2023 News

Selected Science & Sci-Fi news from around the world on the latest in technology, space exploration, artificial intelligence, robots, and everything that leads science fiction to become reality.

Science, Technology & Sci-Fi News (December 2023)

AI Can Diagnose Childhood Autism From Eye Photos With ‘100% Accuracy’

New artificially intelligent (AI) technology can now diagnose childhood autism from photos of children’s eyes with 100% accuracy. (Read more: Petapixel.com)

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The Most Secretive Longevity Lab Finally Opens Its Doors

Retro Biosciences, a startup with $180 million from Sam Altman, has a simple and audacious goal: Add 10 good years to your life. And until now, we haven’t had a glimpse of its best ideas. (Read more: Bloomberg.com)

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Scientists Solved the Nagging Mystery of How Genes Emerge From Nothing

One of the mysteries about the origin of life is how DNA randomly formed palindrome pairs in order to function. A new study from the University of Helsinki analyzes regulatory genes known as microRNA to discover how these necessary palindromes formed. Using computer modeling, the study’s results show that whole palindromes can arise from a singular mutation event. (Read more: popularmechanics.com)

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Voyager 1 Is Returning a Mishmash of 1s And 0s From Space. NASA Is Baffled

Voyager 1, the most distant human-made object from Earth, is sending back a repetitive jumble of 1s and 0s that don’t make any sense. Scientists at NASA are desperately trying to fix the glitch from 24 billion kilometers (15 billion miles) away. The probe can still receive commands from Earth but messages to interstellar space require approximately 22.5 hours of travel. (Read more: Sciencealert.com)

Science, Technology & Sci-Fi News (October 2023)

Real Life Resurrections: Worms Frozen for 42,000 Years Come Back to Life

Pleistocene age worms found in Arctic permafrost are alive and eating well after being defrosted some 42,000 years later. These time-traveling creatures are just one example of the power of cryo-conservation – the process of cooling biological materials (organs, tissue, etc.) to low temperatures in order to preserve them. (Read more: Interestingengineering.com)

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NASA can’t open its OSIRIS-REx asteroid capsule yet, but the outside alone holds more than enough samples

The sample processed so far includes the rocks and dust found on the outside of the sampler head, as well as a portion of the bulk sample from inside the head, which was accessed through the head’s mylar flap,” the post states. “Additional material remaining inside the sampler head, called the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, or TAGSAM, is set for removal later, adding to the mass total. (Read more: Space.com)

Science, Technology & Sci-Fi News (September 2023)

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Capsule Arrives in Houston

The first U.S. asteroid sample, delivered by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to Earth on Sept. 24, has arrived at its permanent home at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where it will be cared for, stored, and distributed to scientists worldwide. (Read more: Nasa.com)

Mammals’ Time on Earth Is Half Over, Scientists Predict

A new model suggests that in 250 million years, all land will collide into a supercontinent that boosts warming and pushes mammals to extinction. (Read more: The New York Times)

Science, Technology & Sci-Fi News (July 2023)

How reviving 46,000-year-old frozen worms could teach us about climate change

Russian scientists were able to revive two worms frozen for 46,000 years using water as a medium for revival, according to a scientific article published earlier this month. (Read more: USA Today)

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Discovers Organic Matter on Mars

NASA’s Perseverance rover has detected evidence of organic compounds in a huge 28-mile-wide crater on Mars for the first time. (Read more: Newsweek)

Generative AI imagines new protein structures

MIT researchers develop “FrameDiff,” a computational tool that uses generative AI to craft new protein structures, with the aim of accelerating drug development and improving gene therapy. (Read more: MIT News)

Science, Technology & Sci-Fi News (June 2023)

How scientists are hacking the genetic code to give proteins new powers

By modifying the blueprint of life, researchers are endowing proteins with chemistries they’ve never had before. (Read more: Nature.com)

Building Block for Life Discovered in Enceladus’ Ocean by NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft

Phosphorus, a vital element for life, has been discovered in icy grains emitted from Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, by NASA’s Cassini mission. This first-time discovery in an ocean beyond Earth hints at the potential for life-supporting conditions in Enceladus’ subsurface ocean and possibly other icy ocean worlds. However, the presence of life is yet to be confirmed. (Read more: SciTechDaily.com)

Europeans Take a Major Step Toward Regulating A.I.

The European Parliament, a main legislative branch of the European Union, passed a draft law known as the A.I. Act, which would put new restrictions on what are seen as the technology’s riskiest uses. It would severely curtail uses of facial recognition software, while requiring makers of A.I. systems like the ChatGPT chatbot to disclose more about the data used to create their programs. (Read more: The New York Times)

Science, Technology & Sci-Fi News (May 2023)

Brain implants help paralysed man to walk again

A paralysed man has been able to walk simply by thinking about it thanks to electronic brain implants, a medical first he says has changed his life. (Read more: BBC.com)

SpaceX Sets Possible Dates For Starship’s Second Orbital Test Launch

The first Starship orbital test ended in explosion, but SpaceX CEO Elon Musk considered it a success. The Elon Musk-led company has requested a six-month window from June 15 to December 15 to launch a Starship prototype to Earth’s orbit from the company’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, according to the application. (Read more: Observer.com)

IBM Plans To Replace Nearly 8,000 Jobs With AI — These Jobs Are First to Go

The transition will happen gradually over the next few years, with machines potentially taking over up to 30% of noncustomer-facing roles in the five years. This means that workers in finance, accounting, HR and other areas will likely find themselves facing stiff competition from robots and algorithms. (Read more: YahooFinance)

Science, Technology & Sci-Fi News (April 2023)

China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ Smashes Nuclear Fusion Record

China’s “artificial sun” has reached a new milestone in the rapidly advancing field of nuclear fusion. On April 12, a superhot fusion plasma was generated, sustained and confined for 403 seconds, bringing commercial-scale fusion energy one step closer to reality, national media reported. (Read more: Newsweek)

The first babies conceived with a sperm-injecting robot have been born

Meet the startups trying to engineer a desktop fertility machine. The startup company that developed the robot, Overture Life, says its device is an initial step toward automating in vitro fertilization, or IVF, and potentially making the procedure less expensive and far more common than it is today. (Read more: MIT Technology Review)

‘‘Maximum Truth-Seeking AI’: Musk Says He’s Building ‘TruthGPT’

Elon Musk said he’s working on “TruthGPT,” his own artificial intelligence-powered chatbot to take on OpenAI’s ChatGPT, in an interview Monday with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, where the billionaire reiterated his concerns about the dangers of AI and alluded to his concerns about existing tools being politically biased. (Read more: Forbes.com)

They thought loved ones were calling for help. It was an AI scam

Scammers are using artificial intelligence to sound more like family members in distress. People are falling for it and losing thousands of dollars. (Read more: WashingtonPost)

Science, Technology & Sci-Fi News (March 2023)

Radio telescope on moon’s far side will peer into universe’s ‘Dark Ages’

A few years from now, a small radio telescope on the far side of the moon could help scientists peer into the universe’s ancient past. LuSEE-Night is currently scheduled to launch on a private robotic lunar lander in late 2025 (opens in new tab). After it touches down on the moon’s far side, it will attempt to gather first-of-their-kind measurements from the “Dark Ages” of the universe. (Read more: Space.com)

ARTEMIS: ‘World’s fastest’ humanoid robot readies for RoboCup

The robot will travel to Bordeaux, France, in July to compete in the soccer match of the 2023 RoboCup, as per a press release by the university on Friday. The 85-pound, 4.8 feet tall robot maintains stability even when violently shoved or disturbed. (Read more: interestingengineering.com)

AI’s Victories in Go Inspire Better Human Game Playing

Famed AI wins in Go let human players rethink their moves in a whole new way. Formally tracking the messy process of human decision-making can be tough. But a decades-long record of professional Go player moves gave researchers a way to assess the human strategic response to an AI provocation. A new study now confirms that Fan Hui’s improvements after facing the AlphaGo challenge weren’t just a singular fluke. (Read more: scientificamerican.com)

Science, Technology & Sci-Fi News (February 2023)

How virtual reality wards could help ease pressure on NHS hospitals training nurses

New virtual wards for trainee nurses could help ease the pressure on the NHS. State-of-the-art nursing facilities that include mannequins modelled on real-life children, and dummies that have a pulse, could reduce the hours needed for trainee nurses to interact with real patients on wards. (Read more: SkyNews)

The James Webb Space Telescope discovers enormous distant galaxies that should not exist

Giant, mature galaxies seem to have filled the universe shortly after the Big Bang, and astronomers are puzzled. (Read more: Space.com)

Science, Technology & Sci-Fi News (January 2023)

Microsoft confirms it’s investing billions in the creator of ChatGPT

Microsoft on Monday confirmed it is making a “multibillion dollar” investment in OpenAI, the company behind the viral new AI chatbot tool called ChatGPT. (Read more: CNN.com)

Shanghai to see breakthroughs in robotics by 2025

Shanghai will see its robot density — measured by the number of robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers — in manufacturing increase by 100 in the next three years. (Read more: China Daily)

Death of the narrator? Apple unveils suite of AI-voiced audiobooks

Apple has quietly launched a catalogue of books narrated by artificial intelligence in a move that may mark the beginning of the end for human narrators. (Read more: TheGuardian.com)

Ghost Writer: Microsoft Looks to Add OpenAI’s Chatbot Technology to Word, Email

In a move that could change how more than a billion people write documents, presentations and emails, Microsoft has discussed incorporating OpenAI’s artificial intelligence in Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and other apps so customers can automatically generate text using simple prompts. (Read more: theinformation.com)

AI legal assistant will help defendant fight a speeding case in court

An artificial intelligence is set to advise a defendant in court for the first time ever. The AI will run on a smartphone and listen to all speech in the courtroom in February before instructing the defendant on what to say via an earpiece. (Read more: Newscientist.com)