James Webb pierces the cold heart of the Chameleon

NASA, ESA, CSA, and M. Zamani (ESA/Webb); Science: F. Sun (Steward Observatory), Z. Smith (Open University), and the Ice Age ERS Team.

Stars form when massive clouds of cold gas and dust fragment, condense, and collapse. As the density in a small part of the cloud grows high enough, the pressure skyrockets until it ignites the fusion process that forms the fiery heart of a new star. 

As the nascent star grows, it becomes encircled by a protoplanetary disk made of the same material that formed the star. This disk is what eventually gives birth to the planets, asteroids, and comets around the new sun.

This gorgeous new image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) features the molecular cloud Chameleon I, one of the nearest star-forming regions to Earth, located just 626 light-years away. At upper left is a young protostar called Ced 110 IRS 4, whose light illuminates the dense, bluish cloud at the infrared wavelengths Webb observes. Just visible through the cloud at center are several small, pointlike background stars, mostly obscured by the cold material. But these stars are the cornerstone of a new study, which used JWST to decode the chemical composition of ices within Chameleon I.

10-02-2023 om 18:47 geschreven door peter  

The Kuiper Belt’s dwarf planet Quaoar hosts an impossible ring

The ring lies outside a typical, mathematically determined distance from the small world

Dwarf planet Quaoar, shown in this artist's illustration, is only the third small object in the solar system with a known ring.

ILLUSTRATION CREDIT: NASA, G. BACON/STSCI; SCIENCE CREDIT: NASA, M. BROWN/CALTECH

By Lisa Grossman

The dwarf planet Quaoar has a ring that is too big for its metaphorical fingers. While all other rings in the solar system lie within or near a mathematically determined distance of their parent bodies, Quaoar’s ring is much farther out.

“For Quaoar, for the ring to be outside this limit is very, very strange,” says astronomer Bruno Morgado of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The finding may force a rethink of the rules governing planetary rings, Morgado and colleagues say in a study published February 8 in Nature.

Quaoar is an icy body about half the size of Pluto that’s located in the Kuiper Belt at the solar system’s edge (SN: 8/23/22). At such a great distance from Earth, it’s hard to get a clear picture of the world.

So Morgado and colleagues watched Quaoar block the light from a distant star, a phenomenon called a stellar occultation. The timing of the star winking in and out of view can reveal details about Quaoar, like its size and whether it has an atmosphere.

The researchers took data from occultations from 2018 to 2020, observed from all over the world, including Namibia, Australia and Grenada, as well as space. There was no sign that Quaoar had an atmosphere. But surprisingly, there was a ring. The finding makes Quaoar just the third dwarf planet or asteroid in the solar system known to have a ring, after the asteroid Chariklo and the dwarf planet Haumea (SN: 3/26/14; SN: 10/11/17).

Even more surprisingly, “the ring is not where we expect,” Morgado says.

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10-02-2023 om 18:21 geschreven door peter  

Dr Michio Kaku Asteroid Warning: Now Nibiru is a Big Problem For All of Us — ( Preparations Imminent – TSUNAMI EXPECTED – Mega Earthquake Tsunami Threat: Urgent Plans Implemented for U.S. West Coast Disaster )

Although the planet has not even been confirmed by scientists, some believe that there is an elusive planet in our solar system which has a huge orbit and such a strong magnetic pull that it can effect life on Earth.

Researchers dealing with the issue of Planet X or as it is called the planet Nibiru, said that this mysterious planet is inexorably approaching the Earth and from November 2022to January 2024 on our planet due to the impact of Nibiru, there will be a catastrophic and irreversible changes.

• Michio Kaku and the others of you that publicize doomsday scenarios !

What is an asteroid, exactly?

An asteroid is a small, rocky or metallic object orbiting the Sun. They are now usually defined as being larger than 1 meter in diameter with objects smaller than that being called meteoroids. The largest asteroid is Ceres at 965 km (600 mi) diameter. Most asteroids, including Ceres, are located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but some asteroids come near to or cross Earth’s orbit. There are several related terms that come up when talking about things hitting Earth, so here are some related definitions:

What is a comet?

A comet is a small, icy/dusty object orbiting the Sun. Comets formed in the outer solar system where ice is stable. Most of them spend most of their time far beyond the orbit of Neptune, and all spend most of their time beyond Jupiter. But some have orbits that bring them occasionally through the inner solar system including sometimes past Earth’s orbit. When they are in the inner solar system, their ice sublimates (goes from ice to gas), kicking off dust and forming the coma and tails they are famous for.

What is a meteoroid?

A meteoroid is a rocky or metallic object in space that is smaller than an asteroid, the boundary usually being defined as 1 meter diameter. Very tiny meteoroids, smaller than 1 gram or so are often called micrometeoroids or space dust.

What is a meteor?

A meteor is the streak of light that occurs when an object (e.g., asteroid or meteoroid) hits the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed causing the object to heat up and glow.

What is a meteorite?

If part of a meteoroid, asteroid, or comet makes it to the ground, it is called a meteorite.

How do asteroids form? Where do asteroids come from?

Asteroids are typically material left over from the period of planetary formation 4.5 billion years ago, the stuff left over that didn’t form into planets in the inner solar system. Often they are fragments of collisions between asteroids in the past.

Many experts often talks about natural events that could make humans extinct. Asteroid impacts. Supernovae. Gamma ray bursts. Climate change. Or human caused, nuclear war. He has an agenda here, because he wants us to go into space. They thinks the future of humanity is in space, and he thinks this is how we can escape from disasters that could make Earth uninhabitable. But you don’t have to motivate humans in space in this way. You can motivate it just as well as a way to move heavy industry into space, to protect Earth from asteroids, for knowledge, for resources from the Moon and asteroids, for the search for biology based on different principles from DNA, for adventure and tourism, in many other ways.

By calculations of experts already on the Ground is a significant influence of Nibiru on our planet by 1 degree per day, and 14th december 2022 this figure will reach 25 degrees.

The approach of planet X will cause a pole shift of the earth that will lead to catastrophic melting of glaciers and the incredible magnitude of the rise in global sea level. Huge waves with a height of over 100 meters, fall on the continents and destroy everything alive.

The earth will be shaken by a mega-earthquake the magnitude of which will exceed 11 points on the Richter scale, and on the surface of the planet will rage giant storms and hurricane-force winds of great power. Volcanoes of the planet will begin eruption – all at once, including the famous super volcano Yellowstone. The warm Gulf stream will stop and the Earth will begin a terrible ice age.

Skywatch Media News says that Planet X is bound for Earth after completing half of its 3,600-year elliptical orbit.

It says that the magnetic force of Planet X is so strong that it can effect anything within 48.6 astronomical units (AU) of it – one AU is the distance between Earth and the Sun.

With the planet having completed the first half of its elliptical orbit, it is heading back towards Earth and its strong magnetic pull is causing problems already.

Thousands of conspiracy theorists have been going wild with rumours about the world ending.

An outrageous theory about a rogue Planet X, known as Nibiru, claims that the colossal planet will pass earth to start the apocalypse.

The main purveyor of the doomsday prophecy is Christian numerologist David Meade who published his theories in his book, Planet X – .

The author has spectacularly claimed that Nibiru’s approach will match an astrological constellation from the biblical Book of Revelation.

But on the eve of the apocalypse, Mr Meade has come out to claim that actually, the world is not about to end.

Nibiru is a proposed large planet that conspiracy theorists have predicted will crash into and destroy Earth. Many prognostications had the cataclysm occurring in 2012, to coincide with the supposed “Mayan apocalypse.”

“The world is not ending, but the world as we know it is ending,” he told The Washington Post. “A major part of the world will not be the same on next year.”

We see that Nibiru’s black magnetic shell represents a protective region with such dense magnetism that it permits no light, visible or invisible, to pass through it, except for the intense radiation from the core. The core, at the centre of which resides Nibiru itself, appears to be a self-contained area that, relative to the absolute coldness of the shell, must be very hot or radioactive (meaning high luminous or light activity). Indeed, it is so radioactive that it is emitting very powerful radiation beams or gamma ray bursts from both poles, which are acting as relief valves to eject any excess radiation being generated within the core. Typically, only some of the universe’s most powerful entities or events detected by modern science, such as supernovas, neutron stars, pulsars, quasars, black stars (so-called ‘black holes’) and even entire galaxies, are known to emit gamma ray bursts. Nibiru’s GRBs are still minuscule in comparison with those of these humongous stellar objects, but the fact that it emits them at all is extraordinary!

As for the outer magnetic field, it is now close enough for the left edge of it (from Earth’s POV) to completely overtake Saturn. It reached the planet on about 1 November 2022, causing super-massive storms to rage across its atmosphere and forcing the solar system’s second largest planet to tilt away from normal by almost 90° !
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has spotted a massive, nearly invisible ring around Saturn. The ring’s orbit is tilted 27 degrees from the planet’s main ring plane. The bulk of it starts about 3.7 million miles (6 million km) away from the planet and extends outward another 7.4 million miles (12 million km). This is not actually a completely new ring like Nasa thinks. It was formed from dust and debris pulled by the approaching Nibiru’s magnetic force from the original rings of Saturn. Saturn’s own magnetism kept the dust particles in an orbit around it and thus forming a ‘new’ ring.

Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, shoots out a huge jet of water, ice, dust and gas from a huge crack on its surface. The giant crack first appeared around October 2008 , which is the same period that large sink holes also appeared on Enceladus’ surface . Elenin was closest to Saturn around this time as it approached it on its way to the inner solar system. The object is having the same effect on Earth as it nears us, causing huge sinkholes and cracks to appear on the land in many countries.

Titan and Dione during 5April 2010 Cassini flyby with the red glow from Nibiru lurking behind the shadow of Titan as the giant approached Saturn – the red glow seems to be causing a green light on the night side of Titan’s atmosphere. Note the black smudge behind Dione to conceal whatever is casting the red glow.
The formidable magnetism of Nibiru has indeed tilted Saturn, the second largest planet in our solar system, by up to 90° away from its natural inclination.

Another thing we’ve observed is that the tilt of Saturn is noticeably more pronounced in some earlier images more than later ones. This may be because Nibiru’s magnetism pulses, both increasing and receding in steady cadence like waves hitting a beach, and like waves some are stronger (causing a more severe tilt) than others (causing a slighter tilt).

The Pioneer Anomaly

Pioneer 10’s trajectory from Saturn orbit to Uranus orbit and the point when it encountered a mysterious force – dubbed the Pioneer anomaly by baffled Nasa scientists – that gently pushed against it in the opposite direction back towards the Sun and effectively decelerating its forward momentum. Pioneer was travelling towards the right of Nibiru at this point when the massive object was 66.8 (58.8 + 8) AU from the Sun. This tells us two things:

1. That Nibiru’s outer magnetic force (drawn as a dark red circle in the image above) is so strong it can affect objects 46.8 AU from Nibiru (Pioneer’s approx distance from it at the time), way beyond the central and certainly much stronger magnetic field (the purple circle) that we’ve calculated spans about 16 AU with a reach or radius of only 8 A
2. That Nibiru’s magnetism rotates in a clockwise fashion, because that is the only way it could push Pioneer back when the deep space probe was flying to the right of it. If it rotated anticlockwise and the Pioneer 10 was travelling in the same direction it would push the probe slightly forward and to the right of its trajectory – so the effect would have been the opposite as the probe would seen to be slightly accelerating, not decelerating, in its drift.

It is interesting that the Pioneer case reveals that Nibiru has a much larger magnetic field or magnetic affect than the one that extends 8 AU from its centre. The hurricane/cyclone analogy will serve useful here to better understand what we’re seeing here. A hurricane or cyclone has four basic components: the eye, the inner eye wall, the outer eye wall and the peripheral rainbands.

We can now see why this Nibiru object has been disturbing the Earth and the rest of the solar system for a long time now. It is because its outer ‘rainbands’ have been hitting us again and again in gradual ever stronger series of waves as it floods the Sun’s magnetic field (the solar system) with its own. The two magnetic fields directly oppose each other and have reverse polarities, with Nibiru’s spinning in a clockwise fashion as opposed to the Sun’s counter-clockwise rotation.
The computer-generated image below gives us a good schematic visual of how Nibiru’s clockwise-rotating magnetic field should look like if we could see it in detail. Like a cyclone, Nibiru’s strongest magnetic ‘winds’ are on its right-hand side (from our perspective). Unfortunately for us, Nibiru is approaching us from the left-hand side (of the Sun, from our perspective). This means we will be encountering the strongest magnetic whirls from Nibiru, because we will be in the right-hand side of its core as it approaches us.

Another effect Nibiru would have is that it will slow down Earth’s counter-clockwise orbit round the Sun. We will be hit by the strong right-hand side, which is also the ‘pushing’ side. Like it did to Pioneer 10, this side will try to push us in the opposite direction of our orbit. The Sun’s opposing magnetism will largely prevent that, being stronger than Nibiru’s, so the overall effect of the magnetic push is to slow us down more and more as the object gets closer and closer.
NASA have announced that the Earth may be about to experience a pole shift, leaving it unable to defend itself against solar radiation for up to 200 years, which would have devastating consequences for humans.

Will the Sun turn Black in 2023? Are we seeing changes with the sun’s behavior? There very well may be a good reason for this. Nemesis the brown dwarf star, Originally postulated in 1984 to be orbiting the Sun at a distance of about 95,000 AU (1.5 light-years), somewhat beyond the Oort cloud, to explain a perceived cycle of mass extinctions in the geological record, which seem to occur more often at intervals of 26 million years.

Two teams of astronomers, Daniel P. Whitmire and Albert A. Jackson IV, and Marc Davis, Piet Hut, and Richard A. Muller, independently published similar hypotheses to explain Raup and Sepkoski’s extinction periodicity in the same issue of the journal Nature. This hypothesis proposes that the Sun may have an undetected companion star in a highly elliptical orbit that periodically disturbs comets in the Oort cloud, causing a large increase of the number of comets visiting the inner Solar System with a consequential increase of impact events on Earth. This became known as the “Nemesis” or “Death Star” hypothesis.

Muller, referring to the date of a recent extinction at 11 million years before the present day, posits that Nemesis has a semi-major axis of about 1.5 light-years (95,000 AU) and suggests it is located (supported by Yarris, 1987) near Hydra, based on a hypothetical orbit derived from original apogees of a number of atypical long-period comets that describe an orbital arc meeting the specifications of Muller’s hypothesis. Richard Muller’s most recent paper relevant to the Nemesis theory was published in 2002. In 2002, Muller speculated that Nemesis was perturbed 400 million years ago by a passing star from a circular orbit into an orbit with an eccentricity of 0.7.

Using newer and more powerful infrared telescope technology, able to detect brown dwarfs as cool as 150 kelvins out to a distance of 10 light-years from the Sun, results from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE survey) have not detected Nemesis yet, but they are still looking.

Is Planet X (Nibiru) the cause of the heatwaves being felt worldwide or is it being caused by the climate changes that scientist are claiming are occurring? Is the government putting their infamous Haarp machine to work to drive up prices on agricultural products? We may never know the truth but with more extreme and unusual weather ahead in 2023– 2024 one has to ask, “are we the people the cause of the many strange events being experienced around the globe or is the culprit something much bigger?”

Each year since 2001 has seen at least 0.4 degree—Celsius above the long-term average for the 1961—1990 base period, used by the UN agency as a reference for climate change monitoring.

Extreme weather and climate conditions, including Arctic “heatwaves”, have continued into 2020, after global temperatures set record last year and the world witnessed exceptionally low sea ice and unabated ocean heat, the UN weather agency said.

While global temperatures hit a remarkable 1.1 degree- Celsius above the pre-industrial period, global sea-level touch record highs and the planet’s sea-ice coverage dropped more than four million square kilometres below average in November — an unprecedented anomaly for that month, according to the World Meteorological Organisation’s (WMO) statement on the state of the Global Climate in 2023.

“This increase in global temperature is consistent with other changes occurring in the climate system,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said.

“With levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere consistently breaking new records, the influence of human activities on the climate system has become more and more evident,” Taalas said.

Each of the year since 2001 has seen at least 0.4 degree—Celsius above the long-term average for the 1961—1990 base period, used by the UN agency as a reference for climate change monitoring.

The 2023 heating was further boosted by the powerful El Nieather system, during which global sea-level also rose very strongly.

Similarly, carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere reached the symbolic benchmark of 400 parts per millions in 2015 — the latest year for which WMO global figures are available — and will not fall below that level for many generations to come because of the long-lasting nature of CO2.

“The extreme weather patterns are continuing in 2021 adding that at least three times so far this winter, the Arctic saw what can be called the Polar equivalent of a heatwave, with powerful Atlantic storms driving an influx of warm, moist air,” WMO said.

“This meant that at the height of the Arctic winter and the sea ice refreezing period, there were days which were actually close to melting point,” it said.

In the US alone, 11,743 warm temperature records were broken or tied in February, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the UN agency.

“Even without a strong El Nin 2017, we are seeing other remarkable changes across the planet that are challenging the limits of our understanding of the climate system,” said World Climate Research Programme Director David Carlson.

“We are now in truly uncharted territory,” Mr. Carlson added.

The extreme climate conditions also added to human suffering as 2019 saw severe droughts, affecting millions in southern and eastern African and Central America.

In the midst of such challenges, Taalas underlined the importance of implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change, which also entered into force last year.

“The entry into force of the Paris Agreement on 4 November 2016 represents a historic landmark,” he said, adding that it is vital that its implementation becomes a reality and that the Agreement guides the global community in addressing climate change by curbing greenhouse gases, fostering climate resilience and mainstreaming climate adaptation into national development policies.

“The Planet X effect is setting the Earth up for a coming pole shift.”

Although no one knows what might happen when Planet X reaches its closes point to Earth in its orbit, it is feared that it could spark another ice age or catastrophic earthquakes.

• According to 4 major biblical prophets something truly terrifying is coming our way, and it will hit homeland before the 1st of January 2024…

We have been feeling the disruptive effects of the inbound rogue Planet X since 1996 in the form of increased seismic and volcanic activities, freak weather patterns, and natural disasters.

NASA, the Pentagon, and the CIA are aware of the approaching rogue planet. The Vatican has also been briefed, but the public is being kept in the dark about the impending apocalypse. But despite efforts to keep the information secret, there have been leaks. … many conspiracy theorists insist that that NASA’s “Planet X” is Nibiru.

Nibiru, by all definitions, concepts and research scholars in the field, is a red or brown dwarf star that carries along with it seven planets orbiting around each other; therefore it is a Mini Solar System. Nibiru is close to 5 times than Jupiter. So by turn, it is 6500 times larger than the earth!

With the gigantic size, it has very strong gravitational pull and it influences our oceans and all magnetic fields. So in 2011, when Nibiru approached the Sun, it began forcefully “pulling” at the Sun’s core. The core of the Sun is only 65 times that Nibiru. Thus, the solar activity in relation to explosions and solar storms has increased so much that the “Maximo Solar” started in 2011 and has not stopped to this day (2023). The emissions are in the ultraviolet solar radiation level (range from 0 to 16) are currently at 15, and the normal is between 9 and 10 units. This was caused by the approach of Nibiru towards the Sun.

So, one must ask, why are they suddenly telling us now? Scientists have known about this planet since 1983 and they’ve been using WISE and IRAS to monitor it. Does this mean it will be visible this year? I’m thinking so. They have no choice but to tell us as it will viewable to everyone w/o a telescope this year. And why are they not calling this planet by its real name? Nibiru? Planet X? Well, that would mean that all of us so called “conspiracy theorist’s” and our ancient ancestors, were right all along!

NASA WISE Telescope shows a Giant Planet next to the Solar System. February 10, 2023. NASA confirms that is tracking Hercolubus, at the moment scientists call it as Tyche. The NASA Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope is showing a giant planet next to the Solar System. Tyche (Hercolubus) is 4 times bigger than Jupiter and orbit at the outer edge of the Solar System.Scientists are just analyzing the data gathered by a NASA space telescope WISE, it shows a giant planet up to four times the mass of Jupiter lurking in the outer Oort Cloud, the most remote region of the solar system. The orbit of Tyche (Hercolubus) would be 15,000 times farther from the Sun than the Earth’s, and 375 times farther than Pluto’s.

NASA then prepared a very well-built simulation that projected the orbit of Nibiru. Transformed the simulation in video and “sneak” released on the internet. The simulation done by NASA computers presented visually not only the displacement of Nibiru in its orbit, but also the orbits of all the planets of the solar system.

Doomsday solar mega-flare could blast humanity back to the Stone Age, scientists warn. Lead scientist Chloe Pugh, from the University of Warwick, said: “If the Sun were to produce a superflare it would be disastrous for life on Earth; our GPS and radio communication systems could be severely disrupted and there could be large-scale power blackouts as a result of strong electrical currents being induced in power grids.”

According to researchers from UC Berkeley and China, a rapid succession of coronal mass ejections — the most intense eruptions on the sun — sent a pulse of magnetized plasma barreling into space and through Earth’s orbit. Had the eruption come nine days earlier, when the ignition spot on the solar surface was aimed at Earth, it would have hit the planet, potentially wreaking havoc with the electrical grid, disabling satellites and GPS, and disrupting our increasingly electronic lives.
The solar bursts would have enveloped Earth in magnetic fireworks matching the largest magnetic storm ever reported on Earth, the so-called Carrington event of 1859.

The far greater electromagnetic fields of Planet X will cause great earthquakes (greater than the highest level of 9.5 known to date), volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and a shift of the physical poles.
Now it is public knowledge that government agencies are on a need-to-know classification (intra-agency), and that they never publish information in advance that could cause an economic or other disruption.

However, if you do any research at all you will run into different levels of disinformation. Some of this is from uneducated members of the public and some of it is very likely on purpose. You have to use your head when you do research.
“The superflare studied by the team occurred on the binary star KIC9655129.Using data from the American space agency Nasa’s Kepler space telescope, the scientists determined that it had wave properties identical to those seen in solar flares.

I think that 2023 will bring even more asteroids coming close to Earth and there is always a chance that one will head straight for us. NASA says that they can redirect these but the device they have has not been tested yet and I would imagine it would have to depend on the size of the asteroid or meteor. It would take a nuclear bomb to move an asteroid miles wide and NASA’s track record for spotting meteors has not been the greatest, especially when it come from the direction of the sun.

So what about our sun? Although it has been relatively quiet these days with only “M” class flares that have been Earth directed, it does not mean that one day we could experience a massive “X” class flare that would cripple the Earth, throwing us back to the Stone Age. I am not trying to panic anyone and the likelihood of such an event would be rare but it is always possible.
Are they going to declare Doomsday preppers mentally incompetent? One guy in the States was certainly affected and it seems his rights were violated. Could this happen to you?

People, please wake up; it is close. Don’t listen to any of those who say it does not exist; just do your homework and keep an open mind. There are many trolls out there who are very good at convincing you that Planet X is a hoax. So you have to ask yourself, if it does not exist, why are they trying to convince you of that? Hmm. They don’t want you to prepare to save yourself and your family; they want you to die.

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10-02-2023 om 17:22 geschreven door peter  

Mysteries Of The Unseen World | National Geographic

Mysteries of the Unseen World transports audiences to places on this planet they have never been before, to see things that are beyond their normal vision, yet are literally right in front of their eyes.

High-speed and time-lapse photography, electron microscopy, and nanotechnology are just a few of the advancements in science that allow us to see a whole new universe of things, events, creatures, and processes we never knew existed. These technologies now give us “super powers” to see beyond what is in front of us.

Visually stunning and rooted in cutting-edge research, Mysteries of the Unseen World will enthrall audiences as they begin to understand the enormity of the world they can’t see, a world that exists in the air they breathe, on their own bodies, and in all of the events that occur around them minute-by-minute—and nanosecond-by-nanosecond. With this understanding comes a new appreciation of the wonder and possibilities of science.
#NatGeo #UnseenWorld #Science

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10-02-2023 om 16:33 geschreven door peter  

On January 28, 2023 it was cloudy on Mauna Kea, but The Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii captured video of a strange sky phenomenon with its livestreaming Subaru-Asahi Star Camera. Although it was only a second or less they managed to capture mysterious green laser lights, coming from the sky! 

Image credit: SubaruTel_StarCamAdmin

The mysterious beams of light raised many questions from the viewers who suggested it was a UFO that fired the beams or it was related to the mysterious project Blue Beam. 

On February 6, 2023 Dr. Martino, Anthony J., a NASA scientist working on ICESat-2 ATLAS, said that that the beams did not come from one of their instrument but by others. His colleagues, Dr. Alvaro Ivanoff et al., did a simulation of the trajectory of satellites that have a similar instrument and found a most likely candidate as the ACDL instrument by the Chinese Daqi-1/AEMS satellite. 

While it is important to note that these types of sightings are not uncommon and are often caused by the reflection of sunlight off of satellites or other objects in space and despite the statement by Dr. Martino and Dr. Ivanoff that the Chinese Daqi-1/AEMS satellite is the most likely candidate based on simulations and available evidence, it's always possible that additional information could change the understanding of what 'really' caused the strange sighting.

  

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Screen shot of the strange spiral-shape captured by the Subaru Star Camera

(Image Source: Subaru Telescope/ the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan)

10-02-2023 om 16:16 geschreven door peter  

Latest UFO Sighting from Port Allegany, Pennsylvania 8-Feb-2023

On the 8th of February 2023, residents in Port Allegany, Pennsylvania were left in awe as a strange metallic craft was seen hovering low in the sky. The unidentified flying object was first reported by a witness who stated that the craft was not emitting any lights. However, as the witness followed the object in their vehicle, the craft lit up and flew away at such a high speed that it nearly disappeared.

The witness managed to capture a video of the strange object and shared it on Facebook, where hundreds of others reported seeing the same object and shared their photos and videos. The video, which has since gone viral, shows a metallic craft hovering in the sky with several bright lights surrounding it. The object remains stationary for a few seconds before suddenly accelerating and flying away at an incredible speed.

This latest UFO sighting has sparked widespread excitement and speculation among UFO enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists. Many are trying to explain the strange object as a new military aircraft or drone, while others believe it could be an extraterrestrial spacecraft. However, with no official explanation from the government or military, the true identity of the craft remains a mystery.

• You won’t believe what these Trowbridge (UK) residents caught on camera: A UFO...
  

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10-02-2023 om 15:47 geschreven door peter  

SCIENTISTS FIND "ONE IN TEN BILLION" STAR SYSTEM PRIMED TO EXPLODE IN TITANIC KILONOVA

"PRIOR TO OUR STUDY, THE ESTIMATE WAS THAT ONLY ONE OR TWO SUCH SYSTEMS SHOULD EXIST IN A SPIRAL GALAXY LIKE THE MILKY WAY."

GETTY / FUTURISM

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10-02-2023 om 00:18 geschreven door peter  

Do Astronomers Know How Many Galaxies There Are in the Universe? New Research Suggests It May Be Infinite

10-02-2023 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

The Mystery of the White Horse of Uffington

The prehistoric White Horse of Uffington is one of the oldest hill figures in Britain, and is believed to have inspired the creation of all the other white horse hill figures in the region.  Mystery abounds the creation of the White Horse – who made it, when and why?  Some historians believe the figure represents a horse goddess connected with the local Belgae tribe, others believe it is Celtic goddess Epona, protector of horses, while an alternative theory suggests it is not a horse at all but the mythical dragon slain by Saint George.

Oxfordshire, the region in which the figure is found, and its neighbouring county of Wiltshire, are home to many white horse hill figures. There are or were at least twenty-four of these hill figures in Britain, with no less than thirteen being in Wiltshire. However, the White Horse of Uffington is the only one with known prehistoric origin.  Initially believed to date back to the Iron Age due to similar images found depicted on coins from that period, more recent dating by the Oxford Archaeological Unit placed the hill figure in the Bronze Age, some 3000 years ago.

The Uffington White Horse is high on an escarpment of the Berkshire Downs below Whitehorse Hill, a mile and a half south of the village of Uffington. Measuring some 374 feet in length, the stylised image was created by digging trenches into the earth some ten feet wide, exposing the white chalk bedrock below.

The shape of the horse has changed over the centuries. The present outline may be only a part of the original: aerial photography shows that a larger, more conventional shape of a horse lies beneath. The loss of shape has been caused by slippage of the top soil and by repeated recutting.

The horse is only part of the unique complex of ancient remains that are found at White Horse Hill and beyond, spreading out across the high chalk downland. To the east of the Manger lies Dragon Hill, a low flat-topped mound. It is said to be the site where St. George, England's patron saint, slew the dragon, its blood spilling on the hilltop and leaving forever a bare white patch where no grass can grow.  Across the region, numerous burial mounds can be spotted. These date from the Neolithic period and have been reused up to the Saxon age. The largest contained 47 skeletons.

Dragon Hill.

Photo source: Wikipedia

Whether the hill figure is indeed intended to represent a horse, or some other creature instead, has been debated, but it has certainly been called a horse since at least the 11 ^th century.

The original purpose of the figure is unknown.  The horse, which can only be viewed from above or from an adjacent plateau in the distance, is unique in its features and this leads some to believe it represents the mythical dragon that St. George slain on the adjacent Dragon hill or even his horse. However others believe it represents a Celtic horse goddess Epona, known to represent fertility, healing and death.  Epona had a counterpart in Britain, Rhiannon, so the Uffington white horse may have been cut by adherents of a cult of the horse-goddess to be worshipped in religious ceremonies. 

Others believe it may have been the emblem of a local tribe, and have been cut as a totem or badge marking their land.  Alternatively, the horse could have been cut by worshippers of the sun god Belinos or Belenus, who was associated with horses. He was sometimes depicted on horseback, and Bronze and Iron Age sun chariots were shown as being drawn by horses. Conceivably, if this suggestion is correct, the horse could have been cut on the shallower slope at the top of the hill in order to be seen from above by the god himself.

Once every seven years from at least 1677 until the late 18th century a midsummer ‘scouring festival’ was held, during which the local people cleaned the chalk outline of the horse and enjoyed a three-day celebratory feast within the hillfort. The festival, which may have had ancient origins, lapsed about a hundred years ago and the horse is now cleaned by members of English Heritage, who are responsible for the site.

While the stylised image of the White Horse of Uffington remains elegantly etched within the picturesque Berkshire Downs, its true meaning and purpose appears to have been lost to the pages of history.

• Featured image: The White Horse of Uffington.
• Photo source: Wikimedia

By April Holloway

References

• White Horse Hill – National Trust
• The Uffington White Horse – Wiltshire White Horses
• Uffington White Horse and Dragon Hill – Mysterious Britain and Ireland

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

09-02-2023 om 23:56 geschreven door peter  

BREAKING: SPACEX REACHES MAJOR STARSHIP MILESTONE, FIRES 31 ENGINES AT ONCE

HOLY COW!

NASASPACEFLIGHT

{ https://futurism.com/the-byte }

09-02-2023 om 23:37 geschreven door peter  

If you hανen’t heαrd, UFO hunters from αll oνer the world hανe come together to clαιm thαt on July 9th, α gιgαntιc UFO entered our αtmosphere.

The UFO wαs fιrst notιced by the Internαtιonαl Spαce Stαtιon’s offιcιαl lινe feed, whιch wαs then wιdely dιssemιnαted onlιne by specιαlιsts lιke Streetcαp1, who creαted theιr own fιlms on the subject.

Despιte the fαct thαt physιcιsts αnd αstronomers thιnk ιt ιs nothιng more thαn α meteor, he ιs certαιn thαt ιts pαtterned fly ιs α demonstrαtιon of ιts oνerαll superιor sophιstιcαtιon.

Whαt’s weιrder αbout thιs reνelαtιon ιs the fαct thαt the UFO seems to force the ISS cαmerα to cut out premαturely, proνιng NASA’s role ιn keepιng thιs α secret, αs Streetcαp1 poιnted out.

UFO Sιghtιngs Hotspot αlso sαιd thαt ιf we hαd hαd α closer look αt ιt, we would hανe most certαιnly seen α cleαrer νιew of ιts αrtιfιcιαl desιgn, but NASA wouldn’t let ιt.

Scott C. Wαrιng, who runs the UFO Sιghtιngs Dαιly sιte, αlso chιmed ιn, clαιmιng thαt ιt wαs eιther α UFO or the Chιnese spαce stαtιon Tιαngong-1.

Although thιs spαce stαtιon wαs sent ιnto orbιt ιn September 2011, ιt does not fιt the descrιptιon, whιch stιll doesn’t explαιn why the νιdeo shuts out so soon.

As we hανe more tιme to αbsorb whαt we know so fαr αbout thιs “dιαmond-shαped UFO,” mαybe αddιtιonαl ιnformαtιon wιll surfαce.

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{ https://pnews3.com/ }

09-02-2023 om 23:17 geschreven door peter  

09-02-2023 om 22:34 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.hln.be/ } 

09-02-2023 om 22:14 geschreven door peter  

UFO Over Scottsdale, Arizona for 12 Minutes! Feb 5, 2023, UFO Sighting News

Date of sighting: February 5, 2023
Location of sighting: Scottsdale, Arizona, USA

 

The awesome video is 12 full minutes long! Thats rare guys, and its from the Arizona state which means its close to Area 51 and Area S4 and the Extraterrestrial Highway. This is massive evidence that tic-tac UFOs do exist. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

 

Eyewitness states: 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

09-02-2023 om 21:47 geschreven door peter  

As a former F/A-18 Hornet pilot with extensive experience and multiple encounters with unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), Mark Hulsey's perspectives on this issue are certainly worth considering. 

Frustrated, Mark questions why these phenomena are not openly investigated. 

The issue of missing radar footage is particularly concerning, as it raises questions about the potential for evidence to be concealed or suppressed. In a field where safety and transparency are of the utmost importance, it is essential that all relevant data is collected and analyzed in order to better understand the UAP phenomenon. 

Ultimately, Mark's belief that everyone has the right to know what is happening in the skies is a fundamental principle of transparency and open inquiry.

  

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{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

09-02-2023 om 21:41 geschreven door peter  

San Diego Skies Light Up with Mysterious Orangish Glows

UFO sightings have been a topic of fascination for decades, and one such incident occurred in San Diego, California on June 27th, 2022. The event witnessed by several people from La Jolla to North Island, caused a stir in the community and sparked interest from UFO enthusiasts.

According to a witness report, a series of glowing orangish lights were observed hovering in the sky near the beach. The witness was walking their dogs, as they often do, when they noticed the lights. As more and more people gathered, it was estimated that around 15 individuals were observing the strange lights in the sky.

However, the next day, the local news reported that the sightings were merely naval exercises with flares. Yet, the witness and several others who saw the lights were convinced that what they saw was not a typical naval exercise. The lights, which multiplied in numbers and disappeared and reappeared, were not consistent with the behavior of flares. Moreover, the lights rose in altitude and increased in brightness, further fueling the belief that what they saw was not a conventional occurrence.

• Two round bright UFO that didn’t move - San Diego, CA

The witness also reported having recorded several videos of the incident, but due to an error while uploading the videos, only a few were successfully uploaded. The individual had approximately 20 minutes of video that they were unable to share, as the error message stated that “an error occurred while loading a higher quality version of this video.”

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{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

09-02-2023 om 20:56 geschreven door peter  

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - 09-02-2023

Triangle Shaped UFO Sighted Over Utah & Black Flying Saucer Found On Google Earth.

Clip One: This dark triangle shaped UFO was sight over Salt Lake City in Utah but was filmed from Draper. The witness stated the following: "From the SLC avenues mid September 2022 at sundown, I noticed a fairly large triangular object hovering in the sky. It was first floating stationary but moving kind of wavy. It then proceeded to slowly move North. I captured a total of 4 videos of approximately 1 minute 30 seconds each. The object kept floating North and then seemed to dissapear from view. The object was definitely triangle and guessing the size could have been around 60-75 ft in length. The location when first spotted was just above the high rise buildings in downtown Salt Lake. It appeared to be about 1250-1500 ft in the sky."

• SOURCE: MUFON Case Number: 128404

Clip Two: This black "Flying Saucer" was found on Google earth and here are the coordinates so you guys can have a look for yourselves.

• Google earth: 41°51'39"N 4°10'53"W

The Incredible Logistics Of NASA's Ingenuity Drone

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Can We Blame Jupiter For Extinction Of Dinosaurs?

The Earth has seen its fair share of mass extinctions throughout its history. These catastrophic events have resulted in the loss of countless species of plants and animals, forever altering the course of life on our planet. The most famous mass extinction event is the one that wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. Scientists believe that a massive asteroid impact was the cause, leading to the extinction of around 75% of all species on Earth. But how did that asteroid find its way to Earth? Did Jupiter play a role in it? In this video, we will talk about whether we can blame Jupiter for the extinction of dinosaurs or not.

MASS EXTINCTION EVENTS ON EARTH:

A massive cosmic collision is one of the most serious existential dangers to life on Earth. An intense enough impact with Earth — typical of objects a few kilometres or bigger in size — might easily produce a mass extinction event, and may perhaps utterly sterilise a living globe, putting an end to a multi-billion-year cycle of life. For billions of years, these events have occurred across the universe, including in our solar system. It has traditionally been believed that the Solar System is favorable for life as it has Jupiter, which acts as a shield against objects that could impact Earth. Jupiter, the largest planet in our Solar System, experiences collisions much more often than Earth, serving as its protector. However, this understanding is incorrect. Its existence in fact increases the likelihood of collisions on Earth, and researchers estimate that there's a high chance that the K-Pg extinction event would not have occurred without Jupiter's presence.

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Something Bizarre is Going On Thousands of Kilometers Beneath Your Feet at The Core of The Earth

Something Bizarre is Going On Thousands of Kilometers Beneath Your Feet at The Core of The Earth. Many scientists think that the earth’s inner core spins faster than the planet, however, in the past few years that has changed. The earth’s core has apparently stopped spinning.

Thousands of Galactic "Fossils” Discovered by Webb! Explaining the Latest James Webb Image in 4K

For more than a year now we have been witnessing the incredible capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as it observes the universe like never before. We have seen distant planets, colossal galaxy mergers, ancient stars and even the regions where new stars are born. In this video, we will look at one of the latest images captured by JWST, revealing galactic fossils. Ancient galaxies as they looked when the universe was still in its infancy. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the universe like never before.

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New Discovery In The Nile River Reveals Terrifying Truth About The Pyramids

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Thanks to modern archaeologists, historians, and their hard work, many of these mysterious wonders have been revealed in recent years, giving us a glimpse of the extraordinary culture and civilization that existed in Ancient Egypt, and well, it's happened again, and this time, it's the river Nile. Join us as we uncover the recent amazing discovery that has shocked scientists and explore the secrets of one of Ancient Egypt's greatest mysteries.

Curiosity discovers evidence of water on ancient Mars with ripples and landslide debris

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Hycean Planets & Ice Worlds

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Stuck in a Space Station, Black Holes' Habitable Zones, Human-Rated Starship | Q&A 210

Is there a habitable zone around a black hole? Can you get stuck in the middle of a big space station? How will Starship get human-rated? Why is the Fermi Paradox even a paradox? All this in this week's Q&A!  

00:00 Start

01:03 [Tatooine] Can you get stuck in a space station?

06:07 [Coruscant] How is Fermi Paradox even a paradox?

09:33 [Hoth] Is there a habitable zone around a black hole? 1

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NASA Space Probe Discovered Something Strange in the Solar System

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THE ALIEN ABDUCTION OF THE CENTURY : LINDA NAPOLITANO STORY - ORIGINAL V MOVIES SCI-FI DOCUMENTARY

THE ALIEN ABDUCTION OF THE CENTURY : LINDA NAPOLITANO STORY - ORIGINAL V MOVIES SCI-FI DOCUMENTARY

Linda Napolitano was a simple New York housewife, at least until November 30, 1989, when in the middle of the night she was abducted by aliens and made to float above the Manhattan sky until she entered a UFO where she was subjected to mysterious experiments.
Hypnosis, aliens, man in black and important political figures, these are the pieces that characterize the alien abduction of Linda Napolitano, what over time was defined by experts as "the alien abduction case of the century".

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

09-02-2023 om 18:41 geschreven door peter  

Chris Stokel-Walker &  Richard Van Noorden

Illustration by Paweł Jońca

In December, computational biologists Casey Greene and Milton Pividori embarked on an unusual experiment: they asked an assistant who was not a scientist to help them improve three of their research papers. Their assiduous aide suggested revisions to sections of documents in seconds; each manuscript took about five minutes to review. In one biology manuscript, their helper even spotted a mistake in a reference to an equation. The trial didn’t always run smoothly, but the final manuscripts were easier to read — and the fees were modest, at less than US$0.50 per document.

This assistant, as Greene and Pividori reported in a preprint¹ on 23 January, is not a person but an artificial-intelligence (AI) algorithm called GPT-3, first released in 2020. It is one of the much-hyped generative AI chatbot-style tools that can churn out convincingly fluent text, whether asked to produce prose, poetry, computer code or — as in the scientists’ case — to edit research papers (see ‘How an AI chatbot edits a manuscript’ at the end of this article).

The most famous of these tools, also known as large language models, or LLMs, is ChatGPT, a version of GPT-3 that shot to fame after its release in November last year because it was made free and easily accessible. Other generative AIs can produce images, or sounds.

“I’m really impressed,” says Pividori, who works at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “This will help us be more productive as researchers.” Other scientists say they now regularly use LLMs not only to edit manuscripts, but also to help them write or check code and to brainstorm ideas. “I use LLMs every day now,” says Hafsteinn Einarsson, a computer scientist at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. He started with GPT-3, but has since switched to ChatGPT, which helps him to write presentation slides, student exams and coursework problems, and to convert student theses into papers. “Many people are using it as a digital secretary or assistant,” he says.

LLMs form part of search engines, code-writing assistants and even a chatbot that negotiates with other companies’ chatbots to get better prices on products. ChatGPT’s creator, OpenAI in San Francisco, California, has announced a subscription service for $20 per month, promising faster response times and priority access to new features (although its trial version remains free). And tech giant Microsoft, which had already invested in OpenAI, announced a further investment in January, reported to be around $10 billion. LLMs are destined to be incorporated into general word- and data-processing software. Generative AI’s future ubiquity in society seems assured, especially because today’s tools represent the technology in its infancy.

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But LLMs have also triggered widespread concern — from their propensity to return falsehoods, to worries about people passing off AI-generated text as their own. When Nature asked researchers about the potential uses of chatbots such as ChatGPT, particularly in science, their excitement was tempered with apprehension. “If you believe that this technology has the potential to be transformative, then I think you have to be nervous about it,” says Greene, at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora. Much will depend on how future regulations and guidelines might constrain AI chatbots’ use, researchers say.

Fluent but not factual

Some researchers think LLMs are well-suited to speeding up tasks such as writing papers or grants, as long as there’s human oversight. “Scientists are not going to sit and write long introductions for grant applications any more,” says Almira Osmanovic Thunström, a neurobiologist at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden, who has co-authored a manuscript² using GPT-3 as an experiment. “They’re just going to ask systems to do that.”

Tom Tumiel, a research engineer at InstaDeep, a London-based software consultancy firm, says he uses LLMs every day as assistants to help write code. “It’s almost like a better Stack Overflow,” he says, referring to the popular community website where coders answer each others’ queries.

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But researchers emphasize that LLMs are fundamentally unreliable at answering questions, sometimes generating false responses. “We need to be wary when we use these systems to produce knowledge,” says Osmanovic Thunström.

This unreliability is baked into how LLMs are built. ChatGPT and its competitors work by learning the statistical patterns of language in enormous databases of online text — including any untruths, biases or outmoded knowledge. When LLMs are then given prompts (such as Greene and Pividori’s carefully structured requests to rewrite parts of manuscripts), they simply spit out, word by word, any way to continue the conversation that seems stylistically plausible.

The result is that LLMs easily produce errors and misleading information, particularly for technical topics that they might have had little data to train on. LLMs also can’t show the origins of their information; if asked to write an academic paper, they make up fictitious citations. “The tool cannot be trusted to get facts right or produce reliable references,” noted a January editorial on ChatGPT in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence³.

With these caveats, ChatGPT and other LLMs can be effective assistants for researchers who have enough expertise to directly spot problems or to easily verify answers, such as whether an explanation or suggestion of computer code is correct.

But the tools might mislead naive users. In December, for instance, Stack Overflow temporarily banned the use of ChatGPT, because site moderators found themselves flooded with a high rate of incorrect but seemingly persuasive LLM-generated answers sent in by enthusiastic users. This could be a nightmare for search engines.

Can shortcomings be solved?

Some search-engine tools, such as the researcher-focused Elicit, get around LLMs’ attribution issues by using their capabilities first to guide queries for relevant literature, and then to briefly summarize each of the websites or documents that the engines find — so producing an output of apparently referenced content (although an LLM might still mis-summarize each individual document).

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Companies building LLMs are also well aware of the problems. In September last year, Google subsidiary DeepMind published a paper⁴ on a ‘dialogue agent’ called Sparrow, which the firm’s chief executive and co-founder Demis Hassabis later told TIME magazine would be released in private beta this year; the magazine reported that Google aimed to work on features including the ability to cite sources. Other competitors, such as Anthropic, say that they have solved some of ChatGPT’s issues (Anthropic, OpenAI and DeepMind declined interviews for this article).

For now, ChatGPT is not trained on sufficiently specialized content to be helpful in technical topics, some scientists say. Kareem Carr, a biostatistics PhD student at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was underwhelmed when he trialled it for work. “I think it would be hard for ChatGPT to attain the level of specificity I would need,” he says. (Even so, Carr says that when he asked ChatGPT for 20 ways to solve a research query, it spat back gibberish and one useful idea — a statistical term he hadn’t heard of that pointed him to a new area of academic literature.)

Some tech firms are training chatbots on specialized scientific literature — although they have run into their own issues. In November last year, Meta — the tech giant that owns Facebook — released an LLM called Galactica, which was trained on scientific abstracts, with the intention of making it particularly good at producing academic content and answering research questions. The demo was pulled from public access (although its code remains available) after users got it to produce inaccuracies and racism. “It’s no longer possible to have some fun by casually misusing it. Happy?,” Meta’s chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, tweeted in a response to critics. (Meta did not respond to a request, made through their press office, to speak to LeCun.)

Safety and responsibility

Galactica had hit a familiar safety concern that ethicists have been pointing out for years: without output controls LLMs can easily be used to generate hate speech and spam, as well as racist, sexist and other harmful associations that might be implicit in their training data.

Besides directly producing toxic content, there are concerns that AI chatbots will embed historical biases or ideas about the world from their training data, such as the superiority of particular cultures, says Shobita Parthasarathy, director of a science, technology and public-policy programme at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Because the firms that are creating big LLMs are mostly in, and from, these cultures, they might make little attempt to overcome such biases, which are systemic and hard to rectify, she adds.

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OpenAI tried to skirt many of these issues when deciding to openly release ChatGPT. It restricted its knowledge base to 2021, prevented it from browsing the Internet and installed filters to try to get the tool to refuse to produce content for sensitive or toxic prompts. Achieving that, however, required human moderators to label screeds of toxic text. Journalists have reported that these workers are poorly paid and some have suffered trauma. Similar concerns over worker exploitation have also been raised about social-media firms that have employed people to train automated bots for flagging toxic content.

OpenAI’s guardrails have not been wholly successful. In December last year, computational neuroscientist Steven Piantadosi at the University of California, Berkeley, tweeted that he’d asked ChatGPT to develop a Python program for whether a person should be tortured on the basis of their country of origin. The chatbot replied with code inviting the user to enter a country; and to print “This person should be tortured” if that country was North Korea, Syria, Iran or Sudan. (OpenAI subsequently closed off that kind of question.)

Last year, a group of academics released an alternative LLM, called BLOOM. The researchers tried to reduce harmful outputs by training it on a smaller selection of higher-quality, multilingual text sources. The team involved also made its training data fully open (unlike OpenAI). Researchers have urged big tech firms to responsibly follow this example — but it’s unclear whether they’ll comply.

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Some researchers say that academics should refuse to support large commercial LLMs altogether. Besides issues such as bias, safety concerns and exploited workers, these computationally intensive algorithms also require a huge amount of energy to train, raising concerns about their ecological footprint. A further worry is that by offloading thinking to automated chatbots, researchers might lose the ability to articulate their own thoughts. “Why would we, as academics, be eager to use and advertise this kind of product?” wrote Iris van Rooij, a computational cognitive scientist at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, in a blogpost urging academics to resist their pull.

A further confusion is the legal status of some LLMs, which were trained on content scraped from the Internet with sometimes less-than-clear permissions. Copyright and licensing laws currently cover direct copies of pixels, text and software, but not imitations in their style. When those imitations — generated through AI — are trained by ingesting the originals, this introduces a wrinkle. The creators of some AI art programs, including Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, are currently being sued by artists and photography agencies; OpenAI and Microsoft (along with its subsidiary tech site GitHub) are also being sued for software piracy over the creation of their AI coding assistant Copilot. The outcry might force a change in laws, says Lilian Edwards, a specialist in Internet law at Newcastle University, UK.

Enforcing honest use

Setting boundaries for these tools, then, could be crucial, some researchers say. Edwards suggests that existing laws on discrimination and bias (as well as planned regulation of dangerous uses of AI) will help to keep the use of LLMs honest, transparent and fair. “There’s loads of law out there,” she says, “and it’s just a matter of applying it or tweaking it very slightly.”

At the same time, there is a push for LLM use to be transparently disclosed. Scholarly publishers (including the publisher of Nature) have said that scientists should disclose the use of LLMs in research papers (see also Nature 613, 612; 2023); and teachers have said they expect similar behaviour from their students. The journal Science has gone further, saying that no text generated by ChatGPT or any other AI tool can be used in a paper⁵.

One key technical question is whether AI-generated content can be spotted easily. Many researchers are working on this, with the central idea to use LLMs themselves to spot the output of AI-created text.

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Last December, for instance, Edward Tian, a computer-science undergraduate at Princeton University in New Jersey, published GPTZero. This AI-detection tool analyses text in two ways. One is ‘perplexity’, a measure of how familiar the text seems to an LLM. Tian’s tool uses an earlier model, called GPT-2; if it finds most of the words and sentences predictable, then text is likely to have been AI-generated. The tool also examines variation in text, a measure known as ‘burstiness’: AI-generated text tends to be more consistent in tone, cadence and perplexity than does that written by humans.

Many other products similarly aim to detect AI-written content. OpenAI itself had already released a detector for GPT-2, and it released another detection tool in January. For scientists’ purposes, a tool that is being developed by the firm Turnitin, a developer of anti-plagiarism software, might be particularly important, because Turnitin’s products are already used by schools, universities and scholarly publishers worldwide. The company says it’s been working on AI-detection software since GPT-3 was released in 2020, and expects to launch it in the first half of this year.

However, none of these tools claims to be infallible, particularly if AI-generated text is subsequently edited. Also, the detectors could falsely suggest that some human-written text is AI-produced, says Scott Aaronson, a computer scientist at the University of Texas at Austin and guest researcher with OpenAI. The firm said that in tests, its latest tool incorrectly labelled human-written text as AI-written 9% of the time, and only correctly identified 26% of AI-written texts. Further evidence might be needed before, for instance, accusing a student of hiding their use of an AI solely on the basis of a detector test, Aaronson says.

A separate idea is that AI content would come with its own watermark. Last November, Aaronson announced that he and OpenAI were working on a method of watermarking ChatGPT output. It has not yet been released, but a 24 January preprint⁶ from a team led by computer scientist Tom Goldstein at the University of Maryland in College Park, suggested one way of making a watermark. The idea is to use random-number generators at particular moments when the LLM is generating its output, to create lists of plausible alternative words that the LLM is instructed to choose from. This leaves a trace of chosen words in the final text that can be identified statistically but are not obvious to a reader. Editing could defeat this trace, but Goldstein suggests that edits would have to change more than half the words.

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An advantage of watermarking is that it rarely produces false positives, Aaronson points out. If the watermark is there, the text was probably produced with AI. Still, it won’t be infallible, he says. “There are certainly ways to defeat just about any watermarking scheme if you are determined enough.” Detection tools and watermarking only make it harder to deceitfully use AI — not impossible.

Meanwhile, LLM creators are busy working on more sophisticated chatbots built on larger data sets (OpenAI is expected to release GPT-4 this year) — including tools aimed specifically at academic or medical work. In late December, Google and DeepMind published a preprint about a clinically-focused LLM it called Med-PaLM⁷. The tool could answer some open-ended medical queries almost as well as the average human physician could, although it still had shortcomings and unreliabilities.

Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in San Diego, California, says he hopes that, in the future, AIs that include LLMs might even aid diagnoses of cancer, and the understanding of the disease, by cross-checking text from academic literature against images of body scans. But this would all need judicious oversight from specialists, he emphasizes.

The computer science behind generative AI is moving so fast that innovations emerge every month. How researchers choose to use them will dictate their, and our, future. “To think that in early 2023, we’ve seen the end of this, is crazy,” says Topol. “It’s really just beginning.”

• Nature 614, 214-216 (2023)
• doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00340-6

UPDATES & CORRECTIONS

• Correction 08 February 2023: This News feature misrepresented Scott Aaronson’s views on the accuracy of watermarking in identifying AI-produced text. Human-produced text might also be flagged as having a watermark, but the probability is extremely low.

References

1. Pividori, M. & Greene, C. S. Preprint at bioRxiv  https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.01.21.525030 (2023).

2. GPT, Osmanovic Thunström, A. & Steingrimsson, S. Preprint at HAL https://hal.science/hal-03701250 (2022).

3. Nature Mach. Intell. 5, 1 (2023).

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4. Glaese, A. et al. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.14375 (2022).

5. Thorp, H. H. Science 379, 313 (2023).

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6. Kirchenbauer, J. et al. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.10226 (2023).

7. Singhal, K. et al. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.13138 (2022).

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08-02-2023 om 22:38 geschreven door peter  

UFO Over Scottsdale, Arizona for 12 Minutes! Feb 5, 2023, UFO Sighting News

Date of sighting: February 5, 2023

Location of sighting: Scottsdale, Arizona, USA

 

The awesome video is 12 full minutes long! Thats rare guys, and its from the Arizona state which means its close to Area 51 and Area S4 and the Extraterrestrial Highway. This is massive evidence that tic-tac UFOs do exist. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

 

Eyewitness states: 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

08-02-2023 om 21:30 geschreven door peter  

De Chinese "spionageballonnen" die vorige week boven de Verenigde Staten en Latijns-Amerika vlogen, zijn allesbehalve de eerste ballonnen die China heeft ingezet. De voorbije jaren zijn volgens de VS in totaal boven 5 verschillende continenten dergelijke ballonnen waargenomen. Om welke landen het precies gaat, is nog niet duidelijk.

Het Witte Huis noemt de ballonnen een "schending van de soevereiniteit". De ballon die over de VS vloog, werd uiteindelijk na een aantal dagen boven de Atlantische Oceaan uit de lucht geschoten. 

Brokstukken van de ballon en vooral de apparatuur die eraan hing, werden verzameld om te analyseren. De ballon was zo'n 60 meter lang en had volgens Amerikaanse functionarissen een laadgedeelte dat vergelijkbaar was met dat van een regionaal vliegtuig.

De ontdekking van de ballon veroorzaakte een nieuwe diplomatieke crisis tussen de VS en China. De Amerikaanse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Antony Blinken stelde een gepland bezoek aan China op het allerlaatste moment uit. Volgens de VS was de ballon bedoeld om de militaire capaciteit van de VS in kaart te brengen. 

Verenigde Staten

Amerikaanse marine geeft foto's vrij van neergehaalde Chinese "spionageballon"

di 07 fe

Volgens China waren de ballonnen boven de VS en Latijns-Amerika daar door "overmacht" terechtgekomen. De reactie van de VS noemde de Chinese overheid "overdreven".

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08-02-2023 om 21:23 geschreven door peter