Author: The Conversation

When considering human settlements on the Moon, Mars and further afield, much attention is given to the travel times, food and radiation risk. We’ll undoubtedly face a harsh environment in deep space and some thinkers have been pointing to genome editing as a way to ensure that humans can tolerate the severe conditions as they venture further into the solar system. In January, I was fortunate to attend a much-anticipated debate between astronomer royal Lord Martin Rees and Mars exploration advocate Dr Robert Zubrin. The event at the British Interplanetary Society took on the topic of whether the exploration of Mars should be human or…

NASA’s missions are some of the most technologically advanced and critically important endeavours. From the Mars Rover explorations to the Artemis missions to the Moon, the space agency’s projects push the boundaries of science and technology. However, these missions are also prime targets for cyber-attacks. In a bold move to counter the escalating threat of these attacks, US congressmen Maxwell Alejandro Frost and Don Beyer have proposed the Spacecraft Cybersecurity Act. If passed, the legislation would mandate the US space agency NASA to overhaul the way it procures and builds its spacecraft. It would have to incorporate rigorous cybersecurity measures from…

The 2024 Summer Olympics, kicking off in Paris on July 26, will be novel for more than just the first inclusion of breakdancing. The event will also be the first instalment of the quadrennial sportsfest since the International Olympic Committee (IOC) unveiled its Olympic AI Agenda. You might be wondering why the Olympics – founded in 1896 in imitation of the famous athletic contest of ancient Greece – needs an “AI agenda”. What can computers do to help the human body’s quest to reach higher, faster and stronger? The answer, according to the IOC, is quite a lot. The committee’s far-reaching…

A major IT outage has hit businesses across the world, grounding planes as well as affecting banks and the healthcare sector. George Kurtz, CEO of IT security firm Crowdstrike, said it had traced the issue to a “defect found in a single content update” for the security software it provides for the Microsoft Windows operating system on computers. Microsoft said the issue was caused by an “update from a third-party software platform” and that the “underlying cause” had now been fixed. The Conversation’s Paul Rincon spoke to Professor Alan Woodward, an expert in cybersecurity at the University of Surrey, about what went wrong…

Astronauts often report that the joy of eating is lost in space. Food that tastes fabulous on Earth may become bland and boring in orbit. In fact, despite carefully designed diets, space travellers often struggle to eat enough to meet their energy needs. What’s going on here? We carried out some experiments on Earth to find out, using virtual reality (VR) and a simulated spacecraft environment to study how space travel might affect a person’s sense of smell and experience of food. We discovered that some smells seem much more intense in a space-like environment – and earlier theories about how zero…

Bewilderingly rapid changes are happening in the technology and reach of computer systems. There are exciting advances in artificial intelligence, in the masses of tiny interconnected devices we call the “Internet of Things” and in wireless connectivity. Unfortunately, these improvements bring potential dangers as well as benefits. To get a safe future we need to anticipate what might happen in computing and address it early. So, what do experts think will happen, and what might we do to prevent major problems? To answer that question, Our research team from universities in Lancaster and Manchester turned to the science of looking into the…

Black holes are remarkable astronomical objects with gravity so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape them. The most gigantic ones, known as “supermassive” black holes, can weigh millions to billions times the mass of the Sun. These giants usually live in the centres of galaxies. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, contains a supermassive black hole in its heart as well. So, how do these supermassive black holes become super massive? To answer this question, our team of astrophysicists looked back in time across the universe’s 13.8 billion-year history to track how supermassive black holes have grown from the early days to today. We constructed a…

A massive IT outage is currently affecting computer systems worldwide. In Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, reports indicate computers at banks, media organisations, hospitals, transport services, shop checkouts, airports and more have all been impacted. South Africa’s own Capitec was affected on the morning of Friday, 19 July. Today’s outage is unprecedented in its scale and severity. The technical term for what has happened to the affected computers is that they have been “bricked”. This word refers to those computers being rendered so useless by this outage that – at least for now – they may as well be bricks. The widespread outage…

Cellphone cameras are ubiquitous at modern sporting events. Whether it’s a school swimming gala, the local rugby club squaring off against their bitter rivals or a national team fighting for tournament glory, every moment is a potential photograph. The Olympic Games are no exception. More than 10,000 athletes from 200 countries or regions are set to compete in 32 sports in this year’s host city, Paris, giving fans ample opportunity to fill their camera rolls with images of their favourite sporting heroes. And participants, too, will be able to memorialise their time in Paris – far more freely than ever before. This comes after…

In November 2022, the UN symbolically declared that the 8 billionth human being had been born in Manilla, Philippines, thus adding to the 2,3 billion children already living in the world. Another event happened the same month, one that will likely have a huge impact on the education and upbringing of all these children: ChatGPT was launched on 30 November 2022, revolutionising education for the best according to some, destroying its very possibility for others. Disruptive innovation vs breakthrough innovation Beyond value judgments, generative AI has led philosophers of technology and innovation scholars to debate whether ChatGPT amounts to a…