List of All Articles with Tag 'science'

The halibut in this ceviche "cooks" in a simple lime marinade.

An ex-Google officer has shared a warning of the 'danger' AI could pose within 'months' if it keeps growing at the rate it has. Mo Gawdat appeared on Steven Bartlett's Diary of a CEO, where he warned that AI machines have 'emotions' and are allegedly far more 'sentient' than we initially thought. "If we define being sentient as engaging in life with free will and a sense of awareness... then AI is sentient in every possible way", he said. Click here to sign up for our newsletters

Dramatic explosions on the surface of one of Saturn's moons have been observed, and it could change the way scientists approach the search for life in the universe. Saturn's ice-covered moon Enceladus has been the subject of attention from astronomers for decades after plumes of water vapor were observed erupting from its surface 20 years ago by the Cassini spacecraft. Now, the biggest plume yet has been spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope and it measures a massive 10,000 kilometers in length. Incredibly, the plume emitting from the geyser on the surface measures 20 times the size of the moon itself, and it indicates that there’s more to Enceladus than previously thought. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Planetary scientist Geronimo Villanueva of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said: "When I was looking at the data, at first, I was thinking I had to be wrong, it was just so shocking to map a plume more than 20 times the diameter of the moon. "The plume extends far beyond what we could have imagined." Instead of solid ice, the size of the plume shows us that there’s a liquid ocean under the surface. It’s kept warm enough to avoid freezing due to the movement that results from the gravitational pull of Saturn. As ever, the existence of liquid water suggests that there’s the possibility of life existing there, and it's encouraging news for authors of the study accepted in Nature Astronomy. "The orbit of Enceladus around Saturn is relatively quick, just 33 hours. As it whips around Saturn, the moon and its jets are basically spitting off water, leaving a halo, almost like a donut, in its wake," Villanueva said. "In the Webb observations, not only was the plume huge, but there was just water absolutely everywhere." It remains one of the most interesting bodies being studied in the solar system, as geochemist Christopher Glein of the Southwest Research Institute. “Enceladus is one of the most dynamic objects in the Solar System and is a prime target in humanity's search for life beyond Earth," geochemist Christopher Glein of the Southwest Research Institute said. "In the years since NASA's Cassini spacecraft first looked at Enceladus, we never cease to be amazed by what we find is happening on this extraordinary moon." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Scientists who were attempting to map an abandoned ant hill didn't expect to find a mega-city when they shot the hill full of cement, but that's exactly what they discovered. Over three days, scientists pumped 10 tons of cement into the empty ant hill to map its networks. After the cement dried, they dug for weeks around it. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The excavation revealed an incredibly impressive, intricate, and bizarre ant mega-city. The mega-city was a truly colossal undertaking. A video revealed that the ants created the structure by displacing 40 tons of dirt. And it really is a mega-city. The ants networked to disposal pits and fungus gardens. Each tunnel was designed to ensure thorough ventilation and reduce transport time. The narrator disclosed the truth. That despite the complex nature of the mega-city, there was no single architect of any - but it was down to the collective will of the colony. "Everything looks like it has been designed by an architect a single mind but of course, that isn’t true," they said. "This colossal and complex city was created by the collective will of the ant colony, the super organism." The short resurfaced clip is from a much longer piece called Ants! Nature’s Secret Power. You can watch the full documentary here. Our city designers should take a few notes. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

China have embarked on an enormous project: to dig the biggest hole in the country. The planned 10,000 metre hole will aim to pierce through ten layers of rock and could even end up finding signs of life as suggested by discoveries in past boreholes. And the objective? To reach rocks and minerals that could date back to around 145 million years ago - or the Cretaceous period. Findings from the mission may help alert China to environmental hazards such as volcanoes and earthquakes, whilst also identifying potentially valuable minerals lurking below. Past expeditions have also unearthed signs of life - with one project discovering signs of life under the surface. Don't worry, it wasn't subterranean humans or any other horror movie tropes. That borehole unearthed plankton 4 miles below the surface. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter That project won't be surpassed by this new - admittedly massive - attempt. The deepest ever dug - the one that discovered the plankton - was in Russia. The Kola Superdeep Borehole - just a really big hole in the ground - ended up reaching over 11,000 meters below sea level after being started by Soviet scientists in 1970. They had to abandon the project after hitting extremely high temperatures that they weren't expecting. Interesting. The Chinese project isn't going to be easy. It's not as simple as digging straight down into the Earth's crust and hoping for the best. It's also extremely costly and time-consuming. “The construction difficulty of the drilling project can be compared to a big truck driving on two thin steel cables,” Sun Jinsheng, an academic from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told news agency Xinhua. So yeah, they'll need more than a JCB for this. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Rarely a day goes by at the moment without another breakthrough in artificial intelligence that seemingly fascinates and horrifies us in equal measure. The newest trend around AI involves the expansion of pre-existing pictures to show what the wider surroundings of the image would have looked like. While that doesn't sound particularly controversial it did manage to spark a debate when creators started using the tool to imagine what the surroundings of famous paintings like the Mona Lisa would have looked like. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter That was already considered controversial enough, as tampering with famous masterworks is big no-no, how would the internet feel when AI starts messing with their beloved memes? AI educator and designer Linus Ekenstam decided to test this by checking what AI thought was going on behind-the-scenes of some of the most popular memes ever. Using Generative Fill, the new Photoshop AI he took a look at memes like 'distracted boyfriend' and 'Hide the pain Harold' and these are the results. Other memes that Ekenstam looked at included the 'Change my mind' memes and the 'Woman yelling at a cat' meme. The debate around AI continues to linger on with some individuals experimenting with it in new and complex ways. One developer claims that he managed to 'clone' his girlfriend using ChatGPT. Meanwhile, musician Grimes, who has previously championed the technology is now claiming that it poses an "extinction risk." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Nasa have released eerie footage of a mysterious orb flying over a Middle Eastern desert - and they're yet to work out what it is. Dr Sean Kirkpatrick, the director of the Pentagon's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, who were commissioned by the space agency, shared the findings of their 2022 project yesterday (31 May), including the UFO. "This is a typical example of a thing we see most of", he began, before revealing the object had 'no enigmatic technical capabilities'. "Being able to come to some conclusion is going to take time until we can get better resolved data on similar objects", he added. Click here to sign up for our newsletters

A team of Earth scientists first introduced the concept “planetary boundaries” almost 15 years ago to identify major

Roller coasters are synonymous with a fun and exhilarating time at a theme park - but one artist has designed an "Euthanasia Coaster" that is specifically intended to kill its passengers. Julijonas Urbonasis is the man behind the 2010 project which has been described as a thought experiment or conceptual art. The "hypothetic death machine in the form of a roller coaster, engineered to humanely – with elegance and euphoria – take the life of a human being," according to his website. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How it works is that the sheer speed of the roller coaster along with number of loops would result in "oxygen deficiency in the brain," which would ultimately kill those who are on board the ride. So it appears, there's no chance of surviving the ride if you're on it. @criminologyandcoffee Would you ride the Euthanasia Coaster? #euthanasiacoaster #julijonasurbonas #rollercoaster However, there may be a way, according to Urbonas - with the Lithuanian artist explaining that it requires sporting some anti-gravity gear. "A possible usage is the 'hacked' thrill ride, which was suggested to me by an aeronautic engineer who happened to visit the coaster's scale model during an exhibition," he told LadBible back in 2021. "She said, 'Your machine could be hacked, you know.' "After my confusion, she explained, 'Using anti-g trousers that prevent pilots from blackout and fainting, I believe I would survive the ride and turn it into the most extreme thrill ride.'" While a scale model of the ride was built, according to Snopes but building the roller coaster in real life is not the aim for Urbonas - instead, the purpose of the design is "to convince the public that it can be built." "I have quite the list of people who would like to be scientific objects if the project would advance towards realisation. Most of them are elderly from the US. But I don’t want to go this far," Urbonas said in a 2018 interview with Arterritory Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The remains of a church from a sunken town known as the 'Atlantis of the North Sea' has been discovered beneath the mud on Germany's coast. The church is believed to be part of a site called 'Rungholt' located in the Wadden Sea. The town, which was previously thought to be a local legend, has not been seen since 1362 after it was submerged beneath the waves during an intense storm. However, new research has shown that the town really did exist and that they had built reinforcements around the settlement to protect them from the severe elements. The research was carried out on the area by archeologists from Kiel University, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, the Center for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology, and the State Archaeology Department Schleswig-Holstein. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Searching the Wadden Sea which is the longest stretch of intertidal sand and mud flats on Earth, the team, using geophysical imaging technology found man-made mounds that had been constructed to protect the town against the tides. Amongst this structure were the foundations of a building which the team determined had to be a church which may have been the location of the town centre. In a statement, Dr. Dennis Wilken, a geophysicist at Kiel University of Kiel University said: "Settlement remains hidden under the mudflats are first localized and mapped over a wide area using various geophysical methods such as magnetic gradiometry, electromagnetic induction, and seismics." Dr. Hanna Hadler from the Institute of Geography at Mainz University added: "Based on this prospection, we selectively take sediment cores that not only allow us to make statements about spatial and temporal relationships of settlement structures, but also about landscape development." Dr. Ruth Blankenfeldt, an archaeologist at ZBSA also suggested that the "special feature of the find lies in the significance of the church as the centre of a settlement structure, which in its size must be interpreted as a parish with superordinate function." The storm that washed away Rungholt has gone down in history as one of the largest to ever hit the region, affecting not just Germany but also the Netherlands, Denmark and the UK. The storm happened on January 1362 and has since been referred to as "the great drowning of men." According to historical reports, Rungholt was once a busy trading port for fishermen but was also populated by taverns, brothels and churches. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

South Africa’s Presidential Climate Commission has advised the country, which relies on coal for most of its electricity,

Before venturing outdoors, read up on the most common myths about ticks.