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Daily briefing: Mathematicians up in arms over OpenAI’s preprint deluge
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An image of the Moon annotated with the location of micrometeorite impacts seen by the various Artemis II astronauts.Credit: NASA/CSA
NASA has released more than 800 gigabytes of images, audio recordings, written notes and other data gathered by the Artemis II astronauts on their historic flight past the Moon in April. The release includes details such as the colours the crew could make out on the lunar surface and the flashes of light they saw when micrometeorites pelted the Moon. The report also describes how changing light conditions impacted the team’s ability to assess the lunar terrain, an issue that might affect future missions to explore the surface of the Moon.
Bacteroides uniformis, a common gut microbe, manufactures a molecule that can slash cholesterol levels and shrink fatty plaques in the arteries of mice. Researchers found that the molecule, pentadecanoic acid, inhibits a liver enzyme that’s involved in cholesterol production — the same biological action as drugs called statins. The findings underline new ways in which people’s gut microbiome might be harnessed to protect against cardiovascular diseases caused by atherosclerosis, the progressive build up of inflammatory plaques in the walls of arteries, says microbiologist and study co-author Wenjing Zhao.
Tech giant OpenAI has released a flood of more than 700 preprints generated by artificial intelligence that tackle hundreds of high-profile problems in mathematics. The surprise drop has divided mathematicians, some of whom say they’ve been scooped or bemoaned a ‘slopocalypse’. Others celebrated the solution to longstanding problems, some more than a century old. The release shows just how quickly AI has become useful to the field. “It’s obviously the most significant moment in mathematical history,” said Levent Alpögeon, mathematician at rival AI company Anthropic, on social media.
The suppression of Indigenous burning practices in Australia after British colonization probably resulted in bigger, hotter bushfires today. A reconstruction of fires in southeastern Australia over the past 1,000 years suggests that the absence of controlled burning transformed swathes of forests from open and grassy into the dense, flammable woodland that compounds the risk of intense wildfires with climate change. Researchers suggest that restoring frequent, low-temperature ‘cultural burning’ practices could lower the risk of fires growing out of control.
At the press conference for the physics Nobel on Tuesday, it was called ‘historic’ for the prize to be announced by a woman — Ellen Moons, Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. ‘How does it feel to be a man and win a Nobel?’ asked no one, ever, to any of the laureates.
This exciting week would be even more thrilling if more women received the accolade for their work. We could stop rooting for ‘any woman in any of the sciences’ and be excited solely for the science, beyond the gender of the winners.
Some are pondering how to recognize machines’ contributions. Before that, can we make sure the prizes reflect the scientific community, across genders, nationalities, geographical location and more?