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This episode of SpaceTime delves into groundbreaking discoveries and theories that reshape our understanding of the universe, including the origins of dark matter, the first visible light auroras on Mars, and new insights into massive X-ray explosions near supermassive black holes.
The Birth of Dark Matter Explained
A new hypothesis suggests that dark matter, which constitutes about 85% of the universe's mass, may have originated from massless particles that condensed as they slowed down. This theory, outlined in the journal Physical Review Letters, proposes that these particles formed during the early universe's chaotic conditions, akin to steam turning into water. We discuss how this model could be tested using existing cosmic microwave background radiation data, potentially revolutionizing our understanding of dark matter's properties and formation.
Visible Light Auroras on Mars
In a historic achievement, NASA's Perseverance rover has captured the first visible light auroras on Mars, confirming long-held theories about Martian atmospheric phenomena. This event, triggered by a massive solar flare, opens up new avenues for auroral research and suggests that future astronauts could witness these stunning displays on the Martian surface. We explore the implications of this discovery and how it enhances our understanding of solar interactions with planetary atmospheres.
Quasiperiodic Eruptions: A New Type of X-ray Explosion
Astronomers have identified a new type of X-ray outburst known as quasiperiodic eruptions, occurring near supermassive black holes. Observed in a galaxy 300 million light-years away, these eruptions exhibit a unique pattern, with events occurring every 4.5 days. We discuss the mechanisms behind these eruptions and their significance in understanding the dynamics of black holes and their surrounding environments.
www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com
✍️ Episode References
Physical Review Letters
https://journals.aps.org/prl/
Science Advances
https://www.science.org/journal/sciadv
Astrophysical Journal
https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/0004-637X
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00:00 This is Space Time Series 28, Episode 62 for broadcast on 23 May 2025
01:00 New theory explaining the birth of dark matter
12:15 First visible light auroras detected on Mars
20:30 Discovery of quasiperiodic eruptions near supermassive black holes
30:00 Science report: AI chatbots exaggerate research summaries
00:00:06 --> 00:00:09 Stuart Gary: this is space Time Series 28 Episode
00:00:09 --> 00:00:11 62 for broadcast on 23
00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 May 2025 coming up on
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 SpaceTime, A new theory to explain the birth
00:00:17 --> 00:00:20 of dark matter. the first visible light auroral
00:00:20 --> 00:00:23 activity seen on Mars and a new type
00:00:23 --> 00:00:25 of massive X ray explosion discovered near
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 monster black holes. All that and more
00:00:28 --> 00:00:30 coming up on Space Time.
00:00:32 --> 00:00:34 Voice Over Guy: Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary
00:00:50 --> 00:00:53 Stuart Gary: A new study claims that the invisible, mysterious
00:00:53 --> 00:00:56 substance known as dark matter, may have formed when fast
00:00:56 --> 00:00:59 particles slowed down and got heavy. A
00:00:59 --> 00:01:01 new hypothesis reported in the journal Physical Review
00:01:01 --> 00:01:04 Letters suggests that dark matter, which makes up some
00:01:04 --> 00:01:07 85% of all material in the universe, sprang
00:01:07 --> 00:01:10 up from particles that rapidly condensed, sort of like
00:01:10 --> 00:01:13 steam turning into water. Of course, scientists still
00:01:13 --> 00:01:16 have no idea exactly what dark matter is.
00:01:16 --> 00:01:18 They only know it exists because they can see its gravitational
00:01:18 --> 00:01:21 influence on, normal so called baryonic matter, stopping
00:01:21 --> 00:01:24 galaxies from spinning apart as they rotate and
00:01:24 --> 00:01:27 magnifying distant objects. The study's
00:01:27 --> 00:01:29 authors say dark matter could have formed in the early life of the
00:01:29 --> 00:01:32 universe from the collision of high energy massless particles that
00:01:32 --> 00:01:35 lost their zip and took on an incredible amount of mass
00:01:35 --> 00:01:38 immediately upon pairing. Importantly,
00:01:38 --> 00:01:41 they claim their hypothesis can be tested using
00:01:41 --> 00:01:43 existing observational data. The
00:01:43 --> 00:01:46 extremely low energy particles they suggest make up dark
00:01:46 --> 00:01:49 matter would have a unique signature in the cosmic
00:01:49 --> 00:01:51 microwave background radiation, the leftover energy
00:01:51 --> 00:01:54 from the Big Bang, which fills the universe today as
00:01:54 --> 00:01:57 a faint glow. The study's lead author,
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 Robert Caldwell from Dartmouth College, says dark matter
00:02:00 --> 00:02:03 started its life as near massless relativistic
00:02:03 --> 00:02:06 particles similar to photons. That's
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 totally different to what dark matter is thought to be cold
00:02:09 --> 00:02:12 lumps that give galaxies their mass. Caldwell
00:02:12 --> 00:02:14 says. This new idea tries to explain how dark
00:02:14 --> 00:02:17 matter went from being light to being lumpy. These
00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 particles were similar to photons, massless
00:02:20 --> 00:02:23 particles that are the basic energy or quanta of light.
00:02:24 --> 00:02:26 And it was in this early chaos that extremely large
00:02:26 --> 00:02:29 numbers of these particles bonded to each other.
00:02:29 --> 00:02:32 Caldwell and colleagues theorized that these massless particles
00:02:32 --> 00:02:35 were pulled together by the opposing directions of their
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 spin, sort of like the attraction between the north and south
00:02:38 --> 00:02:41 poles of a magnet. As the particles cooled,
00:02:41 --> 00:02:43 an imbalance in the particles spins caused their energy
00:02:43 --> 00:02:46 to plummet like steam, but rapidly condensing into
00:02:46 --> 00:02:49 water. And the outcome was the cold,
00:02:49 --> 00:02:52 heavy particles that scientists now think constitute
00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 dark matter. The most unexpected part of
00:02:55 --> 00:02:57 this mathematical model was the energy plummet that bridges
00:02:57 --> 00:03:00 the high density energy and the lumpy low energy,
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 Caldwell says. At this stage, it's like these pairs were getting ready
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 to become Dark matter. And this phase transition
00:03:06 --> 00:03:09 helps explain the abundance of dark matter being detected
00:03:09 --> 00:03:12 today. It all sprang from high density
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 clusters of extremely energetic particles in the early
00:03:15 --> 00:03:18 universe. The study introduces a theoretical
00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 particle that would have initiated the transition to dark
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 matter. The thing is, scientists already know
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 that electrons can undergo a similar transition.
00:03:27 --> 00:03:30 See, at low temperatures, two electrons can form what are known as
00:03:30 --> 00:03:32 Cooper pairs. They can conduct electricity without
00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 resistance and are the active mechanism in certain
00:03:35 --> 00:03:38 superconductors. In fact, the authors cite the
00:03:38 --> 00:03:41 existence of Cooper pairs as evidence that the massless
00:03:41 --> 00:03:44 particles in their theory would have been capable of condensing
00:03:44 --> 00:03:46 into dark matter. they look towards superconductivity for
00:03:46 --> 00:03:49 clues as to whether a certain interaction could cause
00:03:49 --> 00:03:52 energy to drop so suddenly. As and Cooper pairs are
00:03:52 --> 00:03:55 the proof that this mechanism exists. The
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 metamorphosis of these particles from the cosmic equivalent of
00:03:58 --> 00:04:01 a double espresso into day old oatmeal explains
00:04:01 --> 00:04:03 the vast deficit in the energy density of the current
00:04:03 --> 00:04:05 universe compared to its early days.
00:04:06 --> 00:04:09 Scientists know that density has declined since the Big Bang
00:04:09 --> 00:04:11 as the universe's energies expanded outwards.
00:04:12 --> 00:04:15 But the author's new idea also accounts for the
00:04:15 --> 00:04:18 increase in the density of mass. They say
00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 structures get their mass due to the density of cold
00:04:21 --> 00:04:23 dark matter. But there also has to be a
00:04:23 --> 00:04:26 mechanism where an energy density drops close to what we
00:04:26 --> 00:04:29 see around us today. their theory
00:04:29 --> 00:04:32 suggests that the particle pairs entered a cold, nearly
00:04:32 --> 00:04:35 pressureless state as they got slower and heavier.
00:04:35 --> 00:04:38 And this characteristic would make them stand out in the
00:04:38 --> 00:04:40 cosmic microwave background radiation. The
00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 cosmic microwave background radiation has been studied
00:04:43 --> 00:04:46 by several large scale projects. And the
00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 authors say both existing and future data from these
00:04:49 --> 00:04:52 projects could be used to test their ideas.
00:04:53 --> 00:04:55 This is space time still to come,
00:04:55 --> 00:04:58 the first visible light aurorae seen on Mars
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 and a new type of massive X ray explosion
00:05:01 --> 00:05:04 discovered near monster black holes. All that and
00:05:04 --> 00:05:06 more still to come on spacetime.
00:05:17 --> 00:05:18 Foreign
00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 M Perseverance rovers made history by detecting
00:05:25 --> 00:05:28 visible light auroral activity on another planet
00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 for the first time. The detections were made
00:05:31 --> 00:05:33 during March last year, near the peak of the current
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 solar cycle. And they were confirmed by
00:05:36 --> 00:05:38 NASA's Mars orbiting maven spacecraft.
00:05:39 --> 00:05:41 The event, reported in the journal Science Advances, was
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 triggered by a massive solar flare on the sun which
00:05:44 --> 00:05:47 generated a coronal mass ejection, a huge
00:05:47 --> 00:05:49 explosion of gas and magnetic energy that carries
00:05:49 --> 00:05:52 vast amounts of solar energetic particles out into
00:05:52 --> 00:05:55 space. And this solar activity led to
00:05:55 --> 00:05:58 stunning auroral displays across the solar system,
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 including on Mars, where the six wheeled KAR
00:06:01 --> 00:06:04 size Perseverance rover saw them in the skies above
00:06:04 --> 00:06:06 jethro Crater, the study's lead author, Elise
00:06:06 --> 00:06:09 Knudsen from the University of Oslo, says the discovery opens
00:06:09 --> 00:06:12 up new possibilities for auroral research and
00:06:12 --> 00:06:15 confirms that aurorae could be visible to future
00:06:15 --> 00:06:18 astronauts on the Martian surface. On
00:06:18 --> 00:06:20 Earth, aurorae form when solar particles interact with the
00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 planet's global magnetic field, funneling these
00:06:23 --> 00:06:26 particles towards the poles along magnetic field lines,
00:06:26 --> 00:06:29 during which time they collide with atoms and molecules in
00:06:29 --> 00:06:32 the Earth's atmosphere, emitting light. The most
00:06:32 --> 00:06:35 common color seen in earthly aurora is green, caused
00:06:35 --> 00:06:38 by collisions with oxygen atoms. For years,
00:06:38 --> 00:06:40 scientists have theorized that green light auroras would also
00:06:40 --> 00:06:43 exist on Mars, but suggested they would be much
00:06:43 --> 00:06:46 fainter and harder to capture than the green auroral
00:06:46 --> 00:06:48 activity seen on Earth. due to the red
00:06:48 --> 00:06:51 planet's lack of a global magnetic field. Mars
00:06:51 --> 00:06:54 has a different type of auroral activity to what we see
00:06:54 --> 00:06:57 on Earth. These include solar energetic
00:06:57 --> 00:07:00 particle aurorae, which Maven discovered in 2014.
00:07:00 --> 00:07:03 These occur when super energetic particles from the sun hit
00:07:03 --> 00:07:06 the Martian atmosphere, causing a reaction that makes the atmosphere
00:07:06 --> 00:07:08 glow across the entire night sky.
00:07:09 --> 00:07:12 While MAVENS already observed solar energetic particle
00:07:12 --> 00:07:15 aurora in ultraviolet light from Mars, the phenomenon has
00:07:15 --> 00:07:17 never been observed in visible light from the ground.
00:07:18 --> 00:07:21 Since solar energetic particle aurora typically occur during
00:07:21 --> 00:07:24 solar storms which increase during solar maximum
00:07:24 --> 00:07:27 like what we're in now, Knudsen and colleagues set their
00:07:27 --> 00:07:29 sights on capturing visible images and
00:07:29 --> 00:07:32 spectra of solar energetic particle aurorae from the
00:07:32 --> 00:07:35 Martian surface at the very peak of the Sun's current
00:07:35 --> 00:07:38 solar cycle. Through modeling, Knudsen determined
00:07:38 --> 00:07:41 the optimal angle for the Perseverance Rover's Supercam
00:07:41 --> 00:07:44 spectrometer MASTCAM Z camera to successfully
00:07:44 --> 00:07:46 observe the solar energetic particle aurora in
00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 visible light. And with this observational strategy
00:07:49 --> 00:07:52 now in place, it all came down to the timing and
00:07:52 --> 00:07:54 understanding the physics of coronal mass ejections.
00:07:55 --> 00:07:58 Scientists with the MAVEN mission determined there was a
00:07:58 --> 00:08:00 noticeable solar storm heading towards the red planet in
00:08:00 --> 00:08:03 March 2024, which should arrive a few days
00:08:03 --> 00:08:06 after the initial eruption on the Sun. And so
00:08:06 --> 00:08:09 they issued a Mars Space Weather Alert notification to
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 all currently operating Mars missions. Few
00:08:12 --> 00:08:15 days later, that coronal mass ejection impacted Mars,
00:08:15 --> 00:08:18 providing a light show for the rover to capture and showing
00:08:18 --> 00:08:21 the aurora to be near uniform right across the
00:08:21 --> 00:08:24 sky. To confirm the presence of solar
00:08:24 --> 00:08:27 energetic particles during the auroral observations, the
00:08:27 --> 00:08:29 authors looked to maven's Solar energetic Particle instrument,
00:08:29 --> 00:08:32 which was additionally corroborated by data from the European
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 Space Agency's Mars Express Orbiter. That
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 data from both orbital missions confirmed that the rover
00:08:38 --> 00:08:41 team on the ground had managed to successfully catch a
00:08:41 --> 00:08:44 glimpse of the phenomenon in the very narrow time
00:08:44 --> 00:08:46 window available. This is space
00:08:46 --> 00:08:49 time. Still to come. A new
00:08:49 --> 00:08:52 type of massive X ray explosion discovered near monster
00:08:52 --> 00:08:55 black holes. And later in the Science report,
00:08:55 --> 00:08:57 confirmation that artificial intelligence
00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 chatbots exaggerate the extent and
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 scope of research in scientific papers.
00:09:03 --> 00:09:06 All that and more still to come on
00:09:06 --> 00:09:06 SpaceTime.
00:09:12 --> 00:09:14 This episode of Space Time is brought to you by
00:09:14 --> 00:09:17 NordVPN, our official VPN
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00:10:27 --> 00:10:29 And now it's back to our show.
00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 Astronomers have, for the first time probe the physical
00:10:39 --> 00:10:42 environment of a recently discovered new type of
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 repeating X ray outburst. Found to exist near
00:10:45 --> 00:10:47 monster supermassive black holes.
00:10:47 --> 00:10:50 These massive X ray flares have been named
00:10:50 --> 00:10:52 quasiperiodic eruptions.
00:10:52 --> 00:10:55 Astronomers recently observed these events in a system
00:10:55 --> 00:10:58 named an sky, which is located in a galaxy about
00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 300 million light years away in the constellation
00:11:00 --> 00:11:03 Virgo. This event was the first
00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 indication that something unusual might be happening.
00:11:07 --> 00:11:09 It was the eighth and so far most powerful
00:11:09 --> 00:11:12 quasiperiodic eruption source discovered, setting
00:11:12 --> 00:11:15 the record in terms of both timing and duration. With
00:11:15 --> 00:11:18 eruptions every four and a half Earth days and with each
00:11:18 --> 00:11:20 eruption lasting around a day and a half.
00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 The observations were achieved by NASA's Neutron Star
00:11:23 --> 00:11:26 Interior Composition Explorer, or NISA telescope,
00:11:26 --> 00:11:29 which is mounted aboard the International Space Station.
00:11:29 --> 00:11:32 Additional information was provided by NASA's Swift
00:11:32 --> 00:11:35 Space Telescope and NASA's Chandra X Ray
00:11:35 --> 00:11:38 Observatory, as well as the European Space Agency's XMM
00:11:38 --> 00:11:41 Newton Space Telescope. The study's lead author,
00:11:41 --> 00:11:44 Joanne Charaborti from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
00:11:45 --> 00:11:48 says these quasiperiodic eruptions are both mysterious
00:11:48 --> 00:11:50 and intensely interesting. One of the most
00:11:50 --> 00:11:53 intriguing aspects is their quasi periodic nature.
00:11:53 --> 00:11:56 See Astronomers are still trying to develop the mythologies and
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 frameworks needed to understand exactly what's causing
00:11:59 --> 00:12:01 them. The findings reported in the
00:12:01 --> 00:12:04 Astrophysical Journal suggest that these eruptions occur
00:12:04 --> 00:12:07 in systems where a relatively low mass object passes
00:12:07 --> 00:12:10 through the disk of gas surrounding a supermassive black
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 hole that holds holds hundreds of thousands to billions of
00:12:13 --> 00:12:16 times the mass of the Sun. When the lower mass
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 object punches through the disk, its passage drives out
00:12:19 --> 00:12:22 expanding clouds of hot gas, which astronomers then
00:12:22 --> 00:12:25 observe as quasiperiodic eruptions in X rays.
00:12:25 --> 00:12:28 Astronomers think the eruption's quasi periodicity
00:12:28 --> 00:12:30 occurs because the smaller object's orbit isn't
00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 perfectly circular and spirals towards the black
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 hole over time. Also, the extreme gravity
00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 close to the black hole warps the very fabric of
00:12:38 --> 00:12:41 spacetime, altering the object's orbit so they don't close
00:12:41 --> 00:12:44 on themselves with each cycle. Scientists
00:12:44 --> 00:12:47 current understanding suggests that these eruptions repeat
00:12:47 --> 00:12:50 until the disk disappears or until the orbiting object
00:12:50 --> 00:12:53 disintegrates, either of which could take several years.
00:12:54 --> 00:12:57 An ski's extreme properties may be due to the nature of
00:12:57 --> 00:12:59 the disk around its supermassive black hole.
00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 In most quasi periodic eruption systems, a
00:13:02 --> 00:13:04 supermassive black hole likely shreds the passing
00:13:04 --> 00:13:07 star, creating a small disk very close to itself.
00:13:08 --> 00:13:10 But in an ski's case, the authors think the disk is
00:13:10 --> 00:13:13 much larger and can involve objects further away,
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 creating the longer timescale observed.
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 Nice's position on the International Space Station allows it
00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 to observe an ski about 16 times every day.
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 And this frequency of observations was critical in
00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 detecting the X ray fluctuations that revealed an
00:13:28 --> 00:13:30 SKI was producing quasiperiodic eruptions.
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 The authors used data from Nicer and Exmier Newton
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 to map the rapid evolution of the ejected material driving the
00:13:36 --> 00:13:39 observed eruptions in unprecedented detail. By
00:13:39 --> 00:13:42 studying variations in X ray intensity during the
00:13:42 --> 00:13:45 rise and fall of each eruption, they found
00:13:45 --> 00:13:47 that each impact resulted in roughly about a, quarter
00:13:47 --> 00:13:50 Jupiter's worth of mass, reaching expansion
00:13:50 --> 00:13:53 velocities around 15% the speed of light.
00:13:53 --> 00:13:56 And Nicer was then able to measure the size and
00:13:56 --> 00:13:59 temperature of the roughly spherical bubble of debris as
00:13:59 --> 00:14:02 it expanded. This report from
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 NASA TV from its.
00:14:04 --> 00:14:07 Tim Mendham: Perch on the International Space Station, NASA's
00:14:07 --> 00:14:10 nicer X ray telescope has helped map a
00:14:10 --> 00:14:12 mysterious cosmic event for the first time
00:14:13 --> 00:14:16 it happened in a galaxy 300 million light years away.
00:14:17 --> 00:14:19 Astronomers call this system an Sky.
00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 An SKI produces a type of recurring X ray
00:14:23 --> 00:14:25 outburst called a qpe, or
00:14:25 --> 00:14:27 quasiperiodic eruption. These
00:14:27 --> 00:14:30 events were just recently discovered. AN
00:14:30 --> 00:14:33 SKY is only the eighth known QPE emitter and is the
00:14:33 --> 00:14:36 most energetic to date. Some
00:14:36 --> 00:14:38 scientists think QPEs occur when a lower mass
00:14:38 --> 00:14:41 object orbits a supermassive black hole in
00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 the center of a galaxy. When the smaller
00:14:44 --> 00:14:47 object passes through the disk of gas around the monster
00:14:47 --> 00:14:50 black hole, it produces a cloud of debris that
00:14:50 --> 00:14:53 causes an X ray outburst. The low mass
00:14:53 --> 00:14:56 object isn't on a circular orbit, and its motion
00:14:56 --> 00:14:58 is affected by the distortion of spacetime near the black
00:14:58 --> 00:15:01 hole. So the eruptions don't repeat over the same
00:15:01 --> 00:15:03 exact time frame, which is what makes them
00:15:03 --> 00:15:06 quasiperiodic. An ski's
00:15:06 --> 00:15:09 outbursts are the longest of all the QPES astronomers
00:15:09 --> 00:15:12 have studied, with eruptions every 4.5 days
00:15:12 --> 00:15:15 or so that last approximately one and a half days.
00:15:15 --> 00:15:18 That may be caused by a larger disk engulfing an
00:15:18 --> 00:15:21 object farther away. Nicer's
00:15:21 --> 00:15:24 observations of an SKI allowed scientists to probe the
00:15:24 --> 00:15:27 gas ejected from the disk. After each collision, the
00:15:27 --> 00:15:30 gas expands, reaching velocities about
00:15:30 --> 00:15:33 15% the speed of light and produces the
00:15:33 --> 00:15:35 X rays we see. As qpes,
00:15:36 --> 00:15:39 Nicer and other missions will continue to
00:15:39 --> 00:15:42 study AN SKY and other qpes, helping
00:15:42 --> 00:15:44 astronomers reveal their secrets.
00:15:45 --> 00:15:47 Stuart Gary: This is spacetime
00:16:03 --> 00:16:03 and time.
00:16:03 --> 00:16:06 now to take another brief look at some of the other stories making news in
00:16:06 --> 00:16:09 Science this week with a Science report. A
00:16:09 --> 00:16:12 new study has shown that artificial intelligence chatbots
00:16:12 --> 00:16:15 driven by large language models tend to exaggerate the
00:16:15 --> 00:16:17 scope of research when summarizing scientific
00:16:17 --> 00:16:20 papers. A report in the Journal of the Royal
00:16:20 --> 00:16:22 Society Open Science analyzed
00:16:22 --> 00:16:25 4 chatbot generated summaries of
00:16:25 --> 00:16:28 scientific abstracts. These abstracts
00:16:28 --> 00:16:31 themselves are short summaries found at the start of a scientific
00:16:31 --> 00:16:34 paper. They found the artificial intelligence
00:16:34 --> 00:16:37 was five times more likely to overgeneralize findings
00:16:37 --> 00:16:40 than a human expert. Now, the authors didn't
00:16:40 --> 00:16:42 ask the chatbots to write the summaries for an expert
00:16:42 --> 00:16:45 audience, but they did request systematic details and
00:16:45 --> 00:16:48 faithful abstract summaries in their prompts.
00:16:48 --> 00:16:51 Ironically, prompting for accuracy tended to increase
00:16:51 --> 00:16:54 overgeneralizations. And newer, larger language
00:16:54 --> 00:16:56 models were far less accurate than the older ones.
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 In other words, AI is getting better at
00:17:00 --> 00:17:01 exaggerating and lying.
00:17:03 --> 00:17:05 Engineers have invented a small neuromorphic device
00:17:05 --> 00:17:08 that detects hand movement, stores memories, and
00:17:08 --> 00:17:11 processes information very much like a human brain,
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 but without the need for an external computer.
00:17:14 --> 00:17:17 A report in the journal Advanced Materials Technologies
00:17:17 --> 00:17:20 claims the innovation marks a strong step towards
00:17:20 --> 00:17:22 enabling instant visual processing in autonomous
00:17:22 --> 00:17:25 vehicles as well as advanced robotics and other next
00:17:25 --> 00:17:28 generation applications for improved human
00:17:28 --> 00:17:30 interactions. Neuromorphic vision systems are
00:17:30 --> 00:17:33 designed to use similar analog processing to our brains,
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 which can greatly reduce the amount of energy needed to perform
00:17:36 --> 00:17:39 complex visual tasks compared with the digital
00:17:39 --> 00:17:41 technologies being used today.
00:17:42 --> 00:17:45 Scientists have discovered the oldest ancestor for all
00:17:45 --> 00:17:48 living Australian tree frogs. A report in
00:17:48 --> 00:17:51 the journal Vertebrate Paleontology has shown that the newly
00:17:51 --> 00:17:54 identified species has distinct links with tree
00:17:54 --> 00:17:56 frogs found in South America.
00:17:57 --> 00:18:00 Previously, scientists believed Australian and South American tree
00:18:00 --> 00:18:03 frogs separated from each other about 33 million years
00:18:03 --> 00:18:05 ago. But the new discovery shows the split
00:18:05 --> 00:18:08 actually happened much earlier, about 55 million years
00:18:08 --> 00:18:09 ago.
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 And now for the silliest story of the week. A
00:18:13 --> 00:18:16 former CIA agent claims he was taught to use his
00:18:16 --> 00:18:19 psychic abilities to undertake a remote viewing
00:18:19 --> 00:18:21 of the red planet Mars in its ancient past.
00:18:22 --> 00:18:25 And he claims he saw human civilizations
00:18:25 --> 00:18:27 there that were aware they were destined to face
00:18:27 --> 00:18:30 extinction. The trouble is, Tim Mendham from
00:18:30 --> 00:18:33 Australian Skeptics points out that while astronomers have mapped every
00:18:33 --> 00:18:36 inch of the Martian surface by satellite, they yet to find
00:18:36 --> 00:18:39 any evidence of ancient ruins. Even
00:18:39 --> 00:18:42 the famous face on Mars, sphinx in nearby pyramid
00:18:42 --> 00:18:44 shaped structures all turned out to be nothing more than the
00:18:44 --> 00:18:47 simple play of light and shade on natural rock
00:18:47 --> 00:18:48 formations.
00:18:48 --> 00:18:51 Tim mend: The CIA did real tests of psychics during
00:18:51 --> 00:18:53 the 70s 80s.
00:18:53 --> 00:18:55 Stuart Gary: This is the remote viewing stuff.
00:18:55 --> 00:18:57 Tim mend: Yeah, remote viewing, the power to influence something else like
00:18:57 --> 00:19:00 telekinesis, move things, various things as
00:19:00 --> 00:19:03 they would. And if you really are following the CIA as they
00:19:03 --> 00:19:06 probably should be, trying out any avenue they could find
00:19:06 --> 00:19:09 to see if there's something to an advantage to their site.
00:19:09 --> 00:19:12 Right. And they looked at psychic power for a number of years and then
00:19:12 --> 00:19:15 after a while said nothing worth looking at here. Not even
00:19:15 --> 00:19:18 anything that's sort of half inkling that could be developed.
00:19:18 --> 00:19:20 So there's nothing there to look at. And they spent a lot of money for it. And ever
00:19:20 --> 00:19:23 since then people have said, well the CIA looked at it, it must be true. No,
00:19:23 --> 00:19:26 they looked at it. They try everything. They tried looking at people who can knock
00:19:26 --> 00:19:29 goats over with that thought. They look at all sorts of strange things just
00:19:29 --> 00:19:32 in case one of them proved true. And in a way this is proof
00:19:32 --> 00:19:35 that it doesn't. It's not true because they stopped. Then they handed over all
00:19:35 --> 00:19:38 the information about it. It's available paper of the CIA investigations
00:19:38 --> 00:19:40 of UFOs. They readily handed over the information.
00:19:40 --> 00:19:42 Stuart Gary: They made a movie about it, several.
00:19:42 --> 00:19:45 Tim mend: So this was someone who was supposedly was one of the
00:19:45 --> 00:19:47 subjects being tested by the CIA. It's called Project
00:19:47 --> 00:19:50 Stargate was the actual program that was looking at remote viewing,
00:19:50 --> 00:19:53 which is seeing things from a distance. And this fellow claimed he could
00:19:53 --> 00:19:56 also see into the past and the future. He was describing himself
00:19:56 --> 00:19:59 as remote viewer number one. Says, wow, he must have been the best.
00:19:59 --> 00:20:01 For the first, we had high opinions of himself.
00:20:02 --> 00:20:05 And he reckoned he was given coordinates of a spot on Mars and
00:20:05 --> 00:20:08 the notation one million years BC and the
00:20:08 --> 00:20:11 location. And he spotted buildings, a pyramid. And he
00:20:11 --> 00:20:14 spotted humans, actual humans, but very tall humans
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 who were looking very sad and very miserable because they were just about
00:20:17 --> 00:20:20 to be wiped out by some planetoid that brushed
00:20:20 --> 00:20:23 past Mars and stole the atmosphere from Mars. Would have happened very
00:20:23 --> 00:20:26 quickly. I think they must have had some warnings. So the visions he saw
00:20:26 --> 00:20:29 were inside this pyramid. Looked very sparse and a lot
00:20:29 --> 00:20:32 of people looking sad, and then they were gone. So he said there was definitely
00:20:32 --> 00:20:34 life on Mars. It's human, not even humanoid. It's
00:20:34 --> 00:20:37 human, big, tall, twice the size of us, living in giant
00:20:37 --> 00:20:40 pyramids. The CIA seriously looking at this, trying to find
00:20:40 --> 00:20:43 examples, evidence, and they couldn't find any. Okay. Whether
00:20:43 --> 00:20:46 you believe the CIA or not, this guy claims he did
00:20:46 --> 00:20:49 find something. He told them, and of course, instantly the evidence was
00:20:49 --> 00:20:52 covered up. So he's come back here 50 years later. Talk about
00:20:52 --> 00:20:54 what he, what he discovered then as remote
00:20:54 --> 00:20:57 viewer number one. There's no way to prove it. Obviously, 1 years
00:20:57 --> 00:21:00 BC is a very, very strange figure to choose.
00:21:00 --> 00:21:01 Seeing tall humanoids.
00:21:02 --> 00:21:03 Stuart Gary: You just saw the movie Avatar.
00:21:03 --> 00:21:06 Tim mend: Yeah, quite possibly it's just all too
00:21:06 --> 00:21:09 1950s science fiction sort of thing. As much as
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 we all love 1950s science fiction, it's not necessarily
00:21:12 --> 00:21:14 an accurate, depiction of the way things are.
00:21:14 --> 00:21:17 Stuart Gary: That's Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics.
00:21:33 --> 00:21:36 And that's the show for now. Space Time is
00:21:36 --> 00:21:38 available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through
00:21:38 --> 00:21:41 bytes.com soundcloud, YouTube Music,
00:21:41 --> 00:21:44 your favorite podcast download provider, and from
00:21:44 --> 00:21:46 spacetimewithstuartgary.com
00:21:47 --> 00:21:49 space times. Also broadcast through the National Science
00:21:49 --> 00:21:52 foundation on Science Zone Radio and on both
00:21:52 --> 00:21:55 iHeartradio and TuneIn radio. And
00:21:55 --> 00:21:58 you can help to support our show by visiting the SpaceTime
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00:22:07 --> 00:22:10 show, as well as lots of bonus audio content which
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00:22:18 --> 00:22:21 details. You've been listening to Space Time
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00:22:22 --> 00:22:25 Voice Over Guy: This has been another quality podcast production from
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