Author: The Conversation

South Africa has for many years been a strong player in several areas of world-class research. Some of the country’s researchers have made major contributions in areas like the biomedical sciences, palaeontology and astronomy Good research matters. It can have broad, positive consequences. On paper South Africa’s government recognises this. The 2019 White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation points out how knowledge from many disciplines interacts to deepen awareness of South Africa’s serious and long-standing challenges, like energy, food security and inequality. More importantly, this knowledge can be used to tackle these problems. To this end, the Department of Higher Education and…

Note: The following article contains spoilers about the Netflix series “3 Body Problem.” I first encountered the three-body problem 60 years ago, in a short story called “Placet is a Crazy Place” by American science fiction writer Frederic Brown. In Brown’s story, Placet is a planet in a figure-of-eight orbit around two stars, one of which is composed of ordinary matter, the other of anti-matter. The closeness of the two stars cause time and space to become wonderfully distorted so that Placet can eclipse itself. But, intriguingly, the orbit is assumed to be stable and predictable. Chinese science fiction writer Liu…

We breathe oxygen and nitrogen gas in our atmosphere every day, but did you know that these gases also float through space, around and between galaxies? Our team captured a high-resolution view of how these elements make it so far out into the universe. Our study is now published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Gas outflows from galaxies happen when supernovae – the explosive deaths of stars – eject a mixture of gas and heavy elements such as oxygen, sulphur and even nickel. In addition to “polluting” space with heavy elements, these outflows also play a key role…

The rise of commercially viable generative artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform a vast range of sectors. This transformation will be particularly profound in contemporary military education. Generative AI will fundamentally reshape war gaming — analytical games that simulate aspects of warfare at tactical, operational or strategic levels — by allowing senior military and political leaders to pursue better tactical solutions to unexpected crises, solve more complex logistical and operational challenges and deepen their strategic thinking. The art of war gaming From its inception, war gaming has been intended to offer realistic training to commanders that could otherwise only be gained through…

It is not much of an exaggeration to say that Spotify saved the music industry. Global revenue for recorded music reached its zenith in 1999 – the same year that the seeds of the industry’s near destruction were sown. When Napster launched that year it gave music lovers around the world access to an almost limitless catalogue of songs for free. To millions of young people, it would take more than legal action against Napster and others to persuade them that they should return to analogue modes of listening. Spotify’s emergence in 2006 demonstrated that it was possible to monetise streaming in a…

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen penned a 5,000-word manifesto in 2023 that gave a full-throated call for unrestricted technological progress to boost markets, broaden energy production, improve education and strengthen liberal democracy. The billionaire, who made his fortune by co-founding Netscape – a 1990s-era company that made a pioneering web browser – espouses a concept known as “techno-optimism.” In summing it up, Andreessen writes, “We believe that there is no material problem – whether created by nature or by technology – that cannot be solved with more technology.” The term techno-optimism isn’t new; it began to appear after World War II. Nor is it…

While we go about our daily lives on Earth, a nuclear-powered robot the size of a small car is trundling around Mars looking for fossils. Unlike its predecessor Curiosity, NASA’s Perseverance rover is explicitly intended to “search for potential evidence of past life”, according to the official mission objectives. Jezero Crater was chosen as the landing site largely because it contains the remnants of ancient mud and other sediments deposited where a river discharged into a lake more than 3 billion years ago. We don’t know if there was life in that lake, but if there was, Perseverance might find…

NASA recently announced that it is seeking new ways to complete the return to Earth of rock cores drilled by the Perseverance Rover in the Jezero Crater on Mars. This has led to some anxiety among space scientists, who view the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission as a cornerstone of plans to explore the Solar System. But when you consider what’s at stake, scientifically and politically, it seems highly likely that NASA will push ahead with the mission to make it a success. One key conclusion of the NASA review is that MSR was established with unrealistic budget and schedules. Now…

South Africa’s Karoo region is a vast semi-arid area that stretches across four of the country’s provinces. It is sparsely populated and renowned for its wide open spaces. In the heart of this landscape, near the small Northern Cape town of Carnarvon, the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory operates a technological marvel that has transformed our understanding of the cosmos. The MeerKAT radio telescope has unlocked cosmic mysteries. It’s fostered scientific collaboration. It is also nurturing local talent. MeerKAT, which is among South Africa’s largest scientific infrastructure projects of the 30 year period since democracy, has emerged as a beacon of innovation and opportunity…

A chatbot turns hostile. A test version of a Roomba vacuum collects images of users in private situations. A Black woman is falsely identified as a suspect on the basis of facial recognition software, which tends to be less accurate at identifying women and people of colour. These incidents are not just glitches, but examples of more fundamental problems. As artificial intelligence and machine learning tools become more integrated into daily life, ethical considerations are growing, from privacy issues and race and gender biases in coding to the spread of misinformation. The general public depends on software engineers and computer scientists to ensure these technologies are created in a safe and…