Australasian Science

OceanGate The oxygen supply of the missing Titan submersible is expected to run out today around 10am GMT, or 8pm AEST. A frantic search continues for the Titan and its five occupants, with sonar buoys having recorded “banging” noises in the search area on Tuesday and Wednesday. With the vessel’s fate yet to be determined, the general public is asking questions about the safety of such touristic endeavours.

Google DeepMind/Unsplash, CC BY-SA Our nation is experiencing its lowest productivity growth in 60 years, according to the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia. And this downturn is reflected across most advanced economies worldwide. So it’s not surprising some see the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) as productivity’s saviour. Media articles herald a new era of high productivity enabled by AI, and particularly by generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and DALL-E.

Happy solstice everyone! The mid-year solstice in 2023 falls at 2:58 pm UTC on 21 June (or, in more advanced time zones like the one I’m writing from, in the early hours of 22 June). Depending on where you are reading this, this will either be your winter solstice (for those in the southern hemisphere) or the summer solstice (for our northern readers). But what is the solstice? What does it mean for our day-to-day lives?

Scientific fraud is rising, and automated systems won't stop it. We need research detectives By Adrian Barnett, Professor of Statistics, Queensland University of Technology Unsplash Fraud in science is alarmingly common. Sometimes researchers lie about results and invent data to win funding and prestige. Other times, researchers might pay to stage and publish entirely bogus studies to win an undeserved pay rise – fuelling a “paper mill” industry worth an estimated €1 billion a year.

Missing Titanic sub: what are submersibles, how do they communicate, and what may have gone wrong? By Stefan B. Williams, Professor, Australian Centre for Field Robotics, University of Sydney OceanGate An extensive search and rescue operation is underway to locate a commercial submersible that went missing during a dive to the Titanic shipwreck. According to the US Coast Guard, contact with the submersible was lost about one hour and 45 minutes into the dive, with five people onboard.

AI is already being used in healthcare. But not all of it is 'medical grade' By Karin Verspoor, Dean, School of Computing Technologies, RMIT University, RMIT University Shutterstock Artificial intelligence (AI) seems to be everywhere these days, and healthcare is no exception. There are computer vision tools that can detect suspicious skin lesions as well as a specialist dermatologist can. Other tools can predict coronary artery disease from scans.

The world's fish are shrinking as the climate warms. We're trying to figure out why By Timothy Clark, Associate Professor - Animal Ecophysiology, Deakin University Marius Masalar / Unsplash Fish are the most diverse group of vertebrates, ranging from tiny gobies and zebrafish to gigantic tunas and whale sharks. They provide vital sustenance to billions of people worldwide via fisheries and aquaculture, and are critical parts of aquatic ecosystems.

Where was the Sun? Here's why astronomers are more useful in court cases than you'd think By Brad E Tucker, Astrophysicist, Australian National University Obed Hernández/Unsplash Over the past eight years, I have been asked to submit astronomical evidence for court cases all over Australia. Normally when we think of evidence in court, we think of eyewitnesses, DNA or police reports.

ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Martel, CC BY-SA As dawn rose over the German city of Bremen on May 7 1823, Heinrich Olbers put the finishing touches to an article that left his name in history. After the deaths of his wife and daughter, Dr Olbers had recently given up his work as an opthalmologist to devote himself to his nocturnal passions: the stars, the Moon, meteorites and comets. Like many of his peers, Olbers trained himself in astronomy.

Google Deepmind/Unsplash, CC BY-SA The launch of ever-capable large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-3.5 has sparked much interest over the past six months. However, trust in these models has waned as users have discovered they can make mistakes – and that, just like us, they aren’t perfect. An LLM that outputs incorrect information is said to be “hallucinating”, and there is now a growing research effort towards minimising this effect.