Trade journal expects research breakthroughs with AI and mosquitoes
Published: Sunday, Dec 31st 2023, 09:40
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Supercomputers, artificial intelligence and mosquitoes to fight diseases: According to the specialist journal Nature, these will be the research highlights in the coming year:
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI): A whole range of new AI tools are in development, wrote the journal Nature on its website. After ChatGPT had already had a profound impact on science in 2023, its developer OpenAI is expected to release GPT-5, the next generation of the model, at the end of 2024. Gemini, Google's competitor, has also already been launched.
According to the journal, a new version of the AI tool AlphaFold is also expected in 2024, which will enable researchers to predict the 3D shapes of proteins with a high degree of accuracy. This tool is expected to open up new possibilities for the development of new drugs.
SUPERCOMPUTERS: Several new supercomputers will also be launched in 2024. The "Jupiter" computer is to be switched on in Germany at the beginning of the year. This device will be able to perform one trillion (i.e. one billion billion) calculations per second. Exa-scale computers are also due to be switched on in the USA in 2024. And a new supercomputer is also due to be completed in Switzerland in spring 2024. According to the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS), the "Alps" computer will be one of the fastest in the world.
MOSQUITOES: One of the most important research events expected to take place in 2024 is the "World Mosquito Program". This is set to start producing disease-fighting mosquitoes in a factory in Brazil in 2024. The mosquitoes are infected with a strain of bacteria that prevents them from transmitting disease-causing viruses, as Nature explained. This could protect up to 70 million people from diseases such as dengue and Zika.
DARK MATTER: According to the journal, further insights into dark matter could also be gained in 2024. For example, the results of an experiment to detect particles of dark matter, known as axions, will be published in 2024. According to Nature, 2024 could also be the year in which scientists determine the mass of the neutrino - the most mysterious particle in the standard model of particle physics.
SPACE: The specialist journal also lists several space missions among the most important scientific events expected in 2024. NASA's first manned moon mission could start as early as November 2024, as "Nature" wrote. The mission will involve astronauts flying around the moon in preparation for a lunar landing. China is also planning to launch a mission to the moon with the aim of obtaining samples from the "far side" of the moon, i.e. the side of the moon facing away from Earth, for the first time ever with a probe.
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