Author: The Conversation

When NASA scientists opened the sample return canister from the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample mission in late 2023, they found something astonishing. Dust and rock collected from the asteroid Bennu contained many of life’s building blocks, including all five nucleobases used in DNA and RNA, 14 of the 20 amino acids found in proteins, and a rich collection of other organic molecules. These are built primarily from carbon and hydrogen, and they often form the backbone of life’s chemistry. For decades, scientists have predicted that early asteroids may have delivered the ingredients of life to Earth, and these findings seemed like promising evidence.…

After a yearslong series of setbacks, NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, or ESCAPADE, mission has finally begun its roundabout journey to Mars. Launched on Nov. 13, 2025, aboard Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, ESCAPADE’s twin probes will map the planet’s magnetic field and study how the solar wind – the stream of charged particles released from the Sun – has stripped away the Martian atmosphere over billions of years. When I was a doctoral student, I helped develop the VISIONS camera systems onboard each of ESCAPADE’s spacecraft, so I was especially excited to see the successful launch. But this low-cost mission is still…

In the past decade, AI’s success has led to uncurbed enthusiasm and bold claims – even though users frequently experience errors that AI makes. An AI-powered digital assistant can misunderstand someone’s speech in embarrassing ways, a chatbot could hallucinate facts, or, as I experienced, an AI-based navigation tool might even guide drivers through a corn field – all without registering the errors. People tolerate these mistakes because the technology makes certain tasks more efficient. Increasingly, however, proponents are advocating the use of AI – sometimes with limited human supervision – in fields where mistakes have high cost, such as health care. For example, a bill…

Astro-tourism is a niche form of tourism where visitors explore the night sky through stargazing events, guided tours, educational presentations and digital astronomy experiences. Unlike mass tourism, astro-tourism focuses on learning rather than just sightseeing. Astro-tourism could also offer a lifeline to places that don’t have major natural resource attractions that draw tourists. One place that could benefit from astro-tourism is Bloemfontein, situated in the heart of South Africa’s Free State province. It’s never been considered one of South Africa’s popular tourist destinations. That’s because the city lacks a major attraction like the Kruger National Park or Cape Town’s Table Mountain. But Bloemfontein…

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has become widely accepted as a tool that increases productivity. Yet the technology is far from mature. Large language models advance rapidly from one generation to the next, and experts can only speculate how AI will affect the workforce and people’s daily lives. As a materials scientist, I am interested in how materials and the technologies that derive from them affect society. AI is one example of a technology driving global change – particularly through its demand for materials and rare minerals. But before AI evolved to its current level, two other technologies exemplified the process created by the demand…

From automatically generated overviews to chatbots in spreadsheets, so-called artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being integrated into our watches, phones, home assistants and other smart devices. AI-in-everything is becoming so ordinary and everyday that it is easy to overlook. But this normalisation is having a dangerous effect on the environment, the planet and our response to climate change. AI’s direct environmental costs are undeniable. Data centres consume large amounts of electricity and water and AI queries use up much more energy than a conventional internet search. The same companies that develop and promote consumer AI – including Microsoft, Google and Amazon – also use…

The digital revolution has become a vast, unplanned experiment – and children are its most exposed participants. As ADHD diagnoses rise around the world, a key question has emerged: could the growing use of digital devices be playing a role? To explore this, we studied more than 8,000 children, from when they were around ten until they were 14 years of age. We asked them about their digital habits and grouped them into three categories: gaming, TV/video (YouTube, say) and social media. The latter included apps such as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, X, Messenger and Facebook. We then analysed whether usage was associated…

South Africa opened its G20 presidency with an ambitious message for a world divided by conflict and economic strain: solidarity, equality and sustainability. The Johannesburg G20 leaders’ summit tried to mend deep geopolitical rifts. Even those who chose to boycott the summit remained included – with their chairs left symbolically empty. A G20 presidency is more than a summit of political leaders. It is a series of dialogues between countries that represent 78.9% of the world’s population. The South Africa G20 presidency hosted 177 official meetings and was guided by 15 thematic working groups and groups representing youth, business, women’s rights, science and think tanks. The…

An experimental supersonic aircraft called the X-59 took to the skies for the first time in October. The plane lifted off from Skunk Works, the famed research and development facility in California owned by aerospace giant Lockheed Martin. It cruised for about an hour before landing at Edwards Air Force Base, 85 miles (136km) away. NASA’s X-59 is designed to test technology for quiet supersonic flight. In the US, loud sonic booms led to a five-decade ban on non-military supersonic aircraft flying over land. The ban was lifted this year by the US President Donald Trump, via an executive order. In the…

Bacteria are the most diverse organisms on Earth, with a number of species that’s difficult to quantify. They’re also incredibly old. Bacteria consist of a single cell. They do not have bones and are not like big animals that leave clear signs in the geological record, which thankfully, palaeontologists can study many millions of years later. This has made it very hard for scientists to establish a timeline of their early evolution. But with the help of machine learning, we have been able to fill in many of the details. Our new research, published today in Science, also reveals some bacteria developed…