Author: The Conversation

Air quality has become one of the most important public health issues in Africa. Poor air quality kills more people globally every year than HIV, TB and malaria combined. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Air pollution makes people less productive because they get headaches and feel tired. India, for example, has poor air quality. The impact of India’s poor air quality on its gross domestic product is about US$100 billion every year. The health risks of poor air quality are known. But it’s always been costly to set up monitoring stations to measure it regularly. I am a particle physicist, and…

Humanoid robots have long been a staple of science fiction, but there is now real progress being made. A range of new models made by or backed by the likes of Boston Dynamics, Tesla and OpenAI are able to walk and move like humans, as well as perform feats of agility and dexterity. But it’s the ability to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into these humanoid robots that could truly allow them to make the leap into everyday life. AI-enabled “brains” could help dramatically improve the ways that humanoid robots interact with humans and the outside world. This would give humanoid robots their “iPhone moment”, meaning…

Launched in 2011, NASA’s NEOWISE mission operated in Earth’s orbit until late last week. It detected more than 3,000 near-Earth objects or NEOs – asteroids or comets whose orbits can bring them close to Earth, even with the possibility of a collision. NEOWISE was shut down on August 8. Surveying the population of NEOs is central to the emerging concept of planetary defence. That is, understanding and mitigating the risk of collision from asteroids large enough to do significant damage to Earth. NEOWISE has made fundamental contributions to establishing the knowledge base for planetary defence, with more than 200 of the 3,000 objects it studied…

Social networks have revolutionised the way we communicate, stay informed and share moments of our daily lives. We use platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok to keep in touch with our friends and family, share our experiences, keep informed, and express our opinions. But beyond these personal and often superficial uses, social networks play a much more complex and sometimes troubling role in society. The question arises: what impact do social networks have on societal security risk? How can these tools influence or even destabilise society? And how can individual users mitigate the risks? Societal security risks refer to…

New results from the first archaeological fieldwork conducted in space show the International Space Station is a rich cultural landscape where crew create their own “gravity” to replace Earth’s, and adapt module spaces to suit their needs. Archaeology is usually thought of as the study of the distant past, but it’s ideally suited for revealing how people adapt to long-duration spaceflight. In the SQuARE experiment described in our new paper in PLOS ONE, we re-imagined a standard archaeological method for use in space, and got astronauts to carry it out for us. Archaeology … in … spaaaaace! The International Space Station is…

The internet, a vast and indispensable resource for modern society, has a darker side where malicious activities thrive. From identity theft to sophisticated malware attacks, cybercriminals keep coming up with new scam methods. Widely available generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools have now added a new layer of complexity to the cyber security landscape. Staying on top of your online security is more important than ever. The rise of dark LLMs One of the most sinister adaptations of current AI is the creation of “dark LLMs” (large language models). These uncensored versions of everyday AI systems like ChatGPT are re-engineered for criminal activities. They…

The Olympic and Paralympic Games represent the pinnacle of athletic achievement, where the world’s sporting elite showcase their prowess. Modern athletes benefit from top-notch coaching, optimised nutrition and recovery strategies. Yet, some are turning to more unique methods for the competitive edge – training the brain. One brain-based approach that purports to aid performance and is gaining traction in elite sports is electroencephalographic neurofeedback. This technique involves placing small sensors on the scalp to record and display brainwaves in real time. The goal is to help athletes recognise and produce brainwave patterns that enhance focus, and relaxation, or achieve a…

Elon Musk’s recent announcement on Twitter that “Tesla will have genuinely useful humanoid robots in low production for Tesla internal use next year” suggests that robots that have physical human-like characteristics and provide “genuinely useful” function might be with us soon. However, despite decades of trying, useful humanoid robots have remained a fiction that never seems to quite catch up with reality. Are we finally on the crux of a breakthrough? It’s relevant to question whether we really need humanoid robots at all. Tesla’s Optimus robot is just one of several emerging humanoid robots, joining the likes of Boston Dyanmic’s Atlas, Figure AI’s Figure…

Although our universe may seem stable, having existed for a whopping 13.7 billion years, several experiments suggest that it is at risk – walking on the edge of a very dangerous cliff. And it’s all down to the instability of a single fundamental particle: the Higgs boson. In new research by me and my colleagues, just accepted for publication in Physical Letters B, we show that some models of the early universe, those which involve objects called light primordial black holes, are unlikely to be right because they would have triggered the Higgs boson to end the cosmos by now. The Higgs boson is responsible…

After widespread backlash, Google pulled its “Dear Sydney” Gemini ad from Olympics coverage. The ad featured its generative AI chatbot tool, Gemini, formerly known as Bard. The advertisement featured a father and his daughter, a fan of United States Olympic track and field athlete Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. The father, despite considering himself “pretty good with words,” uses Gemini to help his daughter to write a fan letter to Sydney, saying that when something needs to be done “just right,” Gemini is the better choice. https://youtu.be/NgtHJKn0Mck This advertisement sparked widespread backlash online about the growing role of generative AI tools and their impact on human creativity, productivity…