Author: The Conversation

Have you ever bitten into a nut or a piece of chocolate, expecting a smooth, rich taste, only to encounter an unexpected and unpleasant chalky or sour flavour? That taste is rancidity in action, and it affects pretty much every product in your pantry. Now artificial intelligence (AI) can help scientists tackle this issue more precisely and efficiently. We’re a group of chemists who study ways to extend the life of food products, including those that go rancid. We recently published a study describing the advantages of AI tools to help keep oil and fat samples fresh for longer. Because oils and…

On Oct. 6, news broke that 23andMe, the genomics company that collects genetic material from thousands of people for ancestry and genetic predisposition tests, had a massive data breach. But as it turns out, the company’s servers were not hacked. Rather, hackers targeted hundreds of individual user accounts — allegedly those that had repeated passwords. After gaining access to the accounts, hackers could leverage the “DNA relatives matches” function of 23andMe to get information about thousands of other people. This data breach challenges how we think about privacy, data security and corporate accountability in the information economy. https://youtu.be/3c7YIo97Zs0 Shared information…

If you’ve ever used a dating app, you’ve probably experienced the disappointment of meeting someone who doesn’t look quite like their photos. You may have even been a victim of catfishing, where someone creates a fake identity to deceive or scam others online. But what if someone uses your photos to catfish someone else? Setting up a social media account or dating profile is as easy as entering a name and email address. Platforms do very little to verify users’ identities, making it easy for someone to scam you, harass you – or pretend to be you. There is very little…

Reports this week suggest a near-collision between an Australian satellite and a suspected Chinese military satellite. Meanwhile, earlier this month, the US government issued the first ever space junk fine. The Federal Communications Commission handed a US$150,000 penalty to the DISH Network, a publicly traded company providing satellite TV services. It came as a surprise to many in the space industry, as the fine didn’t relate to any recent debris – it was issued for a communications satellite that has been in space for more than 21 years. It was EchoStar-7, which failed to meet the orbit requirements outlined in a previously agreed debris mitigation…

Every day and night, hundreds of thousands of intense, brief flashes of radiation suddenly flicker on and then off all across the sky. These “fast radio bursts” are invisible to the naked eye, but to a radio telescope many almost outshine everything else in the sky for a few thousandths of a second. Since the first such burst was spotted in 2006, we have found that nearly all of them come from distant galaxies. Most bursts pass unnoticed, occurring outside the field of view of radio telescopes, and never occur again. In new research published in Science, we have found the most distant fast…

The simulated universe theory implies that our universe, with all its galaxies, planets and life forms, is a meticulously programmed computer simulation. In this scenario, the physical laws governing our reality are simply algorithms. The experiences we have are generated by the computational processes of an immensely advanced system. While inherently speculative, the simulated universe theory has gained attention from scientists and philosophers due to its intriguing implications. The idea has made its mark in popular culture, across movies, TV shows and books – including the 1999 film The Matrix. The earliest records of the concept that reality is an illusion…

In June, an IBM computing executive claimed quantum computers were entering the “utility” phase, in which high-tech experimental devices become useful. In September, Australia’s Chief Scientist Cathy Foley went so far as to declare “the dawn of the quantum era”. This week, Australian physicist Michelle Simmons won the nation’s top science award for her work on developing silicon-based quantum computers. Obviously, quantum computers are having a moment. But – to step back a little – what exactly are they? What is a quantum computer? One way to think about computers is in terms of the kinds of numbers they work with. The digital computers we…

Viewed from the Voyager 1 space probe as it passed beyond the edge of the solar system, Earth and Venus might not look too different – same diameter, similar mass and distance from the Sun. But from a human perspective, Venus is a hostile spot. Its much denser atmosphere enables a greenhouse effect on steroids, with surface temperatures approaching 500°C. While the timeline that brought Venus’ climate to where it is today is still being researched, the critical difference between the two planetary systems is the ocean. Venus possibly never had one, but oceans on Earth have shielded us from the…

In 1950, British computer scientist Alan Turing proposed an experimental method for answering the question: can machines think? He suggested if a human couldn’t tell whether they were speaking to an artificially intelligent (AI) machine or another human after five minutes of questioning, this would demonstrate AI has human-like intelligence. Although AI systems remained far from passing Turing’s test during his lifetime, he speculated that “[…] in about fifty years’ time it will be possible to programme computers […] to make them play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator will not have more than 70% chance of…

On September 24 this year, a Nasa capsule parachuted down to Earth carrying a precious cache of material grabbed from an asteroid. The space agency has now revealed images and a preliminary analysis of the space rocks it found after lifting the lid off that capsule. The mission to the asteroid was called Osiris-Rex, and in 2020, it collected a sample of material from the asteroid Bennu. Afterwards, it travelled back to Earth and released the capsule containing the rocks into our atmosphere three weeks ago. The fine black dust and small coal-like rocks shimmering in the capsule are beautiful –…