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Science Quickly

AI Could Help Save Us from Conspiracy Theories, and Massachusetts Could Help Save Us from Our Trash

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2639 Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2024

⏱️ 10 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week's news roundup: The European Space Agency’s Juice mission tested its instruments with a flyby of Earth in preparation for studying habitability on moons of Jupiter’. Also, a study found that Massachusetts has reduced food waste through composting and enforcement while four other states have not successfully done so despite also having bans on disposing of such waste in landfills. And researchers tested the generative artificial intelligence platform GPT-4 Turbo’s ability to counter conspiracy theories through personalized, fact-based conversations, yielding promising results. E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.  Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

0:05.8

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

0:11.0

Yacold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.

0:19.6

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yawcult.co.j.p.

0:23.9

That's y-A-K-U-L-T dot-C-O-J-P.

0:28.4

When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt.

0:34.3

Happy Monday, listeners.

0:35.8

Let's kick off the week by catching up on some of the latest science news.

0:40.2

For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman.

0:44.4

We'll start with some good news.

0:46.6

It turns out that Earth is habitable.

0:51.0

That's according to the European Space Agency's Jupiter-icey moons explorer, aka Juice, which

0:56.5

made a flyby of our planet recently.

0:58.7

The ESA took the opportunity to do a test run of Juce's instruments, which it will use to look

1:03.4

for molecular signatures of habitability on the moon's Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

1:09.0

It's actually making several loops around the sun to get a gravity

1:11.7

assist to slingshot it all the way into Jupiter's orbit. So it's going to make a few more flybys

1:16.3

before it finally gets to its destination in 2013. But if we want to keep that habitability

1:21.9

status, we really need to clean up our act. Last Tuesday, a study found that human methane emissions jumped by 15 to 20 percent between

1:31.4

2000 and 2020, which is the most recent year we have complete data for.

1:36.2

Methane levels in the air have more than doubled compared to pre-industrial levels.

1:40.4

The study also found an increase in natural methane emissions from sources like tropical wetlands,

...

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