- **Astronomers Unveil New Insights into Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs)** - After more than 15 years since the discovery of fast radio bursts (FRBs), astronomers are tirelessly investigating these millisecond-long cosmic explosions of electromagnetic radiation. - Join us as we delve into the ongoing quest to unravel the mysteries behind the formation of FRBs.
- **Historic Assisted Re-entry of European Satellite, Aeolus** - The European Space Agency's Aeolus spacecraft has made history by successfully burning up during atmospheric re-entry over Antarctica. - Discover the fascinating details of this significant event and its implications for future space missions.
- **Solar Eruption Sends Shockwaves Across Earth, Moon, and Mars** - A massive solar eruption has been detected simultaneously at Earth, the Moon, and Mars, highlighting the importance of preparing for radiation hazards in deep space missions. - Explore the implications of this solar event and its impact on our understanding of space weather.
- **The Science Report** - Startling findings reveal that the H1N1 pandemic has transmitted between humans and pigs a staggering 370 times since 2009. - Learn about the significant increase in the average Australian lifespan by 6 years and the factors contributing to this positive trend. - Discover how Chat GPT-3 has showcased problem-solving abilities surpassing human participants. - Tune in for the latest news on the upcoming i-phones with our tech expert, Alex Zaharov-Reutt from techadvice.life.
- Join us for an intriguing and informative episode as we delve into these captivating topics and explore the wonders of the universe.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-with-stuart-gary--2458531/support.
00:00:00
STUART GARY: This is Space Time series 26 episode 95 for
00:00:03
broadcast on the ninth of August 2023. Coming up on Space Time,
00:00:09
astronomers shed new light on mysterious fast radio bursts. A
00:00:13
European satellite crashes back to Earth and a giant solar
00:00:17
eruption so powerful it was felt on the Earth, the Moon and Mars
00:00:23
all that and more coming up on Space Time.
00:00:28
GENERIC: Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Garry.
00:00:47
STUART GARY: Almost 15 years after the discovery of fast
00:00:50
radio bursts. Those ephemeral millisecond long deep space
00:00:54
cosmic explosions of electromagnetic radiation.
00:00:57
Astronomers worldwide have been combing the universe to uncover
00:01:01
clues about how and why they happen.
00:01:04
Nearly all fast radio bursts identified so far have
00:01:08
originated from deep space. Well, outside our milky way
00:01:11
galaxy, that was at least until April 2020 when the first
00:01:16
galactic fast radio burst designated FB 2020 0 428 was
00:01:22
detected.
00:01:23
The event was produced by a magnetar SGR J 1935 plus 2154
00:01:31
magnetar are a type of neutron star with an incredibly powerful
00:01:34
magnetic field. The groundbreaking discovery led
00:01:37
many astronomers to believe that fast radio bursts identified at
00:01:41
cosmological distances were probably also produced by
00:01:44
magnets.
00:01:45
However, the smoking gun proving such a scenario that is the
00:01:49
rotational period due to the spin of the magnet has so far
00:01:53
escaped detection. Now, new research into SJ 1935 plus 2100
00:01:59
and 54 sheds new light on this curious discrepancy. A report in
00:02:04
the journal science advances looking at the continued
00:02:07
monitoring of the magnet following the April 2020 fast
00:02:10
radio burst.
00:02:11
And the discovery of another cosmological phenomenon known as
00:02:15
a radio pulsar phase. Five months later found that the two
00:02:18
events originated from different regions within the same magnetar
00:02:23
that suggests different origins.
00:02:25
The observations were made by fast the 500 m pio spherical
00:02:30
radar telescope in China, it detected 795 pulses in 16.5
00:02:36
hours over 13 days from the same source. The study's lead author
00:02:40
Wu Weii from the National Astronomical Observatory Of
00:02:43
China says these pulses showed different observational
00:02:46
properties from the bursts.
00:02:48
The dichotomy in emission modes from the region of the
00:02:51
magnetosphere helps astronomers understand how and where fast
00:02:56
radio bursts and related phenomenon can occur. Radio
00:02:59
pulses are cosmic electromagnetic explosions
00:03:02
similar to fast radio bursts, but typically emit a brightness
00:03:06
of roughly 10 orders of magnitude less than a fast radio
00:03:09
burst.
00:03:10
Now, these pulses are normally observed not in magnet stars but
00:03:13
in other rotating neutron stars known as pulsars. And the thing
00:03:17
is magnetar do not emit radio pulses. Most of the time
00:03:22
probably due to their extremely strong magnetic fields. But some
00:03:25
of them such as SGR J 1935 plus 2100 and 54 become temporary
00:03:31
radio pulsars after some bursting activities.
00:03:34
Another trait that makes bursts and pulses very different are
00:03:38
the emission phases. That is the time window where radio
00:03:41
emissions are emitted in each period of emission like the
00:03:45
pulses in radio pulsars, the magnetar pulses are emitted
00:03:49
within a narrow phase window within the period.
00:03:52
Now, this is the well known lighthouse effect, namely an
00:03:55
emission beam sweeping through a line of sight once a period and
00:03:59
only during a short interval time within each period from
00:04:03
here on Earth, we observe these as a pulsed radio emission, but
00:04:08
the 2020 fast radio burst as well as several later less
00:04:11
energetic bursts were all emitted in random phases, not
00:04:15
within the pulse window identified from the pulsar
00:04:17
phase.
00:04:18
Now, this strongly suggests that the pulses and the bursts
00:04:21
originate from two different locations within the magnetized
00:04:25
magnetosphere. And that suggests the possibility at least of
00:04:28
different emission mechanisms between pulses and bursts.
00:04:32
Such detailed observations of a galactic fast radio burst source
00:04:36
at least shed some new light on these mysterious bursts, whether
00:04:40
they're erupting at galactic or cosmic distances, many sources
00:04:44
of cosmological fast radio bursts, those occurring outside
00:04:47
our galaxy have been observed to repeat.
00:04:50
In some cases, astronomers have detected thousands of repeated
00:04:54
bursts from a few sources. Deep searches for periodicity have
00:04:58
been carried out using bursts but no period has been
00:05:01
discovered so far. And this therefore casts doubt on the
00:05:05
popular idea that repeating fast radio bursts are powered by
00:05:08
magnets.
00:05:09
The discovery that bursts tend to be generated in random phases
00:05:13
provides a natural interpretation to the non
00:05:16
detection of periodicity from repeating fast radio bursts. And
00:05:20
also for unknown reasons, bursts tend to be emitted in all
00:05:23
directions from a magnetar making it impossible to identify
00:05:27
periods from fast radio burst sources.
00:05:30
It's the problem that isn't going away and that in itself is
00:05:34
fascinating. This is Space Time still to come. A European
00:05:40
satellite crashes back to Earth in an historic assisted re entry
00:05:43
and the sun erupts in a giant coronal mass ejection felt not
00:05:47
just on Earth but also the Moon and Mars all that and more still
00:05:52
to come on Space Time.
00:06:08
The European Space Agency's AOA spacecraft has successfully
00:06:12
burnt up during atmospheric reentry over Antarctica. The
00:06:16
event was the final chapter in a four day long assisted reentry
00:06:20
operation by ESA which gradually lowered the spacecraft's orbit
00:06:24
in a controlled manner.
00:06:25
Today, satellites are designed so as to minimize the risk of
00:06:29
causing damage during their return to Earth by being guided
00:06:32
down towards point Nemo, a location in the Southern Pacific
00:06:36
Ocean. That's the furthest place on Earth from any land and also
00:06:39
away from airline and shipping routes.
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But Ali was designed in the late 19 nineties before new space
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regulations came into force, the 1360 kg ala satellite named
00:06:52
after the guardian of wounded Greek mythology was launched
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aboard a Vega rocket from the Kura spaceport in French Guiana
00:06:59
back on August the 22nd, 2018. On what was meant to be a three
00:07:03
year mission to study the Earth's atmosphere from a 320
00:07:06
kilometer high orbit.
00:07:08
The probe measured Earth's global wind patterns providing
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vertical profiles of horizontal wind speeds and back scatter
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information on clouds and aerosols. Something that had
00:07:18
never been done in detail from space before Aioli also
00:07:22
undertook a series of end of life experiments to help improve
00:07:26
future lighter emissions in space.
00:07:28
The data will help scientists improve their forecast for
00:07:31
weather systems and their models of climate change.
00:07:35
Aioli operated for nearly 4.5 years at some 18 months longer
00:07:39
than its planned life expectancy, but the spacecraft
00:07:43
eventually began running low on fuel reserves and rather than
00:07:46
just let the Earth's atmosphere drag Aioli down in an
00:07:49
uncontrolled chaotic reentry. Mission managers decided to
00:07:53
undertake a controlled descent. The deorbit campaign was
00:07:57
designed to ensure Aus burnt up over an unpopulated area.
00:08:01
You see around 20 per cent of the spacecraft's mass, mostly
00:08:05
titanium and stainless steel structural components and
00:08:08
equipment survive the fiery trip through the atmosphere with
00:08:11
enough charred wreckage left to reach the planet's surface,
00:08:15
about 100 tons of space junk fall on the Earth each year with
00:08:19
large objects re entering the atmosphere.
00:08:21
About once a week, Aulis began dropping from orbit on June the
00:08:25
19th and mission managers began accelerating the process five
00:08:29
weeks later on July the 24th when they initiated two engine
00:08:33
burns lasting a total of 37.5 minutes designed to lower the
00:08:36
spacecraft's altitude by around 30 kilometers to a height of
00:08:40
some 250 kilometers.
00:08:42
Then on July the 27th, Aioli performed four planned engine
00:08:46
lowering maneuvers with a final fifth burn the next day. Setting
00:08:50
the stage for a controlled re-entry. Five hours later, this
00:08:55
report from ESA TV.
00:08:57
ESA TV: Ali launched into orbit in August 2018 from Europe's
00:09:00
spaceport in French Guiana and became the first satellite to
00:09:04
measure global winds from space using a laser named after Aioli,
00:09:10
the keeper of the winds in Greek mythology. The satellite carries
00:09:14
one of the most sophisticated instruments ever to be put into
00:09:17
orbit.
00:09:19
The Aladdin instrument beamed down 7 billion pulses of UV
00:09:23
light to profile Earth's wind, although designed as a three
00:09:29
year mission, Aioli has exceeded not only its predicted lifetime
00:09:33
but also all expectations over the past five years. Its data
00:09:39
has been used in major weather forecasting services worldwide.
00:09:45
It has tracked the hunger Tonga volcanic plume improve the
00:09:49
forecasting of hurricanes follow the huge Saharan dust plume shed
00:09:55
a light on Earth's polar vortex and filled the gap in weather
00:10:00
forecasts when airplanes were grounded during COVID lockdowns
00:10:06
altogether. It has brought €3.5 billion worth of economic
00:10:10
benefits over its lifetime and is hailed as one of the most
00:10:14
successful missions ever built and flown by ESA.
00:10:22
Today. Satellite missions are designed according to
00:10:24
regulations that require them to either burn up entirely or
00:10:28
undergo a controlled re entry at the end of their lives in orbit.
00:10:32
This first attempted and assisted reentry sets a new
00:10:35
precedent for re entering active satellites that didn't fall
00:10:39
under these regulations. When designed with Ali Isa is paving
00:10:44
the way for safe reentries and responsible space. Given the
00:10:48
rapidly increasing amount of space traffic, protecting our
00:10:51
precious but ever crowded orbits has never been more important.
00:10:55
STUART GARY: This is Space Time still to come. A massive coronal
00:10:59
mass ejection rocks not only the Earth but also the Moon and Mars
00:11:04
and later in the science report, a new study has shown that the
00:11:07
average Australian life span has increased by around six years.
00:11:12
All that and more still to come on Space Time.
00:11:28
You a coronal mass ejection. A giant solar eruption detected
00:11:34
simultaneously at the Earth. The Moon and Mars has emphasized the
00:11:38
need to prepare human deep space missions for the dangers of
00:11:42
radiation.
00:11:44
The coronal mass ejection erupted on the sun on October
00:11:47
the 28th 2021 and it was seen over such a wide area of the
00:11:51
solar system that Mars and Earth, while on opposite sides
00:11:55
of the sun at the time, around 250 million kilometers apart.
00:11:59
Still Earth received an influx of energetic particles. Coronal
00:12:04
mass ejections are powerful blasts of energy and material
00:12:08
from the sun's surface.
00:12:10
They're caused by the snapping of magnetic field lines emerging
00:12:13
from the sun through sunspots triggering solar flares. The
00:12:17
explosions carry ionized solar material including protons,
00:12:21
electrons and helium nuclei as well as magnetic field and
00:12:25
blasts of photons bursting out at far higher speeds and higher
00:12:29
amounts than the usual background streams of material
00:12:32
flowing out from the sun in the solar wind.
00:12:35
When these coronal mass ejections reach Earth, they
00:12:38
generate spectacular auroral displays. The northern and
00:12:42
southern lights, the aurora borealis and aurora Strauss, but
00:12:47
the high speed particles they carry can also damage spacecraft
00:12:51
in orbit.
00:12:51
It affects navigation and communication systems and can
00:12:55
even trigger power blackouts on the Earth's surface by
00:12:58
overloading power lines and transformers. And they also
00:13:02
increase radiation levels for astronauts and people in high
00:13:06
altitude aircraft.
00:13:08
A report in the journal geographical research letters
00:13:10
claims the October 28th 2021 event was the first time that a
00:13:15
coronal mass ejection was measured simultaneously on the
00:13:19
surfaces of the Earth Moon. And Mars, it was a great opportunity
00:13:24
to observe the evolution of such an event over a wide area of
00:13:27
space.
00:13:29
The blast was detected by an international flip of spacecraft
00:13:32
including the European Space Agency's exomars trace gas
00:13:36
orbiter NASA's Mars Curiosity rover, China's Changi Four Moon
00:13:40
lander NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance orbiter and
00:13:43
Germany's U Krupp's Earth orbiting spacecraft.
00:13:47
The simultaneous measurements on different worlds using different
00:13:50
instruments will help improve science's knowledge of the
00:13:53
impact of solar storms and space weather events and how a
00:13:56
planet's magnetic field and atmosphere can help protect
00:13:59
astronauts against them.
00:14:01
What made this event so special is that it was an example of a
00:14:05
rare ground level enhancement. During these events, the
00:14:08
particles from the sun are so energetic, they pass right
00:14:12
through the magnetic bubble that surrounds the Earth and protects
00:14:14
the planet from less energetic outbursts.
00:14:17
But they're not that common. This for example was only the
00:14:20
third ground level enhancement since records began in the 19
00:14:24
forties and none have been recorded since this event. Now,
00:14:28
as the Moon and Mars don't generate their own magnetic
00:14:31
fields, particles from the sun can easily reach their surfaces
00:14:34
and easily interact with the soil to generate secondary
00:14:37
radiation.
00:14:38
But Mars at least does have a thin atmosphere only 1 99th out
00:14:43
of Earth, but enough to stop most of the lower energy solar
00:14:46
particles and it can slow down the high energy ones as well.
00:14:50
The Moon on the other hand, has no atmosphere, just a very thin
00:14:54
exosphere of rarified particles. But with the Moon and Mars, the
00:14:58
focus of future human exploration, it's extremely
00:15:01
important to understand these solar events and the potential
00:15:05
impact on the human body for astronauts. It means the risk of
00:15:10
radiation sickness.
00:15:11
A radiation dose above 700 milligray, that's the unit for
00:15:16
absorption of radiation may induce radiation sickness
00:15:19
through the destruction of bone marrow, resulting in symptoms
00:15:23
such as infection and internal bleeding. If an astronaut
00:15:26
receives more than 10 gray, they're extremely unlikely to
00:15:29
survive more than two weeks.
00:15:32
There was one solar outburst in August of 1972 that was so
00:15:36
powerful, it would have already added any crew on the Lunar
00:15:39
surface at that time. But luckily, it hit right between
00:15:43
the Apollo 16 and 17 missions.
00:15:45
By comparison, the event on October the 28th 2021 was
00:15:50
measured by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance orbiter at just
00:15:53
31 milligray. Calculations of past ground level enhancement
00:15:57
events shows that on average one event every 5.5 years may have
00:16:02
exceeded the safe dose level for the Moon if no radiation
00:16:05
protection had been provided, understanding these events
00:16:09
therefore, is crucial for future manned missions to the surface
00:16:13
of the Moon.
00:16:14
And ultimately, Mars, when scientists compare the
00:16:17
measurements made by exomars and the curiosity rover, the
00:16:21
protection offered by Mars's atmosphere becomes clear.
00:16:24
Exomars measured nine milligrays that's 30 times more than the
00:16:29
0.3 milligray detected on the Martian surface. ESA's inner
00:16:34
solar system missions, solar orbiters, Soho and Bey Colombo
00:16:38
were also caught in the blast providing even more vantage
00:16:42
points. To study the solar event.
00:16:44
Currently we live in a golden age of solar system physics
00:16:48
radiation detectors aboard multiple planetary missions such
00:16:51
as Beppe Colombo on its way to Mercury and the juice mission
00:16:55
cruising towards Jupiter at a much needed coverage to the
00:16:58
steady acceleration and propagation of solar energetic
00:17:02
particles.
00:17:04
During the manned Apollo missions to the Moon, astronauts
00:17:07
often complained of seeing sudden ephemeral flashes of
00:17:10
white light in their eyes. Following further investigation,
00:17:14
NASA eventually concluded that these were cosmic ray particles
00:17:18
shielding astronauts as they venture into deep space.
00:17:21
Beyond the protection of Earth's magnetosphere is also an
00:17:24
essential task for ESA and NASA dedicated instruments measure
00:17:29
the radiation environment in space and are used to protect
00:17:32
not just crucial space born and ground born infrastructure but
00:17:36
also astronauts if warned in time crews aboard the
00:17:39
International Space Station can retreat to their sleeping
00:17:42
quarters or the galley where the walls are shielded against
00:17:45
radiation.
00:17:47
If they're on the Moon or Mars, they could either deploy special
00:17:50
body wear or shelter in caves if they're any nearby. The Artemis
00:17:55
program which is sending astronauts to the Moon includes
00:17:58
a space station in Lunar orbit called Gateway.
00:18:02
Gateway will carry three suites of instruments specially
00:18:05
designed to monitor the radiation environment around the
00:18:08
Moon. There's ESA's European radiation sensor array or Ezra
00:18:13
NASA's Helio Physics, environmental and radiation
00:18:16
measurement experiments suite Hermes and the joint aid Jaxa
00:18:20
internal dosimeter array or IDA.
00:18:23
Together these experiments will measure the radiation
00:18:26
environment outside Gateway while also monitoring specific
00:18:29
radiation doses inside as the space station orbits between
00:18:33
73 kilometers above the Lunar surface.
00:18:38
These measurements will be crucial to better understand the
00:18:41
environment astronauts will be experiencing during
00:18:43
interplanetary space missions. Space agencies are also looking
00:18:48
into protective attire to help minimize the impact space
00:18:51
radiation will have on the human body.
00:18:54
Two identical mannequins developed by the German
00:18:56
Aerospace agency, DLR were passengers aboard the atom one
00:19:00
test flight which flew by the Moon during November and
00:19:04
December in 2022 the mannequins nicknamed Helga and Zohar were
00:19:09
modeled based on the female body and equipped with radiation
00:19:12
sensors provided by DLR and NASA Helga flew unprotected, but
00:19:17
Zohar wore a newly developed radiation protection vest
00:19:20
covering a torso.
00:19:22
Researchers at DLR are currently comparing the two data sets.
00:19:26
This is Space Time and time now to take another brief look at
00:19:45
some of the other stories making news in science.
00:19:47
This week with the science report, there's a new global
00:19:51
warning from scientists today. It seems the strain of influenza
00:19:55
a responsible for the 2009 H one N one pandemic PDM zero and nine
00:20:01
has been passed from humans to pigs at least 370 times since
00:20:04
2009.
00:20:06
And once in pigs, the virus evolves into new strains which
00:20:10
can then jump back from pigs to humans again. The grim warning
00:20:14
reported in the journal, PLOS pathogens looked at transmission
00:20:18
data from PDM zero and nine between 2009 and 2021 and took a
00:20:23
close look at how the interspecies jumps have changed.
00:20:26
The DNA of the virus.
00:20:28
They found that most of the humidor pig jumps occurred when
00:20:31
the PDM zero and nine strain was most common in humans, but there
00:20:35
were still 150 humidor swine transmissions between 2018 and
00:20:40
2020. When human PDM zero and nine infection rates dropped
00:20:44
during the COVID-19 pandemic, only a few of the 370
00:20:48
transmissions resulted in the virus evolving into new strains
00:20:51
in pigs.
00:20:52
But the authors say each new strain resulted in at least five
00:20:56
people catching the virus from pigs. The authors warn that the
00:21:00
DNA from these viruses suggest that existing flu vaccines would
00:21:05
offer little protection.
00:21:07
So I guess once again, the pandemic clock is ticking a bit
00:21:13
of good news now and a new statistical review has shown
00:21:16
that over the last 30 years or so, the average Australian life
00:21:20
span has increased by six years.
00:21:22
However, the findings reported in the Lancet medical journal
00:21:26
also show that non communicable diseases such as cancer and
00:21:29
heart disease still contribute to over 90 per cent of all
00:21:32
deaths. The study analyzed the Australian data from the 2019
00:21:37
global burden of disease study which looked at trends of
00:21:40
diseases and their risk factors between the years. 1990 2019.
00:21:45
In 2019, ischemic heart disease was the top cause of the year's
00:21:49
loss of life. While 10 of the 25 top causes of years of life lost
00:21:54
were due to cancers. Lower back pain was responsible for the
00:21:58
most healthy life loss through disability in 2019.
00:22:01
But there were also increases in the rankings of risks from
00:22:04
falls, drug use and anxiety disorders. The authors say the
00:22:09
key challenges for Australia will be to keep an aging
00:22:12
population healthy, provide adequate resources to promote
00:22:15
healthy lifestyles, especially in old age and manage non
00:22:18
communicable diseases.
00:22:21
Looking at the big picture, the latest United Nations data
00:22:24
states, the average Australian life expectancy now is 83.73
00:22:29
years which breaks down to 85.56 years for females and 81.89
00:22:35
years for males.
00:22:37
The people of Hong Kong now have the world's highest life
00:22:39
expectancy at 85.83 years followed by Monaco, Japan,
00:22:45
Switzerland, Singapore, Italy, South Korea, Spain and Malta
00:22:50
Australia was in 10th place and that was ahead of Sweden,
00:22:53
Norway, Israel and France.
00:22:55
New Zealand was in 18th place with an average life expectancy
00:22:59
of 83.16 years followed by Canada, Iceland, Ireland, the
00:23:03
Netherlands, Austria, Finland, Belgium, Portugal, the United
00:23:08
Kingdom came in in 30th position with an average life expectancy
00:23:11
of 82.31 years.
00:23:14
That was followed by Germany, Denmark, Greece, Taiwan and
00:23:17
Chile, if you're listening in the United States, well, you're
00:23:20
in 47th position with an average life expectancy of 79.74 years.
00:23:26
That's ahead of China Turkey, Argentina, Hungary, Iran,
00:23:30
Lebanon, Mexico, Jordan and Vietnam Russia was in 1/100
00:23:35
position with an average life expectancy of 74.57 years.
00:23:39
But that was ahead of Syria, India, Indonesia, Egypt,
00:23:42
Afghanistan, Kenya ***, South Africa came in in 178th position
00:23:48
with an average life expectancy of 62.89 years.
00:23:52
That was ahead of Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic Of Congo,
00:23:56
Mali, Namibia, South Sudan, Nigeria and Chad in 200 in the
00:24:01
first place with an average life expectancy of 53.68 years
00:24:06
according to the United Nations, a new study has shown that even
00:24:11
the earlier chat GPT three version of the large ai language
00:24:15
model can complete complex reasoning tasks and identify a
00:24:19
reasonable solution for problems without direct training at a
00:24:22
level that matches or even surpasses human participants.
00:24:26
A report in the journal nurture human behavior tested the
00:24:30
performance of chat GTP three on solving new problems that it had
00:24:34
not encountered before and then compared those results with
00:24:37
human performances. This kind of problem solving relies on a key
00:24:41
mental tool known as analogical reasoning that is the ability to
00:24:45
see similarities between unfamiliar problems and
00:24:48
previously encountered ones.
00:24:49
In order to identify a reasonable solution. The authors
00:24:52
found that chat GPT three displayed a strong capacity for
00:24:56
abstract pattern recognition which matched or surpassed human
00:24:59
test participants in most tests.
00:25:03
A new sleeker iphone is on its way with the details. We're
00:25:07
joined by technology editor Alex Zaharov-Reut from tech advice
00:25:11
dot life.
00:25:11
ALEX ZAHAROV-REUTT: The latest rumors are that the bezel or the
00:25:14
border around the screen is going to drop from 2.2
00:25:17
millimeters down to 1.5. Now that doesn't sound like very
00:25:21
much, but it just means that the visible area on the screen will
00:25:23
be slightly larger. I mean, ultimately, Apple is said to
00:25:26
want to get rid of any kind of visible notches or cameras on
00:25:29
the screen at all.
00:25:30
But they certainly, I don't think we'll be able to do that
00:25:32
because under screen tech isn't good enough yet. And of course,
00:25:35
Apple does have that dynamic island which more or less tries
00:25:39
to hide the fact that there's a visible gap there that has the
00:25:42
camera for the face ID and the camera for the front facing
00:25:44
camera by inserting all sorts of other useful information, like
00:25:47
how long it's going to take for your Uber to turn up.
00:25:50
Or, you know, if you're talking to somebody, if you're listening
00:25:52
to music or plugged in the power or got the airpods, and it can
00:25:55
show you this information in a way that doesn't detract or
00:25:58
distract from anything else that's happening at the time.
00:26:00
And this feature will appear on all four iphones this year.
00:26:04
That's the expectation because with last year's phones, only
00:26:07
the pro versions had it, whereas the regular ones still have the
00:26:10
notch. Now, the outside band should be titanium instead of
00:26:13
stainless steel. Titanium is stronger than stainless steel
00:26:16
and it's 45 per cent lighter.
00:26:18
There's room to be an action button that's going to appear,
00:26:20
which will get rid of the mute button, which is a physical up
00:26:24
down button. And this action button can be mute, but it can
00:26:26
also be something that turns on the camera or you could use it
00:26:30
to do laps on a stopwatch. You could use it for lots of
00:26:32
different things. It's meant to be programmable and also the
00:26:35
volume and power buttons are meant to be solid state.
00:26:37
Now, I've heard that that's on, that's off. I'm not sure what
00:26:39
it's going to be, but the expectation is that if it's on,
00:26:41
it means yet more moving parts that are removed. But when you
00:26:45
push the button, you'll feel vibration much like with the
00:26:47
track pad on the Macs that have had this haptic feedback. And of
00:26:51
course, you get things like more ram more memory.
00:26:53
So it's got more thinking space and can keep more tabs open when
00:26:56
you multitask obviously better cameras USBC port. But all of
00:26:59
this is expect to see the price rise by 1 to $200 a US, which
00:27:04
would probably be about double that in Australian dollars. And
00:27:07
this might see the one terabyte, iphone Pro iphone, 15 Pro max be
00:27:12
over $3000 in Australia.
00:27:14
We're yet to see if that's the case. Now, we should also see
00:27:16
things like better Wi fi wi fi six E. Plenty of things are
00:27:19
rumored even an iphone Pro ultra of some sort, which would
00:27:22
definitely have a bigger screen and I'm not sure what other sort
00:27:25
of features, but some people say that that is going to be the
00:27:27
version we see in 2020.
00:27:29
STUART GARY: Four people want to find out more.
00:27:30
ALEX ZAHAROV-REUTT: Where will they go? Just go to tech Advice
00:27:33
dot life. I've got all the information there, including
00:27:35
details about how Google Assistant is going to turn into
00:27:37
like a chat GPT on your phone in a few months. Norton genie an AI
00:27:41
app that you can take photographs of the messages and
00:27:44
emails and websites and it will help you to tell you if it's a
00:27:47
scam or not.
00:27:47
And funny more so all the details that we speak about and
00:27:50
more are at tech advise dot The other big news this week is of a
00:27:53
substance called LK 99. This is a room temperature
00:27:57
superconductor.
00:27:58
Now, normally superconductors exist already, but they have to
00:28:00
be cooled down to just a few degrees above zero, absolute
00:28:04
zero. Yeah. And so we have superconductors inside of MRI
00:28:07
machines. But if they can get this right, if they can get this
00:28:09
to be something that's done at room then it means that we're
00:28:12
not losing energy.
00:28:12
STUART GARY: Problem is it hasn't been peer reviewed yet.
00:28:15
ALEX ZAHAROV-REUTT: Absolutely. Yeah. There's a lot of
00:28:16
skepticism. There's skepticism. People are saying it's a dire
00:28:19
magnet of some sort where it's more to do with magnetism rather
00:28:23
than the superconductor effects. Look, there have been on Twitter
00:28:25
in the past 24 48 hours. Some people claiming that they've
00:28:28
been able to replicate the result, but by no means, is this
00:28:31
a done deal that it is absolutely true.
00:28:33
STUART GARY: That's Alex Sahara Rout from tech advice, Do Life
00:28:52
and that's the show for now. Spacetime is available every
00:28:56
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