New Scientist Space - Cosmology
US Army tests AI chatbots as battle planners in a war game simulation
Researchers in the US Army are experimenting with commercial AI chatbots as battlefield advisers in war game simulations – but experts caution that such AI should not be used in high-stakes situations
Categories: Astronomy
How concussion can lead to brain damage - and what to do to prevent it
A new understanding of what happens to the brain after a knock to the head is finally waking us up to the risk of contact sports, and ways to stop long term damage
Categories: Astronomy
JWST will officially begin searching for exomoons around other planets
Five exomoon programmes have been picked for the James Webb Space Telescope, raising the hopes of finding moons around exoplanets for the first time
Categories: Astronomy
Asian elephants seen burying their dead for the first time
Five elephant calves have been found buried in drainage ditches on tea-growing estates in India in a rare example of burial behaviour in non-human animals
Categories: Astronomy
Blue cheese could get an upgrade thanks to new mould hybrids
Five new varieties of Penicillium roqueforti, the fungus used to make blue cheese, might rescue the fungus from a genetic dead end and produce pharmaceutical compounds
Categories: Astronomy
Earliest known sex chromosomes evolved in octopuses
Genetic analysis of the California two-spot octopus reveals that the species has sex chromosomes, and they may have originated up to 378 million years ago
Categories: Astronomy
Satellite launched to track down leaks of potent greenhouse gas
MethaneSAT will orbit the planet 15 times a day to capture unprecedented amounts of data on methane emissions from human and natural sources
Categories: Astronomy
Eerie green sunsets after 1883 Krakatoa eruption finally explained
Mysterious green sunsets were reported after the massive eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 – now simulations show how they were created and just how rare they are
Categories: Astronomy
Storks refine their migration routes as they learn from experience
Tracking data shows that young white storks spend more time exploring new places, while older ones take a more direct route on their annual migrations
Categories: Astronomy
Europa may have less oxygen to fuel life in its seas than we thought
The ocean on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa is one of the best places we have found to search for alien life, but it might have less oxygen than researchers had thought
Categories: Astronomy
Organoids made from uterus fluid may help treat fetuses before birth
Fetal cells retrieved from fluid in the uterus can now be turned into balls of cells called organoids, which could help diagnose and treat fetuses with a serious lung condition
Categories: Astronomy
How our golden age of asteroid exploration could reveal life's origins
What did NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission to sample Bennu discover? Mission leader Dante Lauretta says the asteroid could hold clues about how life began
Categories: Astronomy
Google launches $5m prize to find actual uses for quantum computers
Existing quantum computers can solve some problems faster than any ordinary computer, but none of those problems has any practical use. Google and XPRIZE hope to change that
Categories: Astronomy
Smart glasses use sonar to work out where you're looking
Gaze-tracking devices normally rely on cameras, but a new system uses reflected sound to track where someone is looking based on the shape of their eyeballs
Categories: Astronomy
These 7 mathematical facts will blow your mind
What better way is there to celebrate pi day than with a slice of mathematics? Here are 7 mathematical facts to enjoy
Categories: Astronomy
AI could help replicate smells in danger of being lost to history
Artificial intelligence has been used to replicate fragrances more quickly than conventional methods, even taking into account how a scent fades over time
Categories: Astronomy
Persistent pain after a UTI may be due to an overgrowth of nerve cells
Many people experience ongoing pain even after a urinary tract infection has supposedly passed. Now, research suggests this may be due to an overgrowth of nerve cells in their bladders
Categories: Astronomy
Why space dust is key to everything from star birth to life on Earth
Cosmic dust grains may be small, but they are mighty – it turns out dust is crucial to just about every process that occurs in space
Categories: Astronomy
Fear of predators may have helped us conceptualise the idea of zero
A fear of predators may have helped many animals recognise when they weren't there. Now, it seems humans built on this understanding of absence to utilise the concept of "zero"
Categories: Astronomy
Elon Musk asks court to decide if GPT-4 has human-level intelligence
As part of a lawsuit against OpenAI, billionaire Elon Musk has asked a court to determine whether GPT-4 is an artificial general intelligence, capable of human-level tasks
Categories: Astronomy