On how visual clutter skews our time perception: NASA’s Voyager 1 sent updates and improved data retrieval after being glitched
NASA’s interstellar spacecraft has sent updates about its health and operating status after five months of transmitting garbled data. Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 was the first human-made object to leave the solar system. Now 24 billion kilometres from Earth, in November last year it started sending signals that didn’t make sense. NASA confirmed on April 22, that they were able to communicate again, after modifications to how data is stored for fixing a glitch. It hopes to be able to send back science data as well.
When people look at larger, less cluttered scenes — a big, empty warehouse, for example — they think they viewed it for longer than they actually did. When looking at cluttered scenes, such as a well-stocked cupboard, people experience time constriction. The study of 52 participants also showed that people are more likely to remember the images they thought they viewed for longer. “It suggests that we use time to gather information about the world around us, and when we see something that’s more important, we dilate our sense of time to get more information,” says cognitive neuroscientist and study co-author Martin Wiener.
Source: Daily briefing: Visual clutter skews our time perception
What we see that skews our time perception? A review of ADVENTURES in Volcanic LAND by Tamsin Mather
We look at what we see which affects our ability to track time. NASA has reestablished clear communication and is more than ready to deal with a volcano eruption.
A snake’s vertebrae have been found in a coal mine in India. Reticulated pythons, also known as pythons, are the longest snakes alive today and are perhaps slightly longer than the extinct Titanoboa. The snake, dubbed Vasuki indicus, lived 47 million years ago.
The next volcanic catastrophe is inevitable according to the book ADVENTURES in VOLcanic LAND by Tamsin Mather. Heather Handley is a volcanologist and reviewer who says global preparedness for volcanic eruptions isn’t good. There is no global coordination on issuing comprehensive warnings of risks of eruptions, and there is no international treaty organization for volcanic hazard. According to the book, all of us should keep a watch on the world’s volcanoes.
Source: Daily briefing: Visual clutter skews our time perception
On the Future Carbon Footprints of Artificial Intelligence: The case of H5N1, avian influenza and the sea lion virus
The future carbon footprints of artificial intelligence technologies needs to be explored by a group of researchers. The researchers say the impacts of artificial intelligence on the environment are likely to remain relatively small. There could be huge indirect impacts of the way we use drones and artificial intelligence. The group wants researchers to be aware of whether artificial intelligence will have an effect on climate progress.
“In my flu career, we have not seen a virus that expands its host range quite like this,” says virologist Troy Sutton about H5N1, an avian influenza virus that has rapidly infiltrated species well beyond birds. Most mammal infections were likely caused by contact with aninfecting bird, but it is now possible that the virus has evolved to spread between sea lions. Spreading in more species gives H5N1 opportunities to further adapt to mammals, including humans. It hasn’t been found to show signs of being able to cause a Pandemic in the first few days. “If we don’t give it the panic but we give it the respect and due diligence, I believe we can manage it,” adds Rick Bright, chief executive of a public health consultancy.
Source: Daily briefing: Visual clutter skews our time perception
Foamed glass as an alternative to climate change: Lindonne Telesford, professor at the Future of Humanity Institute, London, UK
Lindonne Telesford explores the idea that foamed glass could help farmers adapt to climate change. The porous material, which is made from recycled glass, is added to soil where it traps and retains water during droughts. In a pilot study, plants grown in soil treated with porous glass had a higher yield than control plants did, Telesford explains. “Agricultural research is a major undertaking for Grenada, because the country has a low research capacity — but every little bit counts if it can bring benefits to farmers and protect our island environment.” (Nature | 3 min read) (Micah B. Rubin for Nature)
According to a Biologist, the bags of waste left behind by humans on the Moon would make great compost if NASA didn’t view them as heritage. (Nature Podcast | 38 min listen)
Ray Bradbury once wrote that he didn’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.” From asteroid strikes and nuclear winters to runaway artificial intelligence (AI), there are plenty of scenarios that humanity would rather avoid. So much so, that a burgeoning research discipline is dedicated to that task.
The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk is located in the University of Cambridge, UK and focuses on the study of threats to civilization that could lead to extinction.
“There are cascade effects between different kinds of hazards,” says historian Matthew Connelly, the centre’s director. If you want to understand the future of life on this planet, you should look at it in terms of systems.
The Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford in the UK was shut down last week due to increasing administrative headwind, according to a statement on its website.
The philosopher who led the FHI since 2005, Nick Bostrom, said that they had a good run. There are many more places where this research can be done now that the death by bureaucracy is regrettable.
“In the future, there will be political change, economic change, social change, technological change, legal change, maybe regulatory change,” he says. Many alternative scenarios have been created and described by futures researchers.
Kerstin Cuhls, a scientific project manager at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research in Karlsruhe, Germany, last year completed one such foresight exercise for the German government, investigating chronobiology and circadian rhythms.
“We invited a lot of people who know about chronobiology, but also people from associations and companies, and brought them together to discuss what could be the future of the field and applications,” she says. Projecting over 20 years, the exercise covered probable advances in the science, such as a better understanding of the molecular and genetic mechanisms linked to sleep; the impact of increased screen use; and the potential knock-on effects of widespread disruption to circadian rhythms, including mental-health problems and obesity.
“We try to promote action,” Cuhls says — most notably by using the study outcomes to support a (so far unsuccessful) attempt to abolish Germany’s annual shift to ‘summer time’, when clocks are set forward by one hour, and to argue that teenagers would benefit from starting school later in the day.
George Wright is a psychologist and futures researcher at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK. Rather than using statistics to extrapolate a single data series on the basis of current trends, future studies try to account for variation and uncertainties across many influences and variables.
Patrick van der Duin, a foresight consultant based in the Hague, the Netherlands, and co-editor-in-chief of the journal Futures, says that focused foresight exercises, such as the chronobiology one, are different from newer, more speculative research on existential risk. The speculative approach often focuses on low-probability events that have a very large potential impact, he adds, rather than projecting from the present on the basis of plausible and predictable steps.
Several national governments are establishing groups to examine existential risk, including from AI. Although there is growing public and political interest in future studies, much of the research that feeds into these discussions is still funded by philanthropic organizations, rather than government grants. That hurts the field’s reputation, and he is trying to change that.
Some futures researchers look for ways to promote the most desired vision of the future in order to explore more possible scenarios.
There is a physician-scientist who directs the Future of Life Institute in Campbell, California who said that they have done a lot of work on lethal autonomously weapons. “These are very much challenges of today that are just going to be amplified tomorrow if we don’t do something about them.”
The institute produced a video called SlaughterBots that was used in a campaign against machine-readable weapons. The video is widely credited with helping to build opposition to the technology. Javorsky says there are tangible outputs of the work.
Developing a research field to earn the respect of others in academia: a keynote talk at the New York Times on the issues of scholarship and research funding
He says winning competitive grants is what’s needed to establish this field and earn the respect of others in academia. He says that this is an issue for areas of research that don’t fit into existing fields.
“If you want to stick around, then you have to begin to demonstrate the work does meet the standard people would expect of any kind of academic work,” he says.