Our Guests This Week Dr Fred Jourdan from Curtin University ESA BepiColombo Project Scientist Johannes Benkhoff DLR Planetary Scientist Jorn Helbert Our regular guests: Alex Zaharov-Reutt from techadvice.life Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics 🌏 Get Our Exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ www.bitesz.com/nordvpn . The discounts and bonuses are incredible! And it’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌ If you’d like to support the podcast and gain access to bonus content by becoming a SpaceTime crew member, you can do just that through The Big Bang editions on Patreon, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Details on the Support page on our website https://www.bitesz.com/show/spacetime/support/
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Stuart Gary: This is Space Time series 29 episode 111
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 for broadcast on 16 September
00:00:05 --> 00:00:08 2026. Coming up on Space Time,
00:00:09 --> 00:00:11 27 new trans Neptunian objects discovered
00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 in the outer regions of our solar system. A
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 uh, Decagon discovered at Saturn's south pole
00:00:18 --> 00:00:20 and the Lynx spacecraft catches up to the
00:00:20 --> 00:00:22 target it was unable to save.
00:00:23 --> 00:00:26 All that and more coming up on um, Space
00:00:26 --> 00:00:28 Time. Welcome to
00:00:28 --> 00:00:30 Space Time with Stuart G.
00:00:47 --> 00:00:49 The first ever joint observation of Trans
00:00:49 --> 00:00:51 neptunian objects by NASA's Hubble and Webb
00:00:51 --> 00:00:54 Space Telescopes has discovered 27 new
00:00:54 --> 00:00:56 worlds in the dark outer reaches of our solar
00:00:56 --> 00:00:59 system. The findings reported in the
00:00:59 --> 00:01:01 Astronomical Journal represent the deepest
00:01:01 --> 00:01:04 search for Trans Neptunian objects ever
00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 undertaken and included some of the smallest
00:01:06 --> 00:01:08 and faintest celestial bodies ever seen,
00:01:08 --> 00:01:10 including one object just five kilometres
00:01:10 --> 00:01:12 wide. It's the first time
00:01:12 --> 00:01:15 astronomers have combined the power of Hubble
00:01:15 --> 00:01:17 and Webb to search for these far flung solar
00:01:17 --> 00:01:20 system bodies. Hubble looked in visible
00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 light and Webb searched infrared wavelengths.
00:01:24 --> 00:01:26 Surprisingly the authors found fewer small
00:01:26 --> 00:01:28 Trans Neptunian objects than expected. And
00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 the colours of these bodies follow the same
00:01:31 --> 00:01:33 relationships as those of their larger family
00:01:33 --> 00:01:36 members. Trans Neptunian objects are uh,
00:01:36 --> 00:01:39 typically small faint icy worlds orbiting
00:01:39 --> 00:01:41 the sun around and beyond the orbit of
00:01:41 --> 00:01:44 Neptune. Most are uh, more than 100 million
00:01:44 --> 00:01:46 times dimmer than objects visible to the
00:01:46 --> 00:01:49 unaided eye. As part of
00:01:49 --> 00:01:51 the study authors analysed the colour,
00:01:51 --> 00:01:54 composition and size distribution of the 27
00:01:54 --> 00:01:57 newly discovered tiny any dim Trans Neptunian
00:01:57 --> 00:01:59 objects. This class of small bodies
00:01:59 --> 00:02:02 offers the best view yet of the early stage
00:02:02 --> 00:02:04 of planetary building. A time more than
00:02:04 --> 00:02:07 4.6 billion years ago when a
00:02:07 --> 00:02:09 protoplanetary disc of dust and pebbles in
00:02:09 --> 00:02:12 orbit around the sun coalesced into city
00:02:12 --> 00:02:14 sized planetesimals, the solid building
00:02:14 --> 00:02:16 blocks that clump and accrete together to
00:02:16 --> 00:02:17 eventually form planets
00:02:19 --> 00:02:22 beyond Neptune. This second stage has never
00:02:22 --> 00:02:24 happened, leaving behind a frozen population
00:02:24 --> 00:02:27 of planetesimals. The authors measured the
00:02:27 --> 00:02:29 objects colours, which are sort of like
00:02:29 --> 00:02:31 fingerprints of surface composition as well
00:02:31 --> 00:02:33 as their sizes and the determination of their
00:02:33 --> 00:02:36 orbits. They studied two different types
00:02:36 --> 00:02:39 of Trans Neptunian objects. The first
00:02:39 --> 00:02:42 known as dynamically cold Trans Neptunian
00:02:42 --> 00:02:44 objects, are on their original relatively
00:02:44 --> 00:02:46 circular orbits around the sun in the plane
00:02:46 --> 00:02:48 of the solar system. What we call the
00:02:48 --> 00:02:51 ecliptic. The second type, dynamically hot
00:02:51 --> 00:02:53 Trans Neptunian objects formed between the
00:02:53 --> 00:02:56 current locations of Uranus and Neptune, but
00:02:56 --> 00:02:57 were then pushed outwards to their current
00:02:57 --> 00:02:59 locations locations when the gas giants
00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 migrated to their current orbits early in the
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 Solar system's history and today these reside
00:03:04 --> 00:03:06 in highly elliptical orbits which move in and
00:03:06 --> 00:03:08 out of the plane of our solar system.
00:03:09 --> 00:03:11 Before these observations, astronomers, uh,
00:03:12 --> 00:03:14 thought that small trans neptunian objects
00:03:14 --> 00:03:16 from both hot and cold populations would have
00:03:16 --> 00:03:18 undergone many collisions, changing their
00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 surface compositions compared to larger trans
00:03:21 --> 00:03:23 Neptunian objects. But that's not
00:03:23 --> 00:03:26 what their observations showed. Instead,
00:03:26 --> 00:03:28 the smaller bodies look just like their
00:03:28 --> 00:03:31 larger counterparts. Uh, this implies that
00:03:31 --> 00:03:33 collisions are not changing the surfaces of
00:03:33 --> 00:03:35 these bodies significantly, perhaps because
00:03:35 --> 00:03:37 there are fewer collisions than expected, or
00:03:37 --> 00:03:40 possibly because trans neptunian objects
00:03:40 --> 00:03:43 somehow retain their primordial pre collision
00:03:43 --> 00:03:45 compositions. The authors are still trying to
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 unravel this mystery and one of those
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 authors, Anastasia Morgan from Northern
00:03:50 --> 00:03:52 Arizona University, says it was fascinating
00:03:52 --> 00:03:55 to see that these smaller objects are somehow
00:03:55 --> 00:03:57 remembering and preserving the history of how
00:03:57 --> 00:04:00 they were formed. She says these dynamically
00:04:00 --> 00:04:02 hot trans neptunian objects retained a
00:04:02 --> 00:04:05 signature of where they were born, even
00:04:05 --> 00:04:06 though they've been orbitally scrambled since
00:04:06 --> 00:04:09 then. Both hot and cold populations
00:04:09 --> 00:04:11 seem to keep the same colours as when they
00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 were formed, with little change since the
00:04:13 --> 00:04:16 birth of the Solar system. The Webb data also
00:04:16 --> 00:04:18 allowed researchers to measure the number of
00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 objects of each size. They found
00:04:21 --> 00:04:23 that the overall size distribution for birth
00:04:23 --> 00:04:25 populations was surprisingly similar.
00:04:25 --> 00:04:27 Despite forming in different regions of the
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 early solar system. Morgan says the
00:04:30 --> 00:04:33 process seems to be insensitive to disc
00:04:33 --> 00:04:35 conditions producing similar planetesimal
00:04:35 --> 00:04:37 sizes, whether the disc is hot or cold and
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 dense or fluffy. She also found there were
00:04:40 --> 00:04:42 far, uh, fewer of these small bodies than
00:04:42 --> 00:04:44 expected based on some well understood and
00:04:44 --> 00:04:47 accepted planetary formation models.
00:04:47 --> 00:04:49 This report from NASA tv.
00:04:50 --> 00:04:52 NASA TV: The outer solar system is home to some of the
00:04:52 --> 00:04:55 oldest objects in existence. These
00:04:55 --> 00:04:58 tiny frozen worlds have spent billions of
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 years orbiting in darkness, largely untouched
00:05:01 --> 00:05:04 since the planets first formed. Now,
00:05:04 --> 00:05:06 by combining the power of NASA's Hubble and
00:05:06 --> 00:05:09 James Webb space telescopes, scientists are
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 uncovering new clues about the earliest days
00:05:12 --> 00:05:15 of our solar system by studying these
00:05:15 --> 00:05:17 frozen worlds, called Trans neptunian
00:05:17 --> 00:05:19 Objects, or TNOs.
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 TNOs orbit the sun beyond
00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 Neptune. They are surviving relics from the
00:05:25 --> 00:05:27 solar system's formation more than four and a
00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 half billion years ago. As dust,
00:05:30 --> 00:05:33 rock and ice collided, they gradually grew
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 into larger bodies known as planetesimals.
00:05:37 --> 00:05:39 Closer to the sun, this process produced
00:05:39 --> 00:05:42 the planets. But far beyond Neptune,
00:05:42 --> 00:05:44 countless small icy bodies remained.
00:05:45 --> 00:05:47 To study them, astronomers combined
00:05:47 --> 00:05:50 Hubble's observations in visible light with
00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 Webb's observations in infrared, providing
00:05:53 --> 00:05:55 a more complete picture of their sizes,
00:05:55 --> 00:05:57 orbits and surface compositions.
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 With 27 previously unknown objects
00:06:01 --> 00:06:03 discovered, including some of the smallest
00:06:03 --> 00:06:06 directly observed. The survey became the
00:06:06 --> 00:06:09 deepest search for trans neptunian objects
00:06:09 --> 00:06:12 ever conducted. Scientists expected
00:06:12 --> 00:06:14 these tiny worlds to look very different from
00:06:14 --> 00:06:17 larger TNOs over billions of
00:06:17 --> 00:06:19 years. Collisions should have broken many
00:06:19 --> 00:06:21 apart and altered their surfaces.
00:06:22 --> 00:06:24 Instead, the smallest objects closely
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 resembled their much larger neighbours. Their
00:06:27 --> 00:06:29 colours, which provide information about
00:06:29 --> 00:06:32 their surface composition, follow the same
00:06:32 --> 00:06:34 pattern seen among larger TNOs.
00:06:34 --> 00:06:37 That suggests these tiny worlds have
00:06:37 --> 00:06:39 preserved much of their original surface
00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 composition for billions of years and that
00:06:41 --> 00:06:44 collisions may have been less destructive or
00:06:44 --> 00:06:46 less common than expected.
00:06:47 --> 00:06:49 Researchers also found fewer very small
00:06:49 --> 00:06:52 TNOs than some models predicted,
00:06:52 --> 00:06:54 providing another clue about how the earliest
00:06:54 --> 00:06:57 building blocks of planets formed together.
00:06:57 --> 00:07:00 Hubble and Webb are giving scientists a new
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 look at some of our solar system's oldest
00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 survivors, helping them uncover how the
00:07:05 --> 00:07:08 planets, including Earth, first began
00:07:08 --> 00:07:08 to form.
00:07:16 --> 00:07:19 Stuart Gary: This is space time still to come,
00:07:19 --> 00:07:22 A decagon discovered at Saturn's south pole
00:07:22 --> 00:07:24 and the Lynx spacecraft, which was meant to
00:07:24 --> 00:07:26 rescue NASA's doomed Swift Gamma Ray Space
00:07:26 --> 00:07:29 Telescope, has now reached its target but is
00:07:29 --> 00:07:32 unable to save it. All that and more coming
00:07:32 --> 00:07:33 up on space time.
00:07:42 --> 00:07:44 New observations by NASA's Hubble Space
00:07:44 --> 00:07:47 Telescope have revealed a giant evolving 10
00:07:47 --> 00:07:50 sided decagon atmospheric structure
00:07:50 --> 00:07:52 encircling Saturn's south pole.
00:07:52 --> 00:07:54 The discovery, reported in the journal
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 Science Advances, marks the first time a
00:07:57 --> 00:07:59 large regular sided jet stream pattern has
00:07:59 --> 00:08:01 been observed in the planet's southern
00:08:01 --> 00:08:04 hemisphere. Generally speaking, the
00:08:04 --> 00:08:06 feature appears remarkably similar to
00:08:06 --> 00:08:08 Saturn's famous north pole hexagon, but it's
00:08:08 --> 00:08:10 also distinctly different from its six sided
00:08:10 --> 00:08:13 counterpart, suggesting scientists may be
00:08:13 --> 00:08:15 witnessing a new atmospheric phenomenon
00:08:15 --> 00:08:17 developing on the iconic ringed world.
00:08:18 --> 00:08:20 The observations were taken as part of Opal
00:08:20 --> 00:08:23 Hubble's Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy
00:08:23 --> 00:08:25 programme, which has been imaging the planets
00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 annually for more than a decade. By piecing
00:08:28 --> 00:08:30 together several years of Hubble
00:08:30 --> 00:08:32 observations, the authors found subtle hints
00:08:32 --> 00:08:34 of the structure beginning to emerge around
00:08:34 --> 00:08:37 2023, long before it became a clearly
00:08:37 --> 00:08:39 defined pattern. One of the study's authors,
00:08:39 --> 00:08:42 Amy Simon from NASA's Goddard Space Flight
00:08:42 --> 00:08:44 Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, says no one's
00:08:44 --> 00:08:46 ever seen anything quite like this in
00:08:46 --> 00:08:48 Saturn's southern hemisphere before. The
00:08:48 --> 00:08:50 northern hexagon's been there every time
00:08:50 --> 00:08:52 scientists looked at it over more than 40
00:08:52 --> 00:08:55 years. But according to Simon, the southern
00:08:55 --> 00:08:57 feature is very different and it appears to
00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 be strengthening, giving scientists a rare
00:08:59 --> 00:09:01 opportunity to watch as this giant
00:09:01 --> 00:09:04 atmospheric pattern evolves and develops.
00:09:05 --> 00:09:07 The discovery was made possible because of
00:09:07 --> 00:09:10 Saturn's changing axial tilt, consequently
00:09:10 --> 00:09:12 its seasons, which are gradually bringing the
00:09:12 --> 00:09:14 planet's south pole back into view from
00:09:14 --> 00:09:17 Earth. That's where astronomers who
00:09:17 --> 00:09:19 collectively analysed images of Saturn from
00:09:19 --> 00:09:21 ground based observatories first identified
00:09:21 --> 00:09:24 the feature. They first noticed a subtle
00:09:24 --> 00:09:26 undulating band along the south pole in
00:09:26 --> 00:09:29 ground based telescope observations in 2024.
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 Additional ground based imagery taken last
00:09:32 --> 00:09:34 year hinted more strongly at this decagonal
00:09:34 --> 00:09:37 structure. And that's when the Hubble archive
00:09:37 --> 00:09:39 of observations came into play.
00:09:40 --> 00:09:42 Given Saturn's symmetry and its north pole
00:09:42 --> 00:09:44 jet stream system, astronomers have been
00:09:44 --> 00:09:46 searching for a counterpart to Saturn's
00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 northern hexagon at the south pole in Hubble
00:09:48 --> 00:09:51 images since 1990. And images from
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which orbited
00:09:53 --> 00:09:56 Saturn between 2004 and 2017, showed
00:09:56 --> 00:09:58 no inkling of any sort of long lived
00:09:58 --> 00:10:01 formation there. But it was a review of the
00:10:01 --> 00:10:02 Hubble data which confirmed the feature's
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 presence in 2023, the earliest recording
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 of its existence. So what are we
00:10:08 --> 00:10:11 talking about here? The wave sits within one
00:10:11 --> 00:10:13 of Saturn's powerful jet streams and extends
00:10:13 --> 00:10:15 through multiple layers of the planet's
00:10:15 --> 00:10:17 atmosphere, indicating it's not just a cloud
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 level feature, but a vertically extended
00:10:20 --> 00:10:22 atmospheric structure. Uh, the
00:10:22 --> 00:10:24 decagon's apparent position shifts slightly
00:10:24 --> 00:10:26 because Hubble captures images in different
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 wavelengths and those different wavelengths
00:10:29 --> 00:10:31 are probing different altitudes in Saturn's
00:10:31 --> 00:10:34 atmosphere. According to Simon, the
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 most intriguing part is that this seems to
00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 have only occurred recently. So the question
00:10:39 --> 00:10:42 is why has it suddenly appeared? The
00:10:42 --> 00:10:44 authors say further study using Both Hubble
00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 and NASA's Webb Space Telescopes, as well as
00:10:46 --> 00:10:49 new analyses of computer models will need to
00:10:49 --> 00:10:51 be undertaken to better understand how this
00:10:51 --> 00:10:54 decagon formed, how long it may last and how
00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 it compares with the long lived hexagon in
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 the north. Hubble's long
00:10:59 --> 00:11:01 operational lifespan has allowed astronomers
00:11:01 --> 00:11:04 to track changes over time throughout the
00:11:04 --> 00:11:06 solar system's planets as well as other
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 astronomical objects. Rather than providing
00:11:08 --> 00:11:11 just a single snapshot, the OPAL programme
00:11:11 --> 00:11:13 allows astronomers to follow seasonal
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 changes, track short lived storms and
00:11:16 --> 00:11:18 identify other atmospheric features that
00:11:18 --> 00:11:21 evolve slowly over, uh, time. This
00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 is space time still to come.
00:11:24 --> 00:11:26 Link's failed rescue mission scopes its
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 target but can't save it. And later in the
00:11:28 --> 00:11:30 Science report, the artificial intelligence
00:11:30 --> 00:11:33 chatbot Claude cracks Fermet's last
00:11:33 --> 00:11:36 theorem. All that and more still to come
00:11:36 --> 00:11:37 on space time.
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 The Link spacecraft, which was meant to
00:11:55 --> 00:11:58 rescue NASA's doomed Swift Gamma Ray Space
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 telescope, has now reached within 15
00:12:00 --> 00:12:02 kilometres of swift and has even managed to
00:12:02 --> 00:12:04 snap some images of the stricken observatory.
00:12:05 --> 00:12:07 The rescue attempt to save Swift was
00:12:07 --> 00:12:09 abandoned two weeks ago following systems
00:12:09 --> 00:12:11 failures aboard Link, which sent the vehicle
00:12:11 --> 00:12:14 into an uncontrolled wild multi axial spin.
00:12:15 --> 00:12:18 Lynx Operators, Catalyst Space Technologies
00:12:18 --> 00:12:20 were able to restore some limited attitude
00:12:20 --> 00:12:22 control over the three armed robotic salvage
00:12:22 --> 00:12:25 vehicle. But by then fuel reserves were too
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 low to proceed with a rescue attempt.
00:12:28 --> 00:12:30 Nevertheless, Catalyst was able to use its
00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 sensors gather data on the DOOM telescope for
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 NASA. Now making the best out of a bad
00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 deal, the company is using the failed mission
00:12:38 --> 00:12:40 as a practise run for future satellite
00:12:40 --> 00:12:43 servicing operations. Launched
00:12:43 --> 00:12:46 in 2004, Swift was designed as an
00:12:46 --> 00:12:48 orbital early warning system, giving
00:12:48 --> 00:12:50 astronomers a heads up for short period
00:12:50 --> 00:12:52 events like gamma ray bursts, the biggest
00:12:52 --> 00:12:55 explosions in the universe since the Big
00:12:55 --> 00:12:57 Bang, thereby allowing them the time they
00:12:57 --> 00:12:59 need to swing their telescopes towards the
00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 unprecedented blasts. But
00:13:02 --> 00:13:04 Swift was only ever designed to last a few
00:13:04 --> 00:13:07 years and so it wasn't equipped with boosters
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 to allow it to maintain its orbital altitude
00:13:09 --> 00:13:12 against the effects of atmospheric dragon.
00:13:12 --> 00:13:14 And as the latest solar storm hit the Earth,
00:13:14 --> 00:13:16 causing the planet's atmosphere to expand and
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 contract, that atmospheric drag has caused
00:13:19 --> 00:13:21 orbital decay, gradually dropping Swift from
00:13:21 --> 00:13:24 its original 600 kilometre high orbit to just
00:13:24 --> 00:13:26 335 kilometres today.
00:13:27 --> 00:13:29 And it's continuing to drop. In fact, NASA
00:13:29 --> 00:13:31 now anticipates Swift will plunge through the
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 atmosphere sometime between October and the
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 end of the year. And of course, just like
00:13:36 --> 00:13:39 Swift, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's also
00:13:39 --> 00:13:42 in a low Earth orbit and it too isn't fitted
00:13:42 --> 00:13:44 with any boosters. See NASA was always able
00:13:44 --> 00:13:47 to keep hubble in its 500 to 550 kilometres
00:13:47 --> 00:13:49 high orbit, using space shuttles on servicing
00:13:49 --> 00:13:52 missions to boost the observatory back up.
00:13:52 --> 00:13:54 But with the premature mothballing of the
00:13:54 --> 00:13:57 shuttle fleet in 2011, Hubble uh, is also
00:13:57 --> 00:14:00 slowly losing altitude. And so
00:14:00 --> 00:14:02 Catalyst is now developing a next generation
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 linked spacecraft, hopefully one that will be
00:14:04 --> 00:14:06 more reliable, which could be used to boost
00:14:06 --> 00:14:08 Hubble back up into a higher orbit,
00:14:08 --> 00:14:10 consequently extending its life.
00:14:11 --> 00:14:12 This is space time.
00:14:28 --> 00:14:30 And time outta. Take another brief look at
00:14:30 --> 00:14:31 some of the other storeys making news in
00:14:31 --> 00:14:33 Science this week with a Science report.
00:14:34 --> 00:14:37 The latest data on HIV and sexually
00:14:37 --> 00:14:39 transmitted diseases in Australia has just
00:14:39 --> 00:14:41 been released and it's painting a mixed
00:14:41 --> 00:14:43 picture of progress and ongoing challenges.
00:14:44 --> 00:14:46 The report by the University of New South
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49 Wales Kirby Institute shows HIV diagnoses
00:14:49 --> 00:14:51 uh, have fallen significantly over the past
00:14:51 --> 00:14:54 decade with the nation achieving the UN AIDS
00:14:54 --> 00:14:56 targets. That's where 95% of people living
00:14:56 --> 00:14:59 with HIV are diagnosed, 95% of those
00:14:59 --> 00:15:02 diagnosed are on treatment and 95% of those
00:15:02 --> 00:15:05 on treatment have HIV that's virally
00:15:05 --> 00:15:07 suppressed. However, uh, the study shows
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 progress remains uneven across communities.
00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 Meanwhile, syphilis and gonorrhoea diagnoses
00:15:13 --> 00:15:15 remain high with concerning increases among
00:15:15 --> 00:15:18 females and disproportionately high sexually
00:15:18 --> 00:15:20 transmitted disease rates among first nations
00:15:20 --> 00:15:23 people. A new study
00:15:23 --> 00:15:25 has warned that climate change is forcing a
00:15:25 --> 00:15:28 decline in global seaweed forests, which is
00:15:28 --> 00:15:30 drastically outpacing, uh, restoration
00:15:30 --> 00:15:33 efforts. Seaweed forests soak up
00:15:33 --> 00:15:35 carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They're
00:15:35 --> 00:15:37 also important habitats for marine life. And
00:15:37 --> 00:15:39 there have been concerted efforts to plant
00:15:39 --> 00:15:41 more seaweed in the battle against rising
00:15:41 --> 00:15:44 carbon levels. But now a report in the
00:15:44 --> 00:15:47 journal PLOS Biology estimates that 25
00:15:47 --> 00:15:49 million hectares of wild kelp forest will be
00:15:49 --> 00:15:52 lost due to climate change by 2050.
00:15:53 --> 00:15:56 That's 6 times the area which has been
00:15:56 --> 00:15:58 restored since 1958.
00:16:00 --> 00:16:01 Scientists have discovered that Asian
00:16:01 --> 00:16:04 elephants can resist impulse behaviour in
00:16:04 --> 00:16:06 favour of a more rational and effective
00:16:06 --> 00:16:09 course of problem solving. The findings,
00:16:09 --> 00:16:10 reported in the journal papers in
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 palaeontology, involved 16 Asian elephants
00:16:13 --> 00:16:15 who were presented with a transparent box
00:16:16 --> 00:16:18 with small holes through which they could see
00:16:18 --> 00:16:21 and smell the fruit inside. They
00:16:21 --> 00:16:23 consistently resisted the temptation to try
00:16:23 --> 00:16:26 and reach directly for the food and instead
00:16:26 --> 00:16:28 used an opening on the side of the box that
00:16:28 --> 00:16:30 they had been shown earlier. When the box was
00:16:30 --> 00:16:32 later rotated, the elephants at first
00:16:32 --> 00:16:34 succumbed to the impulse to reach for the
00:16:34 --> 00:16:37 previous position of the opening, but they
00:16:37 --> 00:16:39 quickly corrected their behaviour. The
00:16:39 --> 00:16:41 authors say that this inhibitory control
00:16:42 --> 00:16:44 might be a key part of elephant's famed
00:16:44 --> 00:16:46 problem solving and socialising skills.
00:16:48 --> 00:16:50 An advanced prototype of the artificial
00:16:50 --> 00:16:53 intelligence chatbot Claude has produced a 13
00:16:53 --> 00:16:56 million line computer cheque proof of
00:16:56 --> 00:16:58 Fermat's last theorem in just 11 days.
00:16:59 --> 00:17:01 The company behind the project Anthropic says
00:17:01 --> 00:17:03 the same project is expected to take humans
00:17:03 --> 00:17:06 around a decade to solve. The results show
00:17:06 --> 00:17:09 that AI will play an increasingly important
00:17:09 --> 00:17:11 part in creating algorithmically checkable
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 versions of mathematicians work. And it
00:17:14 --> 00:17:16 hints that such technology could soon
00:17:16 --> 00:17:18 scrutinise the entire library of mathematical
00:17:18 --> 00:17:21 knowledge. By the way, Fermont's last
00:17:21 --> 00:17:23 theorem states that no three positive
00:17:23 --> 00:17:26 integers A, B and C satisfy the equation A
00:17:26 --> 00:17:28 to the power of N +B to the power of n equals
00:17:28 --> 00:17:31 C to the power of n for any integer value of
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 n greater than 2. For over, uh,
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 350 years, mathematicians have
00:17:36 --> 00:17:39 tried and failed to prove or disprove the
00:17:39 --> 00:17:41 1637 claim, turning it into one of the most
00:17:41 --> 00:17:43 famous challenges in the history of
00:17:43 --> 00:17:46 mathematics. Well,
00:17:46 --> 00:17:48 weren't we the fools Forget calling it the
00:17:48 --> 00:17:49 fold.
00:17:49 --> 00:17:51 Apple have just done a flip on us, calling
00:17:51 --> 00:17:53 their new iPhone the Duo instead.
00:17:54 --> 00:17:56 So, how good is it with the details? We're
00:17:56 --> 00:17:58 joined by technology editor Alex Zaharov Roy
00:17:58 --> 00:18:00 from Tech Advice Start Live.
00:18:00 --> 00:18:03 Jonathan Nally: So, yeah, it's called the iPhone Duo. Now, it
00:18:03 --> 00:18:05 always did seem a bit unusual to me that
00:18:05 --> 00:18:07 Apple would copy the name of what Samsung was
00:18:07 --> 00:18:10 doing with the Fold, or even with Ultra,
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 which is the name of Samsung's, uh, premium
00:18:13 --> 00:18:15 device. I mean, the Duo doesn't have the
00:18:15 --> 00:18:18 telephoto camera. It's got a few things that
00:18:18 --> 00:18:19 are missing, but it's got plenty that people
00:18:19 --> 00:18:21 thought wouldn't be there. The interface
00:18:21 --> 00:18:23 wasn't just the standard interface slapped
00:18:23 --> 00:18:26 onto a slightly wider screen where Samsung
00:18:26 --> 00:18:28 just has the normal, uh, telephone and
00:18:28 --> 00:18:30 messaging and camera and whatever other icons
00:18:30 --> 00:18:32 on the bottom. Apple really thought it out.
00:18:32 --> 00:18:34 You've got this thumb width's worth of space
00:18:34 --> 00:18:37 compared to a normal iPhone mini or even just
00:18:37 --> 00:18:39 a normal iPhone on the right hand side. And
00:18:39 --> 00:18:42 when you've got a screen that's only 5.4 or
00:18:42 --> 00:18:44 5.5 inches diagonally, it's obviously
00:18:44 --> 00:18:46 squatter, it's not as tall as a normal phone.
00:18:46 --> 00:18:48 So you want to preserve as much of that
00:18:48 --> 00:18:50 vertical viewing space as possible. That
00:18:50 --> 00:18:52 means you don't put the time at the very top,
00:18:52 --> 00:18:54 you don't put the little icons for your WI fi
00:18:54 --> 00:18:56 and signal strength and all that other sort
00:18:56 --> 00:18:58 of stuff. And at the bottom you don't put the
00:18:58 --> 00:19:00 four icons for the phone and the message on
00:19:00 --> 00:19:02 the bottom. Apple shoved all that to the
00:19:02 --> 00:19:04 right where your thumb is when the phone is
00:19:04 --> 00:19:06 closed. Even the icon for the battery
00:19:07 --> 00:19:08 signal strength and the time I think it is
00:19:08 --> 00:19:10 that is now in a little circle.
00:19:10 --> 00:19:11 Stuart Gary: So you're not losing any of the
00:19:11 --> 00:19:13 Jonathan Nally: picture, you're maximising the amount of
00:19:13 --> 00:19:15 vertical space you've got because normally
00:19:15 --> 00:19:18 it's taken up by stuff. And even the apps
00:19:18 --> 00:19:20 that Apple has made, notes and all sorts of
00:19:20 --> 00:19:22 other things, a lot of their controls are now
00:19:22 --> 00:19:24 on the right hand side where your thumb is.
00:19:24 --> 00:19:25 But then when you open it up you have this
00:19:25 --> 00:19:28 7.6-inch canvas. Now, it's smaller than an
00:19:28 --> 00:19:30 iPad mini, but it looks pretty much like an
00:19:30 --> 00:19:32 iPad mini. The crease, it's still there if
00:19:32 --> 00:19:33 you hold it in the right light. But the way
00:19:33 --> 00:19:36 that the screen has a matte coating under
00:19:36 --> 00:19:38 normal circumstances you can't see the
00:19:38 --> 00:19:39 crease. The problem is of course, the price.
00:19:39 --> 00:19:41 Now, in Australian dollars, we're talking
00:19:41 --> 00:19:43 $3 for the
00:19:43 --> 00:19:46 256 gig model. And this goes
00:19:46 --> 00:19:47 all the way up to
00:19:47 --> 00:19:50 $5 for
00:19:50 --> 00:19:53 the two terabyte model. I mean even the 512
00:19:53 --> 00:19:56 gig, it's 3, the one terabyte
00:19:56 --> 00:19:58 4. So that's definitely expensive
00:19:58 --> 00:20:00 prices. And this is where people are going to
00:20:00 --> 00:20:02 go on phone plans just to afford it. But even
00:20:02 --> 00:20:05 the 256 gig model over 36 months is nearly
00:20:05 --> 00:20:07 100 dol. And this year, because of all the
00:20:07 --> 00:20:10 price rises with the RAM and SSD, a 2
00:20:10 --> 00:20:13 terabyte iPhone 18 Pro Max is something
00:20:13 --> 00:20:16 like $4. That's like
00:20:16 --> 00:20:18 $1 more this year for the same 2
00:20:18 --> 00:20:20 terabyte model, which is, uh, on the iPhone
00:20:20 --> 00:20:21 18 Pro Max,
00:20:21 --> 00:20:24 Stuart Gary: I download all my music onto my phone,
00:20:24 --> 00:20:26 so I need the full two terabytes just to
00:20:26 --> 00:20:29 survive. That's my life. Five grand on the
00:20:29 --> 00:20:30 phone, that's huge.
00:20:30 --> 00:20:32 Jonathan Nally: Yeah. And if you paid off over three years, I
00:20:32 --> 00:20:33 mean, you've got to be paying, you know, I
00:20:33 --> 00:20:36 don't know, 150 or more per month over three
00:20:36 --> 00:20:39 years, not including your plan. So there's
00:20:39 --> 00:20:41 going to be a lot of hard choices to be made.
00:20:41 --> 00:20:43 Stuart Gary: So 18 pro max, we've now got the larger
00:20:43 --> 00:20:46 battery, a smaller dynamic island, the
00:20:46 --> 00:20:48 smaller 2 nanometer, uh, a20 chipset. Is that
00:20:48 --> 00:20:49 right?
00:20:49 --> 00:20:51 Jonathan Nally: Exactly right, yeah. It's a 6 core CPU up to
00:20:51 --> 00:20:54 20 faster than the a19 Pro from last year.
00:20:54 --> 00:20:55 Stuart Gary: And the cameras are better too, I believe.
00:20:55 --> 00:20:57 Jonathan Nally: Yes, absolutely. Now they've got, uh, this
00:20:57 --> 00:21:00 new variable aperture. So it's like having
00:21:00 --> 00:21:03 this hexagonal series of little shutters that
00:21:03 --> 00:21:05 can make the hole very small. Like your iris
00:21:05 --> 00:21:06 goes smaller in your eye when you're looking
00:21:06 --> 00:21:08 at a bright light or you can widen it to let
00:21:08 --> 00:21:10 more light in. So you've got these Pro camera
00:21:10 --> 00:21:13 controls. The app as well shows histograms
00:21:13 --> 00:21:15 and a bunch of other pro things that you'll
00:21:15 --> 00:21:17 only get on this, uh, latest model. Longer
00:21:17 --> 00:21:18 battery life as well. The biggest battery
00:21:18 --> 00:21:19 ever.
00:21:19 --> 00:21:21 Stuart Gary: All the features that we talked about on the
00:21:21 --> 00:21:24 18 Pro Max, are they also on the Duo
00:21:24 --> 00:21:24 as well?
00:21:24 --> 00:21:27 Jonathan Nally: No. So the Duo. See, the Duo only has two
00:21:27 --> 00:21:29 cameras, not three. I mean, I wish it had the
00:21:29 --> 00:21:32 third telephoto, but it's thinner than even
00:21:32 --> 00:21:33 the iPhone air was. But of course, when you
00:21:33 --> 00:21:35 fold it, it's almost the thickest iPhone
00:21:35 --> 00:21:37 Apple's ever made. Only the 3GS was thicker,
00:21:37 --> 00:21:39 but it still fits in the hand and in your
00:21:39 --> 00:21:41 pocket nicely. But we have to wait for a
00:21:41 --> 00:21:42 future model to get all cameras and even the
00:21:42 --> 00:21:44 cameras. Although Apple sort of said, oh,
00:21:44 --> 00:21:45 it's the same camera. Well, no, it's not. It
00:21:45 --> 00:21:47 doesn't have the same level of optical image
00:21:47 --> 00:21:49 stabilisation. Various things are just not as
00:21:49 --> 00:21:51 good because you're limited in the amount of
00:21:51 --> 00:21:54 space that you have in such a thin device. So
00:21:54 --> 00:21:55 that's why they didn't call the Ultra,
00:21:55 --> 00:21:57 because it's not. They didn't call it the
00:21:57 --> 00:21:59 Fold because, well, that's Samsung's name and
00:21:59 --> 00:22:01 Google's name as well. Unfortunately, it has
00:22:01 --> 00:22:04 arrived in a time when memory and SSD
00:22:04 --> 00:22:06 is ridiculously expensive and that has caused
00:22:06 --> 00:22:07 prices to skyrocket.
00:22:07 --> 00:22:10 Stuart Gary: Well, we know that Elon Musk's building a new
00:22:10 --> 00:22:12 chip factory in the United States. It'll be
00:22:12 --> 00:22:13 the biggest in the world. Is that going to
00:22:13 --> 00:22:15 lower prices? And if so, uh, how long will
00:22:15 --> 00:22:15 that take?
00:22:15 --> 00:22:17 Jonathan Nally: Well, look, these chip factories take 2, 3
00:22:17 --> 00:22:19 years to build and then they've got to be
00:22:19 --> 00:22:20 ramped up.
00:22:20 --> 00:22:22 Stuart Gary: That's, um, Alex Zaharov Roy from TechAdvice
00:22:22 --> 00:22:25 Life. And this is Space Time.
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