It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, February 09, 2023
New method helps scientists better predict when volcanos will erupt
ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell University researchers have unearthed precise, microscopic clues to where magma is stored, offering a way to better assess the risk of volcanic eruptions.
In recent years, scientists have used satellite imagery, earthquake data and GPS to search for ground deformation near active volcanoes, but those techniques can be inaccurate in locating the depth of magma storage.
By finding microscopic, carbon dioxide-rich fluids encased in cooled volcanic crystals, scientists can accurately determine – within one hundred meters – where magma is located.
“A fundamental question is where magma is stored in Earth’s crust and mantle,” said Esteban Gazel, professor of engineering and lead author of the study, published in Science Advances. “That location matters because you can gauge the risk of an eruption by pinpointing the specific location of magma, instead of other signals like hydrothermal system of a volcano.”
Gazel notes that speed and precision are essential. “We’re demonstrating the enormous potential of this improved technique in terms of its rapidity and unprecedented accuracy,” he said. “We can produce data within days of the samples arriving from a site, which provides better, near real-time results.”
In volcanic events, magma reaches the Earth’s surface, and it erupts as lava and – depending on how much gas it contains – could be explosive in nature. When deposited as part of the fallout of the eruption, fragmented fine-grained material – called tephra – can be collected and evaluated.
Gazel and doctoral student Kyle Dayton deduced how to use inclusions of carbon dioxide-rich fluids trapped within olivine crystals to precisely indicate depth, as the carbon dioxide density of these inclusions is controlled by pressure.
These fluids can be measured quickly using an instrument to determine – in terms of kilometers – how far down the magma was stored and the depth of the scorching reservoir.
Gazel and Dayton joined a small, elite team of international researchers to study the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma in the Canary Islands. Gazel and Dayton picked through tephra to find crystals, which in turn provide data to improve eruption models and forecasts.
IMAGE: THE EYES OF A GREATER BUSHBABY SHINE IN THE LIGHT OF A CAMERA AT NIGHT IN SOUTH AFRICA.view more
CREDIT: BIRTHE LINDEN
Many of the hallmarks of human civilization—from roads and power lines to pet dogs—are taking a larger-than-expected toll on non-human primates living in Africa, according to two recent studies.
The findings result from a collaboration between the University of Colorado Boulder and three South Africa-based institutions: the University of Venda, Lajuma Research Centre and the conservation organization the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT). They take an almost forensic look at what is killing wild animals in South Africa. The country is home to five species of non-human primates, including greater (Otolemur crassicaudatus) and southern lesser (Galago moholis) bushbabies. These primates spend most of their lives in trees, and some are so small they can fit in the palm of your hand.
In one study, scientists led by Birthe Linden at Lajuma analyzed hundreds of cases in which non-human primates had been killed on roads or around power lines across the country. In a companion paper, the researchers explored the growing risks that domestic dogs pose to the animals.
The research shows that the threats facing the world’s monkeys, apes and other non-human primates aren’t always easy to see, particularly for lesser-studied animals like bushbabies.
“Bushbabies, especially, are an example of species that may be having problems, but we don’t know what they are until we go looking,” said Michelle Sauther, co-author of the two studies and professor of anthropology at CU Boulder.
For her, the results border on personal.
In the process of studying bushbabies in South Africa for more than a decade, Sauther and her colleagues got to know one male, in particular—a greater bushbaby with one eye who the team nicknamed Bruiser because he reminded them of an old prize fighter.
Then in 2019 Bruiser, who had bad and missing teeth, tried to move on the ground to reach a fig tree with easy-to-grab fruit. A pet dog found and killed him.
“These are small stories,” Sauther said. “They're not the big stories of conservation, but they really do matter, especially as we have no good data on bushbaby mortality and thus cannot easily judge their conservation status.”
They’re also small stories that likely touch almost all non-human primate species, not just in South Africa but across the continent.
“We found that all South African non-human primates are in one way or the other impacted by human linear infrastructure, such as power lines or roads,” Linden said.
A samango monkey crosses a simple canopy bridge in South Africa.
CREDIT
Birthe Linden
Roadkill on the rise
Linden, a primatologist from South Africa, first became interested in the hidden dangers facing primates on her almost daily drives to the University of Venda in South Africa’s Soutpansberg Mountains.
She kept seeing samango monkeys (Cercopithecus albogularis) run over on the side of the road. These monkeys are listed in the “Red List of Mammals of South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho” as “vulnerable,” one step up from “endangered.”
“It's one stretch where the road is quite close to indigenous forest, which is where samango monkeys typically live,” Linden said.
She wondered if a lot more non-human primates could be dying as roadkill than researchers suspected. South Africa is home to more than 675,000 miles (1,090,000 kilometers) of roads and power lines—and the number keeps climbing.
To explore this pervasive threat, Linden and her colleagues drew from a wide range of data sources. They include Road Watch, a citizen science app released by the EWT that allows anyone in South Africa to upload reports of roadkill. In all, the team gathered 483 examples of primates killed on roads or around power lines, some dating back to the late 1990s. Species included the two bushbabies, samango monkeys, chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) and vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus).
Next up, Frank Cuozzo of the Lajuma Research Centre and a research fellow at the University of Pretoria’s Mammal Research Institute led the group in exploring a different kind of peril: domestic dogs. The researchers tracked down 13 reports of greater bushbabies like Bruiser killed by dogs in South Africa since 2014. In one case, humans intentionally released dogs to hunt down a bushbaby that had gotten too close to town.
“These reports are clearly a sliver of what’s actually happening,” said Cuozzo who earned his doctorate in biological anthropology from CU Boulder in 2000. “It’s happening in the towns and suburban areas, in the rural areas, the reserve areas, and it’s happening far more than anyone would think.”
Greater bushbaby seen crossing a canopy bridge in South Africa at night.
CREDIT
Birthe Linden
Why did the monkey cross the road?
The researchers aren’t sure how big of a dent roads, power lines and domestic dogs are making in non-human primate numbers in South Africa or surrounding nations. But they argue that these deaths are important to follow—especially for animals already struggling to survive amid climate change and habitat loss.
Wendy Collinson-Jonker, co-author of the infrastructure study and a researcher at the EWT, noted that these problems are widespread, but the fixes may be surprisingly simple.
Studies have shown, for example, that monkeys and other forest critters can hop across roads safely on “canopy bridges,” such as a rope bridge hanging between trees.
Humans can also keep dogs away from primates by being careful to not leave food out, especially at night.
“We know the solutions,” Collinson-Jonker said. “It's a case of now getting them implemented.”
As for Bruiser the bushbaby, Sauther noted that his story ended with a small bit of consolation. The team was able to recover his body and collected X-rays that helped reveal a deeper picture of his more than a decade of life—down to the arthritis building up between his joints that likely led him to climb down to the ground.
“We were able to document his whole life story,” Sauther said. “We knew him right to the end."
ARTICLE TITLE
Domestic Dogs Present a Human-Induced Threat to Thick-tailed Bushbabies (Otolemur crassicaudatus) in Northern South AfricaDomestic Dogs Present a Human-Induced Threat to Thick-tailed Bushbabies (Otolemur crassicaudatus) in Northern South Africa
Tracking ocean microplastics from space
Microplastic pollution can be spotted from space because its traveling companion alters the roughness of the ocean's surface
New information about an emerging technique that could track microplastics from space has been uncovered by researchers at the University of Michigan. It turns out that satellites are best at spotting soapy or oily residue, and microplastics appear to tag along with that residue.
Microplastics—tiny flecks that can ride ocean currents hundreds or thousands of miles from their point of entry—can harm sea life and marine ecosystems, and they're extremely difficult to track and clean up. However, a 2021 discovery raised the hope that satellites could offer day-by-day timelines of where microplastics enter the water, how they move and where they tend to collect, for prevention and clean-up efforts.
The team noticed that data recorded by the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS), showed less surface roughness—that is, fewer and smaller waves—in areas of the ocean that contain microplastics, compared to clean areas.
In preliminary testing, they used the technique to spot suspected microplastic releases at the mouth of China's Yangtze River and to identify seasonal variations in the Great Pacific Garbage patch, a convergence zone in the North Pacific Ocean where microplastic collect in massive quantities. But until now, the team was unsure about the nature of the relationship between microplastics and surface roughness.
A newly published study in Scientific Reports shows that the anomalies in wave activity are caused not by the plastics themselves, but by surfactants—soapy or oily compounds that are often released along with microplastics and that travel and collect in similar ways once they’re in the water.
Chris Ruf, the Frederick Bartman Collegiate Professor of Climate and Space Science at U-M and an author of the study, explains that a satellite-based tracking tool would be a major improvement over current tracking methods, which rely mainly on spotty reports from plankton trawlers that net microplastics along with their catch.
"NOAA, the Plymouth Marine Lab in the U.K. and other organizations are very aware of what we're doing, but we need to be cautious and fully understand the system's limitations before putting it into widespread use," said Ruf, who also leads CYGNSS. "These new findings are an important step in that process."
The research team, which also included former naval architecture and engineering graduate researchers Yukun Sun and Thomas Bakker, gathered the data at U-M’s Aaron Friedman Marine Hydrodynamics Lab. Using the facility's wave tank, they measured the effects of surfactants and microplastic pellets on waves generated both mechanically and by wind from a fan.
They found that, in order for microplastics to affect surface roughness, their concentrations had to be much higher than those typically found even in polluted areas of the ocean. Surfactants, however, had a pronounced effect. The researchers found that surfactant-laden water required more wind to generate waves of a given size, and that those waves dissipated more quickly than they would in clean water.
Yulin Pan, U-M naval architecture and marine engineering assistant professor and corresponding author on the paper, says that this initial discovery will drive further research into how surfactants and microplastics interact in the ocean.
"We can see the relationship between surface roughness and the presence of microplastics and surfactants," Pan said. "The goal now is to understand the precise relationship between the three variables."
They plan to use a combination of water sampling, satellite observations and computer modeling to build that understanding. Ultimately, they hope to develop a system that governments, cleanup organizations and others can use to both spot existing microplastics and predict how they're likely to travel through waterways.
Ruf and other members of the team are featured in the documentary Plastic Earth, which explores the scale of plastic pollution and engineering solutions in development.
The research was supported in part by NASA Science Mission Directorate contract NNL13AQ00C.
IMAGE: THE INDIAN OCEAN COASTLINE OF KENYA AND SOMALIA IS PICTURED FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION ABOVE THE AFRICAN CONTINENT. A NEW STUDY SHOWS HOW PAST CLIMATE RECORDS ON LAND AND AT THE SEA SURFACE ALLOW SCIENTISTS TO BETTER PREDICT THE EXTENT THAT LAND WILL WARM MORE THAN THE OCEAN – A PHENOMENON CALLED TERRESTRIAL AMPLIFICATION.view more
Woods Hole, Mass. (February 8, 2023) --Ongoing climate change driven by greenhouse gas emissions is often discussed in terms of global average warming. For example, the landmark Paris Agreement seeks to limit global warming to 1.5 ⁰C, relative to pre-industrial levels. However, the extent of future warming will not be the same throughout the planet. One of the clearest regional differences in climate change is the faster warming over land than sea. This “terrestrial amplification” of future warming has real-world implications for understanding and dealing with climate change
A new paper studying terrestrial amplification focuses on how geochemical records of past climate on land and at the sea surface allow scientists to better predict the extent to which land will warm more than oceans—and will also get drier—due to current and future greenhouse gas emissions. “The core idea of our study was to look to the past to better predict how future warming will unfold differently over land and sea,” says Alan Seltzer, an assistant scientist in the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry Department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the lead author of the paper.
“One reason why understanding terrestrial amplification matters is that under future global warming, the magnitude of warming that the planet will experience is not going to be the same everywhere,” says Seltzer. “Adding a firm basis to climate model simulations, that is rooted in observations of past climate and basic physics, can tell us about how the regional differences in ongoing and future warming.” Seltzer notes that terrestrial amplification (TA) is analogous to “polar amplification,” a prediction of climate models that higher latitudes will experience more warming than low latitudes.
Although modern observational records are noisy due to big year-to-year variations driven by other parts of the climate system, the prediction of greater warming over land surfaces is now apparent in climate data since the 1980s. The drivers of this terrestrial amplification have been linked to changes in moisture over land and sea, through a theory developed by climate scientists over the past decade. This new study, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, “uses paleoclimate data for the first time to evaluate the theory for how land and sea surfaces will be impacted by future warming,” Seltzer says. “The research gives us more certainty in the way models predict regional changes in future warming.”
The paper investigates terrestrial amplification during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM)—which occurred about 20,000 years ago—in the low latitudes, which they define as 30⁰S–30⁰N. It is in those latitudes, the authors say, where the theoretical basis for TA is most applicable. The authors drew on new compilations of paleoclimate records on land and from the sea surface to estimate the magnitude of TA in the LGM, to compare with climate model simulations and theoretical expectations. Efforts to better understand how cold the continents were in the LGM are an ongoing focus of Seltzer’s research at WHOI, and this new paper builds upon a recent study that used insights from dissolved gases trapped in ancient groundwater as a thermometer for the past land surface.
The authors extended a thermodynamic theory for terrestrial amplification that is based on coupled changes in moist static energy (the potential energy represented by the temperature, moisture content, and elevation of a parcel of air) between land and sea. In the LGM, when sea level was 120 meters lower than today due to the growth of large ice sheets on land, the sea surface was slightly warmer and more humid than it would have been without a change in sea level. By taking this effect into account and drawing on paleoclimate records, the authors were able to directly compare past terrestrial amplification to future predictions. The paper notes that while the mechanisms underlying TA are well understood to arise from fundamental thermodynamic differences between humid air over the ocean and drier air over land, a number of factors—natural variability, observational limitations, thermal lags, and non-CO2 forcings—have previously precluded a precise estimate of TA from 20th century warming. “Narrowing the range of terrestrial amplification will aid in future predictions of low latitude climate change, with relevance to both heat stress and water availability,” the paper states.
Co-author Pierre-Henri Blard says the paper is a “step forward for climate science,” and it will be significant for other scientific fields and the general public. “We show that a simple model, involving humidity and sea level changes, robustly describes the amplification of temperature changes over the continent—at low to mid-latitudes at any time scale—as being 40% larger than over the ocean. This result is important because, while most paleoclimatic archives are located in the ocean, the present and future of humanity crucially rely on our knowledge of continental climates,” says Blard, a Director of Research at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) at the Center for Petrographic and Geochemical Research (CRPG) in Nancy, France.
The research is important “because it helps us make sense of Earth’s past climate record and how to relate it to our models and expectations for the future,” co-author Steven Sherwood says. The paper “should clear up any misconceptions that land and ocean warm or cool at the same rate in different climates—we know otherwise and should use that knowledge. The implications for the future are that Earth’s continents will continue to warm faster than the oceans as global warming continues, until hopefully we reach net zero and bring this to a stop,” says Sherwood, a professor in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes in the University of New South Wales’s Climate Change Research Center, Sydney, Australia.
Co-author Masa Kageyama says she considers the paper important “because it touches on a feature which is ubiquitous in climate change projections, produced by complex climate models: continents warm more than oceans. In this paper, we analyze this feature for a climate change, from the last glacial maximum to present, the amplitude of which is of the same order of magnitude as the expected warming in the next centuries,” says Kageyama, director of research at CNRS’ Climate and Environment Sciences Laboratory (LSCE) at the Pierre Simon Laplace Institute at the University of Paris-Saclay, France.
“It is remarkable that tropical temperature reconstructions, state-of-the-art climate models, and a simple theory relying on the coupled changes of moisture and heat over continents and oceans all converge to provide a robust estimate of terrestrial amplification,” says Kageyama. “In my view, this strengthens the projections for future climate change, and at the same time brings new understanding of past climate changes.”
Funding for this research was provided by a National Science Foundation Division of Earth Sciences award and by the French National Centre for Scientific Research.
Authors:
Alan M. Seltzer1, Pierre Henri Blard2,3, Steven C. Sherwood4, and Masa Kageyama5
Affiliations:
1Department of Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is a private, non-profit organization on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate an understanding of the ocean’s role in the changing global environment. WHOI’s pioneering discoveries stem from an ideal combination of science and engineering—one that has made it one of the most trusted and technically advanced leaders in basic and applied ocean research and exploration anywhere. WHOI is known for its multidisciplinary approach, superior ship operations, and unparalleled deep-sea robotics capabilities. We play a leading role in ocean observation and operate the most extensive suite of data-gathering platforms in the world. Top scientists, engineers, and students collaborate on more than 800 concurrent projects worldwide—both above and below the waves—pushing the boundaries of knowledge and possibility. For more information, please visit www.whoi.edu
Key takeaways:
• Terrestrial amplification, which is the phenomenon of greater temperature change over land surfaces than sea surfaces, has important real-world implications for understanding and dealing with climate change.
• Paleoclimate data and climate models support theoretical predictions of greater temperature changes over land than sea. Better knowledge about terrestrial amplification and related predicted changes in hydroclimate is useful for policymakers in planning for adaptations to future climate change.
• The paper focuses on how geochemical records of past climate on land and at the sea surface allow scientists to better predict the extent to which land will warm more than oceans—and will also get drier—due to current and future greenhouse gas emissions.
• The core idea in this paper is how should the magnitude of warming or cooling over land compare to the magnitude of warming or cooling over the sea surface.
• Under future global warming, the magnitude of warming that the planet will experience is not going to be the same everywhere. Adding a firm basis that is rooted in observations of past climate that can tell us about how the regional differences in warming will change in a warmer world is really valuable.
• This research uses paleoclimate data for the first time to evaluate the theory for how land and sea surfaces will be impacted by future warming. The research gives scientists more certainty in the way models predict regional changes in future warming.
JOURNAL
Science Advances
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Observational study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Not applicable
ARTICLE TITLE
Terrestrial amplification of past, present, and future climate change
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
8-Feb-2023
Wednesday, February 08, 2023
CORPORATE WELFARE BUM
Intel wants 10 billion euros of government funding for plant in Germany -Handelsblatt
Wed, 8 February 2023 The Intel Corporation logo is seen in Davos
BERLIN (Reuters) - Intel has provided the German economy ministry with a new calculation for a planned chip factory in the city of Magdeburg that considers almost 10 billion euros ($10.74 billion) of government funding to be necessary, business daily Handelsblatt reported on Wednesday, citing government sources.
An Intel spokesperson declined to comment on the figure in Handelsblatt but was quoted as saying the group was "working very closely with government partners to close the critical cost gap".
The company explains that its new demand, which exceeds the already approved funds of 6.8 billion euros ($7.3 billion), was necessary due to higher energy costs and that it would like to use a more advanced technology in the plant than initially planned, Handelsblatt said.
($1 = 0.9308 euros)
‘ChatGPT needs a huge amount of editing’: users’ views mixed on AI chatbot
Clea Skopeliti and Dan Milmo
THE GUARDIAN Wed, 8 February 2023 Photograph: REX/Shutterstock
ChatGPT has been a godsend for Joy. The New Zealand-based therapist has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and often struggles with tasks such as drafting difficult emails, with procrastination kicking in when she feels overwhelmed.
“Sitting down to compose a complicated email is something I absolutely hate. I would have to use a lot of strategies and accountability to get it done, and I would feel depleted afterward,” says Joy, who is in her 30s and lives in Auckland. “But telling GPT ‘write an email apologising for a delay on an academic manuscript, blame family emergency, ask for consideration for next issue’ feels completely doable.”
While the copy the AI chatbot produces usually needs editing, Joy says this comes at a smaller cost to her psychologically. “It is much easier to edit a draft than to start from scratch, so it helps me break through blocks around task initiation,” she says, adding that she has recommended using it this way to clients. “It avoids a psychological logjam for neurodiverse people. I think it would also potentially have value for people who struggle with professional norms due to neurodivergence and come across as curt.”
ChatGPT, developed by San Francisco-based OpenAI, has become a sensation since its public launch in November, reaching 100 million users in the space of two months as its ability to compose credible-looking essays, recipes, poems and lengthy answers to a broad array of queries went viral. The technology behind ChatGPT has been harnessed by Microsoft, a key backer of OpenAI, for its Bing search engine. Google has launched its own chatbot and has said it will integrate the technology into its search engine.
Both ChatGPT and Google’s competitor to it, Bard, are based on large language models that are fed vast amounts of text from the internet in order to train them how to respond to an equally vast array of queries. According to Guardian readers who are among those 100 million users, the ChatGPT prototype has been used for mixed reasons – and with mixed results.
Naveen Cherian, a 30-year-old publishing project manager in Bengaluru, India, also started off using ChatGPT for emails but quickly discovered it could be deployed to tackle repetitive tasks at work. He uses it to condense descriptions of books into 140-character blurbs, and is pleased with the results so far: “It works brilliantly, and I only need to do a sanity check after it is done.”
This frees up time for him to focus on the creative aspects of his role. “I can concentrate on the actual book content and focus on how I can edit it to make it better,” he says. Cherian says his employer knows he uses the tool. “As long as the work is of quality, and I get to do more processing than before, they are happy. The concern they had was only that I shouldn’t fully depend on it, which I do not.”
Like many students, Rezza, a 28-year-old in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, has been making use of the chatbot for academic purposes. “I have so many ideas but only enough time to act on a few of them because I need to write them,” he says, adding that writing is the “most time consuming” part of his work.
He claims it has speeded up the time it takes to write an essay threefold. “With the improved workflow my hands are catching up with my brain,” he says. However, he says the chatbot’s output requires heavy editing, and has not been helpful in creating references; when he tried, it “gave out nonexistent academic citations”.
Rezza has not informed his university that he is using the tool. “I don’t tell my professors because there is not yet a clear policy enacted on this matter in my university. I also think it is not necessary; using a calculator does not stop you from becoming a mathematician.”
Emma Westley, a 42-year-old marketing executive for a tech startup in France’s Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, says it can be a boon for clarifying complicated, technical concepts in her work. “I have found ChatGPT to be instrumental in making the whole research, brainstorming and writing process more efficient. While a huge amount of editing is still required to make the copy sound human, I’m really growing to love it as a brainstorming partner.”
But others have found the bot’s limitations to outweigh its benefits. Dan Atkinson, a 40-year-old software engineer, says he has found glaring errors in the information it has provided. “I asked about the diet in 11th century England and apparently it consisted of potatoes and other vegetables, but potatoes didn’t exist in Europe until the 16th century,” he says.
Atkinson is worried about the “misplaced confidence” the bot gives while providing factually incorrect information. These errors are known in tech jargon as “hallucinations”.
He says: “People are more willing to believe a machine, even when it is telling outright lies. This is dangerous for a number of reasons. For example, if you rely on something like this for basic medical advice. Or if you write code, it can give you examples which are bad practice and error prone.”
Microsoft has acknowledged potential problems with responses from its ChatGPT-powered Bing service. It said the AI-enhanced Bing might make errors, saying: “AI can make mistakes … Bing will sometimes misrepresent the information it finds, and you may see responses that sound convincing but are incomplete, inaccurate, or inappropriate.”
Roger McCartney, a teacher in South Korea, also raises concerns about the chatbot’s reliability, claiming it makes “the sort of errors a child could identify” such as basic mistakes about the solar system. Although he enjoys using it to “bounce ideas” off, McCartney, 38, also wonders if it is simply acting as a mirror for his own viewpoints.
“If I think of something that wouldn’t get an immediate answer from Google, I ask it a question and get an answer about something I didn’t know,” he says. “I tend to find this more useful than reading through lots of articles. I do, however, wonder if it is merely parroting back my own opinions at me in some sort of weird echo chamber.”
Some have found more lighthearted uses for the software. In a sign of the times, Lachlan Robertson, a 61-year-old part-time town planner and full-time Robert Burns fan in Wiltshire, used it to compose an “address to a vegan haggis” for his family Burns supper last month. With lines such as “Great haggis, plant-based and true/ No longer must the sheep pursue / Their lives, that we may dine on thee”, Robertson describes the result as “superb – though more William McGonagall than Burns”.
The question that wiped $120bn off Google’s valuation
Gareth Corfield Wed, 8 February 2023 Google Bard offers an incorrect answer to a questions about the James Webb Space Telescope - NASA TV/AFP via Getty Images
More than $120bn was wiped off Google’s market value after its new AI search assistant gave a wrong answer that was featured in promotional material.
Parent company Alphabet’s share price dropped 8pc after the Google Bard tool’s launch got off to a rocky start following its misleading response to a question about a NASA telescope.
At its lowest point on Wednesday Alphabet was trading at $98.08 (£81.16), a fall of 8.1pc on the previous day’s price of $106.77 (£88.35).
It marked the biggest one-day fall in Alphabet’s value since October 2022, when the company shed 9pc of its value in one day after unveiling a big slowdown in sales, profits and growth.
Bard, its AI search assistant, is used by Google to generate text summaries of search results.
Yet in an animated image of Google Bard in action distributed by the company to mark the new feature’s launch, it gives a wrong answer.
The falsehood will raise further questions about the accuracy of search engines and of AI-generated answers to humans’ questions.
In an animated GIF showing how Bard works, a user types in the search query “what new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9 year old about?”
The NASA telescope was made operational in December 2021 and has been used by scientists to make several discoveries of new planets outside the Solar System.
This is not accurate. The first picture ever taken of a planet outside the solar system – an exoplanet – was captured in 2004 by the Very Large Telescope array in Chile. Google Bard needs to swot up on its space knowledge
The exoplanet is called 2M1207b, is around five times the size of Jupiter and is located about 170 light-years away from Earth.
Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Bard’s tall tale.
Fears have been raised about inaccuracies generated by artificial intelligence systems which are not easily spotted by humans.
OpenAI, makers of chatbot rival ChatGPT, have been open about the limitations of their technology and have admitted it can sometimes write plausible-sounding but incorrect, or nonsensical, answers to humans’ questions.
The company is owned by Microsoft, whose share price has grown 6pc over the past week. Market analysts believe its recent growth is down to the launch of ChatGPT.
Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities said in a client note on Tuesday, referring to Microsoft’s chief executive: “This OpenAI investment/strategic partnership which is likely in the $10 billion range is a game changer in our opinion for Nadella & Co.”
John Kleeman, founder of online exam website Questionmark, told The Telegraph in December: “As a technology, it is fantastically impressive, really showing us how AI is going to change the world.”
Some of OpenAI’s training data for ChatGPT include the entire English-language contents of Wikipedia, eight years’ worth of web pages scraped from the public internet, and scans of English-language books.
It is thought that Google has used similar data sources to develop Bard, although the company has not yet disclosed how the software was trained to generate its answers and summaries of search results.
UK
New department ‘puts science at the heart of government’
Nina Massey, PA Science Correspondent Tue, 7 February 2023 Michelle Donelan British politician
The creation of a new Government department with a focus on science has been welcomed by experts from across the sector.
Many UK scientists had been calling for a dedicated department for a number of years, and say the announcement puts science at the heart of government.
Downing Street said having a single department focused on turning scientific and technical innovations into practical, applicable solutions will help make sure the UK is the most innovative economy in the world.
The new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology will drive the innovation that will deliver improved public services, create new and better-paid jobs and grow the economy, it added.
Michelle Donelan has moved from culture to be named Secretary of State for the new department.
Dr Tim Bradshaw, chief executive of the Russell Group, an association of 24 public research universities, said: “The decision to create a dedicated department for science, innovation and technology recognises the value of our sector and its importance to growing the economy, creating jobs and solving major challenges such as energy security, inequalities and net zero.”
Sir Adrian Smith, president of the Royal Society, said: “A dedicated Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and Secretary of State with a seat in Cabinet is a clear signal that research and innovation sit at the heart of the Prime Minister’s productivity and growth agenda.
“The Royal Society has long called for such a Cabinet-level position.
“Michelle Donelan’s first job must be to secure association to Horizon Europe and other EU science programmes.
“These schemes support outstanding international collaboration and without being part of them we are undermining the Prime Minister’s stated ambition for the UK to be at the forefront of science and technology globally.”
Commenting on the establishment of the new department, Tom Grinyer, chief executive of the Institute of Physics, said: “The new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology with a Cabinet seat is very good news for the UK and puts science and innovation exactly where they should be – right at the heart of government.
“We are entering an exciting new era powered by science, engineering and technology at a time when there are great opportunities and important choices facing the country.”
While Professor Dame Anne Johnson, president of the Academy of Medical Sciences, said placing science at the heart of Government “is an important step in realising the UK’s ambitions to become a science superpower”.
Stian Westlake, chief executive of the Royal Statistical Society, said it was encouraging to see science, technology and innovation represented at the top table of British politics.
Ten deadliest quakes of the 21st century
Wed, 8 February 2023
With the death toll rising by the hour, the massive earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on February 6 is already among the ten deadliest of the 21st century.
- 2004: 230,000 dead, southeast Asia -
On December 26, a massive earthquake measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale strikes off the coast of Sumatra, triggering a tsunami that kills more than 230,000 throughout the region, including 170,000 in Indonesia alone.
Huge waves of 700 kph (around 435 mph) reach heights of 30 metres (100 feet).
- 2010: 200,000 dead, Haiti -
A magnitude 7 quake on January 12 devastates the capital Port-au-Prince and the surrounding region.
The quake cuts the country off from the rest of the world for 24 hours, killing over 200,000 people, leaving 1.5 million homeless and shattering much of its frail infrastructure.
In October the same year Haiti is also hit by a cholera epidemic introduced by Nepalese peacekeepers who had come after the quake. It kills more than 10,000 people.
- 2008: 87,000 dead, Sichuan -
More than 87,000, including 5,335 school pupils, are left dead or missing when a 7.9-magnitude quake strikes southwestern Sichuan province on May 12.
Outrage erupts after it emerges 7,000 schools were badly damaged by the quake, triggering accusations of shoddy construction, corner-cutting and possible corruption, especially as many other buildings nearby held firm.
- 2005: 75,000 dead, Kashmir -
An October 8 earthquake kills more than 73,000 people, the vast majority of them in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province and the Pakistani-administered zone of Kashmir state. Some 3.5 million people are displaced.
- 2003: 31,000 dead, Bam (Iran) -
A 6.6-magnitude quake on December 26 in southeastern Iran destroys the ancient mud-brick city of Bam, killing at least 31,000 people.
Nearly 80 percent of Bam's infrastructure is damaged, and the desert citadel, once considered the world's largest adobe building, crumbles.
- 2001: 20,000 dead, India -
A massive 7.7 earthquake on January 26 hits the western Indian state of Gujarat, killing more than 20,000 people.
The quake levelled buildings across the state, with many fatalities in the town of Bhuj near the Pakistan border.
- 2011: 18,500 dead, Japan -
On March 11, Japan is struck by an enormous 9.0-magnitude earthquake, unleashing a towering tsunami that levels communities along the country's northeastern coast.
Around 18,500 people are left dead or missing as the terrifying wall of water travelling at the speed of a jet plane swallows up everything in its path.
The ensuing nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant blankets nearby areas with radiation, rendering some towns uninhabitable for years and displacing tens of thousands of residents.
- 2023: 11,200 dead, Turkey and Syria -
On February 6, a 7.8 magnitude quake strikes near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, home to around two million people.
Followed by a slightly smaller 7.5 magnitude tremor and many aftershocks, the quakes devastate entire sections of major cities in southeastern Turkey and the north of war-ravaged Syria.
The death toll reaches more than 11,200 three days after the disaster.
- 2015: 9,000 dead, Nepal -
A 7.8-magnitude earthquake on April 25 strikes in central Nepal, triggering avalanches and landslides across the Himalayan nation, destroying schools and hospitals.
The massive quake kills almost 9,000 people and renders millions homeless, while also reducing more than a hundred monuments to rubble, including centuries-old temples and royal palaces in the capital's Kathmandu valley.
- 2006: 6,000 dead, Java -
On May 26, a 6.3-magnitude quake rocks the southern coast of the Indonesian island of Java, near the city of Yogyakarta, killing around 6,000 people.
More than 420,000 are left homeless and some 157,000 houses are destroyed.
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Hefty fines could halt US-backed anti-abortion groups from breaching buffer zones
David Bol Tue, 7 February 2023 Abortion protesters (Image: PA)
HEFTY fines could be thrown at American anti-abortion groups to ensure police can enforce breaching new laws, the architect of plans to roll out buffer zones outside heath facilities has suggested.
A new offence or aggravator could be established to allow police to enforce buffer zones that would prohibit protests outside abortion clinics taking place.
The Scottish Government held a summit in Edinburgh yesterday on the plans to role out buffer zones on a national scale – after the Supreme Court ruled last year that similar plans in Northern Ireland were competent.
Greens MSP Gillian Mackay, who is proposing a members’ bill at Holyrood for the proposals, said that this year’s summit showed “it’s not now if it will happen, it’s when it’s going to happen”.
But Ms Mackay and the Scottish Government said they would not put a date on when the scheme will be rolled out, despite insiders suggesting it could be fast-tracked and in place by the summer.
SNP Public Health Minister Maree Todd stressed that the legislation will be brought forward to Holyrood “as fast as we possibly can“.
Ms Mackay, in partnership with the Back Off Scotland campaign, is to put forward a Members’ Bill in Holyrood to roll out protections across Scotland for women attending medical appointments after receiving thousands of responses to her consultation on the plans.
It comes after patients were routinely intimidated attending appointments at medical facilities by anti-abortion protesters.
Speaking after the summit, Ms Mackay said that there was “a consensus around an automatic approach across all sites, not necessarily a uniform approach”.
But she warned that a 150m buffer zone, as had been previously touted, may not be appropriate for some sites which are bigger in size.
The Greens MSP stressed that it was more likely the police would enforce any breach of the rules, instead of local authorities.
She said: “Police Scotland has a much more natural ability to share information of where laws are broken.
“And I think certainly for me, that's my preference just for ease and ease of tracking where this behaviour is happening and who's moving around to different sites.”
Asked if a separate offence or aggravation would need to be established, Ms Mackay said: “Potentially.”
She added: “Further engagement with legal professionals, court services, police and all those sorts of things will be really instrumental in making sure that whatever crafted is enforceable as well as something that they can defend if and when a prosecutions are challenged by people who are breaching.”
Ms Mackay said that the scale of the penalties was “not settled on yet”, but suggested they would need to be substantial to put off big American anti-abortion groups of gaming the system.
She said: “Obviously, a lot of these groups have been deep pockets.
“So there have been some concerns raised by stakeholders about potentially someone who's almost being in a situation of paying to breach the rule, which is absolutely not what we want.
“We need a level of personal accountability for the people who are breaching the zones, and how we balance that proportionality in particular, and it's avoiding any ECHR challenge is where that difficulty lies.”
Ms Mackay said politicians are “acting on the presumption that there will be a legal challenge to this bill in some way, shape, or form, if not repeated the challenges to this”.
She said: “I have no doubt that when the first prosecution or the first fixed penalty notice or whatever mechanism we used, when that first one is delivered, I think we're going to see a legal challenge.”
The Public Health Minister warned that “it's not acceptable for women to have to run the gauntlet past protests or face intimidation or harassment as they access health care in Scotland”.
Asked when the plans could become law, Ms Todd said: “It might surprise you to hear that I don't have a timescale goal.
“The outcome that I'm looking for is effective legislation that effectively provides safe access to healthcare for women in Scotland, that is robust, that passes through the parliamentary process and is able to withstand the scrutiny involved in the parliamentary process.
“We are working as fast as we possibly can to introduce the legislation.
“There is no sense of dragging our heels on this. We have worked really hard on this. We've built a momentum. And we're making progress and everybody wants to see this happen quickly.”
Nicola Sturgeon, who also took part in the summit, said: “If women are suffering harassment and intimidation when they are seeking access to abortion services, which let’s remember are health services that women have a right within the law to access, then we’re not doing everything we need to do to ensure the access that I think everybody in this room thinks is important.”
She added that an “immense” amount of work is underway.
