversational AI called Bard, and others will surely follow. Technology companies working on AI have well and truly entered an arms race. The problem is it’s fuelled by our personal data. Read more: Everyone’s having a field…

Scientists and government agencies have been worried about the space junk surrounding Earth for decades. But humanity’s starry ambitions are farther reaching than the space just around Earth. Ever since the 1960s with the launch of the Apollo program and the emergence of the space race between the U.S. and Soviet Union, people have been leaving trash around the Moon, too. Today, experts estimate that there are a few dozen pieces of space junk like spent rocket bodies, defunct satellites and mission-related debris orbiting in cislunar space – the space between Earth and the Moon and the area around the Moon. While…