The time perception is affected by visual clutter

NASA’s return to Mars reveals that visual clutter skews our time perception: A study of a human-made object in the solar system

Five months after it was transmitted garbled data, NASA has sent an update on its health and operating status. In 1977 a human-made object was launched into the solar system. The signals it started sending in November of last year didn’t make sense. Following modifications to how Voyager 1 stores data aimed at fixing the glitch, NASA’s flight team confirmed on 22 April that they were able to communicate with the spacecraft once again. They want to restore its ability to send data back to science.

People think they watched a scene for more time than they actually did. Similarly, people experience time constriction when looking at more constrained, cluttered scenes, such as an image of a well-stocked cupboard. The study of 52 participants also showed that people are more likely to remember the images they thought they viewed for longer. It suggests that we use the time to find out more about the world around us and that we dilate our sense of time to find more information after seeing something that is more important.

Source: Daily briefing: Visual clutter skews our time perception

Are we ready for the next eruption? An anthropologist and reviewer on a book by a woman called Archetype in Volcanoland

Our ability to know when time is over is skewed by what we are seeing. Plus, NASA has reestablished clear communication with Voyager 1 and why we aren’t ready for the next big volcano eruption.

Fossil vertebrae of possibly the longest snake to have ever lived have been unearthed in a coal mine in India. A researcher recovered 27 of a snake estimated to reach up to fifteen metres in length, which is two times the longest snake alive today, and the same length as the extinct Titanoboa. 47 million years ago the snake, called Vasuki indicus, lived.

A trip to some of the world’s most notorious and active volcanoes is part of a book by a woman called “Archetype in Volcanoland”. Yet global preparedness for volcanic eruptions is severely lacking, says fellow volcanologist and reviewer Heather Handley. There is no international treaty organization for volcanic hazards and no global coordination on issuing comprehensive warnings of risks of eruptions, she says. In his book, the author reminded us that we should all keep an eye on the world’s volcanoes.

Source: Daily briefing: Visual clutter skews our time perception

Artificial Intelligence and Climate Change: How Can It Help? Troy Sutton Explains the Impact of H5N1 on Sea Lions and Humans

A group of researchers are warning of the urgent need to investigate the future carbon footprint of Artificial Intelligence. The direct impacts of AI computing infrastructure — currently about 0.01% of global greenhouse-gas emissions — are likely to remain relatively small, the researchers write. But there could be huge indirect impacts from the way AI tools transform our economies and societies. Researchers should assess the impact of artificial intelligence on climate progress under different scenarios.

Troy Sutton, a flu expert, says he has never seen a bird flu like H5N1, a novel strain that has rapidly colonized species far beyond birds. It is thought that the virus can now be spread between some sea lions, even though most mammal infections were caused by contact with a bird. Spreading in more species gives H5N1 opportunities to further adapt to mammals, including humans. So far, the virus doesn’t show signs of being able to cause a pandemic, Sutton says. “If we don’t give it the panic but we give it the respect and due diligence, I believe we can manage it,” adds Rick Bright, chief executive of a public health consultancy.

Source: Daily briefing: Visual clutter skews our time perception

The Future of Humanity Institute: How Foamed Glass can Help Farmers on Grenada to Adapt to Climate Change and its Impact on the Environment

Public-health researcher Lindonne Telesford explores whether ‘foamed glass’ could help farmers on Grenada to adapt to climate change. The porous material, which is made from recycled glass, is added to soil where it traps and retains water during droughts. In a pilot study, plants grown in soil treated with porous glass had a higher yield than control plants did, Telesford explains. Every little bit counts, because the country’s low research capacity makes it important to benefit farmers and protect the environment. Nature is read for 3 minutes. (Micah B. Rubin for Nature)

The bags of waste left on the Moon would make great material for lunar soil, if NASA didn’t consider them heritage, according to a Biologist. 38 min listen to the radio show.

The science-fiction author Ray Bradbury once wrote: “I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it. There are a number of scenarios that humanity would rather avoid. There is a burgeoning research discipline dedicated to that task.

Consider the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, UK, which focuses on the study and mitigation of threats that could lead to human extinction or civilization collapse.

Matthew Connolly is the director of the centre. “And, really, if you want to understand the future of life on this planet, you have to look at it in terms of systems.”

Some future shocks are hard to avoid — as researchers at the 19-year-old Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) at the University of Oxford, UK, discovered last week, when the institute was shut down in the wake of “increasing administrative headwinds”, according to a statement on its website.

“We had a good run,” says philosopher Nick Bostrom, who led the FHI since its creation in 2005. “I think the death by bureaucracy was regrettable, but there are now so many more places where this [research] can be done.”

“In the future, there will be political change, economic change, social change, technological change, legal change, maybe regulatory change,” he says. Several alternative scenarios are described by futures researchers.

Kerstin Cuhls, a scientific project manager at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research in Karlsruhe, Germany, last year completed one such foresight exercise for the German government, investigating chronobiology and circadian rhythms.

She says that they invited a group who know about the field and brought them to a discussion of what could happen in the future. Projecting over 20 years, the exercise covered probable advances in the science, such as a better understanding of the molecular and genetic mechanisms linked to sleep; the impact of increased screen use; and the potential knock-on effects of widespread disruption to circadian rhythms, including mental-health problems and obesity.

“We try to promote action,” Cuhls says — most notably by using the study outcomes to support a (so far unsuccessful) attempt to abolish Germany’s annual shift to ‘summer time’, when clocks are set forward by one hour, and to argue that teenagers would benefit from starting school later in the day.

According to George Wright, a psychologist and futures researcher at the University of Glasgow, forecasts such as this one are not the same as they used to be. Rather than using statistics to extrapolate a single data series on the basis of current trends, future studies try to account for variation and uncertainties across many influences and variables.

Patrick van der Duin, a foresight consultant based in the Hague, the Netherlands, and co-editor-in-chief of the journal Futures, says that focused foresight exercises, such as the chronobiology one, are different from newer, more speculative research on existential risk. The speculative approach often focuses on low-probability events that have a very large potential impact, he adds, rather than projecting from the present on the basis of plausible and predictable steps.

Several national governments are establishing groups to examine existential risk, including from AI. Although there is growing public and political interest in future studies, much of the research that feeds into these discussions is still funded by philanthropic organizations, rather than government grants. That hurts the field’s reputation, as is something he wants to change.

Some futures researchers go further than looking at possible scenarios and seek ways to promote what they see as the best vision of the future.

“We’ve done a lot of work on lethal autonomous weapons,” says Emilia Javorsky, a physician-scientist who directs the Futures Program at the Future of Life Institute in Campbell, California. “These are very much challenges of today that are just going to be amplified tomorrow if we don’t do something about them.”

The institute created a video called Slaughterbots in order to draw attention to the dangers of artificial intelligence. The video is widely credited with helping to build opposition to the technology. “We are seeing tangible outputs of this work,” Javorsky says.

The Road Towards Competitive Research: Making Sense of Emerging Areas and Discovering New Solutions in Non-Standard Domains

Winning competitive grants is what he says they need to establish this field for the long run and earn the respect of others. He said this is a common issue for emerging areas of research that don’t fit into existing fields.

“If you want to stick around, then you have to begin to demonstrate the work does meet the standard people would expect of any kind of academic work,” he says.