Author: The Conversation

One of the world’s most popular social media platforms, TikTok, is now host to a steady stream of deepfake videos. Deepfakes are videos in which a subject’s face or body has been digitally altered to make them look like someone else – usually a famous person. One notable example is the @deeptomcriuse TikTok account, which has posted dozens of deepfake videos impersonating Tom Cruise, and attracted some 3.6 million followers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyiOVUbsPcM Deepfakes gained a lot of media attention last year, with videos impersonating Hollywood actor Tom Cruise going viral. In another example, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to be confessing to conspiratorial data…

Earlier this month, the Internet Archive asked a US court to end a lawsuit filed against it by four large book publishers. The Internet Archive is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 1996 that lends digital copies of books, music, movies and other digitised content to the public. It aims to support people with print disabilities, preserve digital content for future generations and democratise access to knowledge. The publishers say the Internet Archive’s digital lending practices amount to wilful copyright infringement. Authors have also complained the site hosts pirated content. The Internet Archive says it is behaving like an ordinary library, as it only loans digital copies of physical books…

The COVID-19 pandemic placed enormous pressure on education systems worldwide. At the peak of the crisis, school closures forced over 1.6 billion learners out of classrooms. This exacerbated a learning crisis that existed before the pandemic, with many children in school but learning very little. Widespread school closures are not unique to COVID-19. Teacher strikes, natural disasters, other disease outbreaks and extreme weather conditions all result in lengthy school closures. The cost of school closures has proved to be substantial, in particular for lower socioeconomic status households. When schools are closed, remote learning is rarely as effective as in-school instruction, and caregivers become the front-line educators.…

The ingredients for life are spread throughout the universe. While Earth is the only known place in the universe with life, detecting life beyond Earth is a major goal of modern astronomy and planetary science. We are two scientists who study exoplanets and astrobiology. Thanks in large part to next-generation telescopes like James Webb, researchers like us will soon be able to measure the chemical makeup of atmospheres of planets around other stars. The hope is that one or more of these planets will have a chemical signature of life. Habitable exoplanets Life might exist in the solar system where there is liquid water – like the subsurface aquifers on Mars…

The use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) for environmental education is controversial. Some are concerned that these technologies might replace or disrupt outdoor experiences that can connect students to nature and develop pro-environmental behaviours. However, learning through technology and being outdoors aren’t mutually exclusive. When VR and AR are used effectively they can support and enhance environmental education while contributing to students’ positive well-being. Access and connection to nature Many nature locations are inaccessible to students due to distance, safety concerns, economic barriers or ability. Access to ecologically sensitive areas like coral reefs or wetlands is limited in order to preserve them. VR can provide an alternative way…

Biology is rich in patterns. You’ll find them everywhere – from the number of petals on a flower (which generally correspond to a number in the Fibonacci sequence), to the number of vertebrae in mammals (giraffes, humans and quokkas all have seven neck vertebrae). Even many viruses follow patterns and have symmetry in their shells. Mathematics is, at its core, the science of patterns. Patterns can be subtle. So without using maths to formally describe and understand them, we could miss them completely. For a long time, biological research had largely progressed without the advanced mathematical modelling that has now…

In many busy households around the world, it’s not uncommon for children to shout out directives to Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa. They may make a game out of asking the voice-activated personal assistant (VAPA) what time it is, or requesting a popular song. While this may seem like a mundane part of domestic life, there is much more going on. The VAPAs are continuously listening, recording and processing acoustic happenings in a process that has been dubbed “eavesmining,” a portmanteau of eavesdropping and datamining. This raises significant concerns pertaining to issues of privacy and surveillance, as well as discrimination, as the…

Uber has had a controversial history since its founding in 2009, from violent conflicts among drivers to a secret software allegedly used to evade law enforcement. Now, a leak of over 124,000 documents dubbed the Uber files shows the extent to which the firm under co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick capitalised on that chaos to expand across 40 countries. My research explores the relationship between Uber and the state. The company’s strategy to grow at all costs has been uneven, shaped and slowed by varying regulations in different markets. In recent years, Uber appears to have toned down its approach and stop some of the more…

Whether to spend money on outer space exploration or to apply it to solve serious problems on Earth, like climate change and food shortages, is a contentious debate. But one argument in favour of space exploration highlights benefits that do, in fact, help study, monitor and address serious concerns like climate change and food production. As access to space increases, the potential for terrestrial benefits directly tied to space exploration grow exponentially. For example, agriculture has been improved significantly through the application of space-based advances to terrestrial challenges. It is now increasingly likely that food items have been produced with…

South Africa’s power utility, Eskom, has not been able to provide a steady electricity supply for several years now. At the start of the 2022 winter the utility warned the public to expect up to 100 days with rolling power outages. At the end of June there was at times a 6,000 MW shortfall in electricity supply, which corresponds to about 20% of the evening peak demand. While there is consensus that new electricity generating plants are urgently needed to minimise power outages, there are radically differing views on how this is best achieved. The official electricity plan approved three years ago is already out…