your science briefing for 02.03.2025
Galaxy-eating supermassive black holes, AI can now diagnose breast cancer before it starts, how the Trump administration is helping the next pandemic, and more...
Pretty much every galaxy we know of has a supermassive black hole spinning away at its center, even the remnants of little ones. Many of them are monstrous, millions and billions of solar masses as as big across as entire solar systems, yet, they’re generally just 0.01% of the entire galaxy’s heft. But looking back at the very first galaxies in the observable universe, JWST is seeing black holes at the core taking up as much as a tenth of the entire galaxy’s mass to astronomers’ astonishment… (LiveScience)
Tech bro AI is busy trying to put people out of jobs, drowning the internet in slop, and creating terrible virtual programmers from stolen intellectual property, while actual AI is busy revolutionizing electronics, discovering new antibiotics, and now, can detect a high risk of developing breast cancer up to six years before a formal diagnosis, giving doctors a chance to stop the disease before it even starts… (ScienceAlert)
Bird flu is trying to be the next big global pandemic and give COVID in 2020 a run for its money. Flu is different, of course. We already have the vaccines and don’t have to start from scratch, but it’s very important that scientists collaborate and listen on a brand new mission to prevent another round of lockdowns and the kind of stress that drove millions to mentally crack or become addicted to conspiracy theories. And, of course, right on cue, the Trump 2.0 administration decided to stop that… (KFF)
We’re constantly told that AI we’ve developed today is on the verge of becoming far more intelligent and adaptable than any human. So, scientists decided to put that to the test, trying to see how well the best object recognition algorithms compared to a humble lab rat. The result? Rats won hands down, no contest, the AI didn’t even need to be there. Both the computers and the rats managed to identify the objects in both optimal and dim, obstructed conditions, but the AIs needed far more resources, time, and effort to match organic brains… (Popular Science)
Cults are generally defined as groups devoted to and venerating a charismatic leader no matter what happens. So, what happens when a political party degenerates into a cult? Well, its followers experience something called “identity fusion,” a phenomenon in which the leader they venerate becomes such a central part of their lives that their very self-identity and emotional regulation is sacrificed to said leader’s benefit. Or, to paraphrase The Simpsons, their Leader is good, their Leader is great, they surrender their will as of this date… (Cambridge Press)