This Week in Science: Moon Dust, Young Bloods, and Google’s $100 Billion Chatbot Mistake
It’s time for “Nerd News,” covering the most important news for your brain.
Here’s a quick rundown of this week in science . . .
1. Astrophysicists came up with a way to flight global warming by blocking out some of the sun’s rays. Just blast lots of MOON DUST into space to give us a little shade. It would take tons of it, but computer simulations showed it’s possible.
2. Google’s parent company Alphabet debuted its own A.I. chatbot called “Bard” to go up against ChatGPT. But their promo video showed it answering a question wrong, and their stock immediately lost $100 BILLION in market value.
(The stock was down even more yesterday and lost another $60 billion or so.)
It claimed that the James Webb telescope took the first pictures of planets outside our solar system, but that happened way back in 2004. Ironically, they made the video ahead of time, and could have fact-checked the answer by Googling it.
3. Meanwhile, Microsoft debuted a new version of its Bing search engine this week that incorporates ChatGPT to give more thorough answers. And a study for Valentine’s Day found 71% of people couldn’t tell the difference between fake love letters written by ChatGPT, and real ones written by humans.
4. In health news: A team at Columbia found that a drug used to treat arthritis can make old people’s blood young again, and might help us live longer.
5. In sleep research: A study found people who believe in aliens and ghosts are less likely to get a good night’s rest.
6. And speaking of the paranormal: Last month, a camera in Hawaii caught some weird green laser beams in the sky, all in a row. It was just for a second, but they looked like a glitch in the matrix, so people freaked. (Here’s the video.)
Now experts think they know what they were. They say a Chinese radar satellite probably caused the effect. It uses something similar to sonar. But instead of sending out sound waves to map an area, it uses lasers.
(Sure, sure . . . those experts obviously took the BLUE pill.)
