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BBC Sounds, Music

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Radio Podcasts. Welcome

0:05

to the podcast of BBC

0:07

Inside Science. First broadcast on

0:09

Thursday the 27th of March

0:12

2025. Hello, coming up, a

0:14

meteorite, a maths prize and the

0:16

mysterious substance that makes up 68%

0:18

of the universe becomes slightly less

0:20

mysterious. Plus, Penny Tsarche, managing editor

0:23

at New Scientists, has dropped by

0:25

with some stories that have captured

0:27

her attention this week. Penny, welcome

0:29

and want to give us a

0:31

tease about what you'll be talking

0:34

about later. How about the small

0:36

matter of life on Mars, maybe?

0:38

Oh, love it. Yeah. Okay. Looking

0:40

forward to that. But we start

0:42

with something massive that controls the

0:44

ultimate fate of the universe and

0:47

some new research that could turn

0:49

our current thinking on its head. Did

0:51

Albert Einstein have it all wrong? New

0:53

findings on dark energy. You're challenging

0:55

one of these theories and our

0:58

understanding of the universe. New research

1:00

on dark energy suggests it may

1:02

be weakening. And if this trend

1:04

continues, this is what matters to

1:07

you. It could cause the universe

1:09

to eventually collapse. I love it.

1:11

News leaving out a crucial time scale

1:13

there. I should say don't worry universe

1:16

not collapsing in our lifetimes. But over

1:18

the past week, one conversation has dominated

1:20

the world of physics. Have we found

1:23

a new way to understand the universe?

1:25

And if so, what might that mean

1:27

for future research that has anything to

1:30

do with how we all came to

1:32

exist? And what might happen to us

1:34

next? all of which we're going to

1:37

unpick now and helping me to do

1:39

that are professors Catherine Haymans and

1:41

Andrew Ponson both of whom have

1:44

really put in the decades to

1:46

understanding our universe. Hello both. Hello.

1:48

Andrew you first. This is to

1:51

do with dark energy. So we're

1:53

talking about the recipe of what

1:55

makes up the universe. You and

1:57

I are made of atoms. and

2:00

so is everything that we can

2:02

see, but that's a mere fraction

2:04

of what's out there, right? Yeah,

2:06

as far as we can tell,

2:09

that's only about 5% of everything

2:11

that's out there, and the remainder

2:13

is made up of two quite

2:15

mysterious substances. One of them is

2:17

dark matter, which we talk about

2:20

regularly, but is not at the

2:22

heart of this. Dark Energy is

2:24

really a name that we give

2:26

to a phenomenon that we don't...

2:29

really understand. It comes from the

2:31

fact that we concede that the

2:33

universe is expanding. I mean we've

2:35

known that since the early 20th

2:37

century in fact, but more than

2:40

that we can see that it's

2:42

it's not just expanding, it's expanding

2:44

at an accelerating rate. Now one

2:46

of the headlines Andrew this week

2:48

was Dark Energy experiment challenges Einstein's

2:51

theory of universe. So before we

2:53

turn everything on its head, can

2:55

you explain how Einstein fits into

2:57

this original idea on how the

3:00

universe expands? I mean, I think

3:02

that's a bit of an overblown

3:04

way of putting it, but it

3:06

is true that Einstein had an

3:08

idea that loosely maps onto this

3:11

idea of dark energy. So Einstein

3:13

thought deeply about gravity and... came

3:15

up with a theory called general

3:17

relativity, which is our best explanation

3:19

of how it works. But within

3:22

that theory, he anticipated the possibility

3:24

that as well as a pull,

3:26

there could also be a push.

3:28

a sort of anti-gravity force that

3:31

would work on extremely large scales.

3:33

Catherine, bringing you in here, so

3:35

what then does this new set

3:37

of findings tell us about dark

3:39

energy? Einstein's theory comes from what

3:42

we call the cosmological constant, and

3:44

so the dark energy just changes

3:46

with the volume of the universe,

3:48

so the bigger the universe gets,

3:50

the more dark energy there is,

3:53

and that speeds up the expansion

3:55

of the universe. But what the

3:57

team at the Dark Energy Spectroscopic

3:59

Instrument have found, Desi, is that

4:01

it's not a constant, or at

4:04

least there's hints of that. and

4:06

that the rate that the universe

4:08

is accelerating is slowing down. Is

4:10

that surprising? I mean, that seems

4:13

more logical than acceleration to me.

4:15

Well, it depends what you think

4:17

is causing dark energy. This instrument

4:19

was designed to validate this theory,

4:21

this very nice theory that we

4:24

have of our universe that explains

4:26

a lot of things in our

4:28

reality. They tested a model where

4:30

they said, okay, well, we'll allow a

4:32

small tweak. We'll say, okay, maybe Einstein's

4:35

cosmological constant isn't a constant, and we'll

4:37

allow it to vary with time. Not

4:39

expecting it to show that, oh, actually,

4:42

no, it is varying with time, which

4:44

sort of ticks that theory off the

4:46

list, opening up to a whole zoo

4:48

of different other alternative theories out there.

4:51

which on the one hand is excellent

4:53

because we really don't understand what dark

4:55

energy is. And so it's good to

4:57

have an opportunity to explore these other

5:00

different theories and what they predict.

5:02

But unfortunately it leaves us

5:04

no closer to really understanding the

5:06

origin of this dark source of

5:08

energy. Catherine, how was this new

5:10

clump of data collected? With this

5:12

absolutely phenomenal instrument, it has five...

5:14

thousand robotic eyes. So the telescope

5:16

solutions to look at a patch

5:18

of sky and these tiny little

5:20

robots line up optical fibres on

5:22

the positions of all of the

5:24

galaxies in the region of sky

5:26

that the telescope is looking at.

5:28

It collects that light and breaks

5:30

the light up into its different

5:32

energy ranges which gives you what

5:34

we call a spectrum, which allows

5:36

you to measure the speed that

5:39

these galaxies are moving away from

5:41

us. And if we're measuring expansion

5:43

rates, then that's what we want

5:46

to... to know. It has measured

5:48

these distances to 15 million galaxies

5:50

and crasars, huge volume of galaxies

5:52

and what it's looking at is

5:55

the distribution of those galaxies. Now

5:57

there's a trick that we can

5:59

use. in cosmology where we can

6:01

use those galaxies as a kind

6:03

of a ruler in space. And

6:05

you can use that really to

6:07

measure distances. Combining that with the

6:09

speeds, that's what gives you the

6:11

expansion rate. But it's an absolutely

6:13

phenomenal instrument. It's huge as well.

6:15

People should Google it and just

6:17

to look at this. Or wonderful,

6:19

it's been with these 5,000 robotic

6:22

eyes that can reconfigure in just

6:24

two minutes to a new set

6:26

of galaxies as the telescopes lose

6:28

across the sky. Wow. Andrew, can

6:30

I ask what you think of

6:32

this data, this data, this new

6:34

data? absolutely beautiful. You know, this

6:36

is an amazing instrument and the

6:38

analysis has been led by an

6:40

incredible team, but they themselves have

6:42

said you really have to be

6:44

cautious about these results and I

6:46

completely agree with that attitude and

6:48

I think we have to be

6:50

careful about becoming carried away here.

6:52

You know, if you just take

6:54

these new data on their own,

6:56

then they don't actually tell you

6:58

that the original account we had

7:00

of the accelerating universe, this sort

7:02

of Einstein's cosmological constant that we

7:04

were talking about. These data do

7:06

not disprove that in any sense.

7:08

The way that the claim that

7:10

there's something weird going on has

7:12

been constructed is by comparing these

7:14

data with data that have been

7:16

taken previously. And it's when you

7:18

compare those two bits of data

7:20

that you get led to this.

7:22

this conclusion. And the trouble with

7:24

that is that whenever you compare

7:26

two sets of data, you have

7:28

to be really confident that you

7:31

understand every last subtle detail. So

7:33

there might be assumptions in your

7:35

thinking. Absolutely. And I mean, there

7:37

almost have to be assumptions in

7:39

your thinking because these two types

7:41

of data are very different. The

7:43

way I think about this is,

7:45

you know, whenever you make measurements,

7:47

you have to be careful about

7:49

exactly how that's calibrated. So even

7:51

something as simple as, you know,

7:53

We like to measure my son

7:55

growing up. We have a height

7:57

chart that we measure him on.

7:59

And I remember, you know, one

8:01

day it fell off the wall.

8:03

and then we reattached it to

8:05

the wall and shortly after that

8:07

we measured him again and it

8:09

looked like he'd shrunk and for

8:11

a moment we're like well what's

8:13

going on but of course what

8:15

happens in reality is that the

8:17

chart must have been at the

8:19

wrong level before him maybe it

8:21

was slipping down or something so

8:23

when we put it back on

8:25

the wall and we carefully calibrated

8:27

it back onto the wall then

8:29

we probably got a better measurement

8:31

and then comparing with the older

8:33

measurements we reached a crazy conclusion.

8:35

rather we didn't because we realized

8:38

what must have happened. Now the

8:40

data that we're talking about here

8:42

are far more carefully collected than

8:44

that, of course. So it's nothing

8:46

as simple as that, but nonetheless

8:48

these measurements are incredibly complex and

8:50

you can interpret them in lots

8:52

of different ways. So I think

8:54

we just have to take a

8:56

breath and wait and see how

8:58

this pans out over the coming

9:00

years as more data comes in.

9:02

What would having a more definite

9:04

understanding of dark energy actually mean

9:06

Catherine? Yeah, I said... Dark energy

9:08

determines the fate of our universe.

9:10

I'm a big fan of the

9:12

model when the universe collapses because

9:14

then you kind of get this

9:16

rebounding universe that just keeps collapsing

9:18

and expanding forevermore. All the data

9:20

at the moment points to the

9:22

fact that that's not going to

9:24

happen. We have a very sad

9:26

death of our universe planned called

9:28

the big freeze where the universe

9:30

just keeps expanding forever as the

9:32

stars burn out their last fuel

9:34

and it becomes a very empty

9:36

dark place which always made me

9:38

a bit sad. is weirder than

9:40

we thought and maybe it switches

9:42

off maybe it might even cause

9:45

a collapse and then maybe we

9:47

might have a nice hot fiery

9:49

future for our universe. What happens

9:51

now where do we do we

9:53

confirm this new data Andrew? The

9:55

great news is there is plenty

9:57

of data on the way and

9:59

we will find out whether this

10:01

is right or not. And so

10:03

what you would hope for is

10:05

that if these measurements turn out

10:07

to be confirmed then you can...

10:09

start making progress on those really

10:11

big questions. Well, thank you so

10:13

much. Professor Catherine Haymans, Scotland, Royal,

10:15

from the University of Edinburgh, and

10:17

Professor Andrew Ponson, Cosmologist from Durham

10:19

University. And if all of this

10:21

chat has left you with questions,

10:23

the Inside Science Team is here

10:25

for you. Our Easter programme is

10:27

going to be a listener's question

10:29

special so we need your queries.

10:31

Anything from the mysteries of the

10:33

universe to any mysteries lurking inside

10:35

your head. BBC inside science at

10:37

bbc.co. UK is the place to

10:39

send them. No question too big

10:41

or small for the team. Let's

10:43

stay with mysteries of space because

10:45

four years ago a bright and

10:47

beautiful shooting star made quite the

10:49

entrance to our atmosphere. It's fiery

10:52

streak across the sky picked up

10:54

by dashcams as it fell. It

10:56

was a space rock and part

10:58

of it dropped on a family's

11:00

driveway in Winchcombe Gloucestershire. The Winchcombe

11:02

meteorite is revealing all sorts of

11:04

clues about the early solar system

11:06

and there's still a lot more

11:08

to uncover, as Gareth Mitchell reports.

11:11

Well, I'm just hopping off this

11:13

bus, having made my way from

11:15

Milton Keynes, here to the campus

11:17

of Cranfield University. And today is

11:19

a big day. A team has

11:21

come all the way down from

11:23

Glasgow to subject the winchcan meteorites

11:26

or fragments of it to their

11:28

closest analysis yet, using state-of-the-art imaging

11:30

equipment in a rather anonymous-looking building

11:32

just over the road from this

11:34

very bus stop. The famous rock

11:36

fragments and the scientists are waiting

11:38

for me inside, including Dr. Duke

11:40

Daly read it in planetary geoscience

11:42

at the University of Glasgow. The

11:44

meteorite is a carbonaceous chondrite. These

11:47

are one of the rarest groups

11:49

of meteorites we have, but they're

11:51

also possibly the most exciting and

11:53

important. and samples we have because

11:55

they are chock full of water

11:57

and chock full of organic material.

11:59

They're basically all the ingredients and

12:01

building blocks are growing planet needs

12:03

to have the opportunity for life

12:06

to emerge on it. And in

12:08

fact we think that that's how

12:10

the organic material on Earth and

12:12

the water was delivered to Earth

12:14

was by delivery of these water-rich

12:16

asteroids when the Earth was first

12:18

forming. And analysis of this particular

12:20

meteorite over the last four years

12:22

has so far revealed that it

12:25

predates the Earth, and that its

12:27

parent asteroid had a bruising journey

12:29

through the solar system. It shattered

12:31

and reconstituted many times. Eventually, a

12:33

chunk broke off and was propelled

12:35

towards Earth, only to propel the

12:37

unsuspecting Wilcox family in Winchcombe into

12:39

the headlines in 2021, when some

12:41

of the rock landed on their

12:43

driveway. Here at Cranfield, Luke Daley

12:46

wants an even closer look. He's

12:48

brought Glasgow University postgraduate research student

12:50

Heather Gibson with him. Wishco-Mitterite travelled

12:52

from west to east, so the

12:54

main mass fell on the famous

12:56

Wilcox driveway. and alarmed the guinea

12:58

pigs. But there are other, the

13:00

fieldstone was a bit further west.

13:02

And so we had samples that

13:05

came from Woodmancote, a village again

13:07

further west. We wanted to have

13:09

a look at those and see

13:11

were they the same as the

13:13

Wilcox. and the Fieldstone or were

13:15

they different? Well thank you Heather.

13:17

Well today is a really big

13:19

day because the team have come

13:21

all the way down from Glasgow

13:24

to see you, Diane. This is

13:26

Dr. Diane Johnson who's a senior

13:28

technical officer here at Cranfield University

13:30

and I can see on the

13:32

desk here you have a plastic

13:34

box with a number of samples

13:36

in. So these are tiny fragments,

13:38

just a few millimetres across aren't

13:40

they, from the different landing sites

13:42

that which can meet your eye

13:45

ended up here. That's right, yeah,

13:47

we've got a range of different

13:49

samples from Winchcom, which are different

13:51

lithologies, so different textures, different compositions.

13:53

The very small samples typically centimetres

13:55

to millimetres and the entire... sample

13:57

holder it's setting is maybe just

13:59

an inch across in diameter. I'm

14:01

just blown away that on the

14:04

desk in front of us just

14:06

sitting there next to your thing

14:08

with all your pens and pencils

14:10

in are fragments from the early

14:12

solar system and they look, they're

14:14

just like little. but almost like

14:16

bits of flint they look like

14:18

to me. They're very dark, aren't

14:20

they? That's right, yeah. I mean,

14:23

a lot of these really primitive

14:25

meteorites are very dark to the

14:27

eye. They don't really look very

14:29

special. They're very dark and probably

14:31

looking. Nothing that you'd look twice

14:33

at, really. But when you consider

14:35

where they're from and their age,

14:37

about four and a half billion

14:39

years, it's pretty staggering to just

14:42

sit next to them and look

14:44

at them with your eyes. Yeah.

14:46

Soon, the analysis is underway. Diane

14:48

has an electron microscope that images

14:50

surface details of the rock. Bolted

14:52

on to that is a spectrometer.

14:54

That's some kit that shows what

14:56

the sample's made of. And in

14:58

my slightly unscientific way, I'm doing

15:00

my best to describe the setup.

15:03

So the facility itself here, you

15:05

have a whole bank of screens,

15:07

but the business end, it looks

15:09

to me a bit like, say,

15:11

an office printer. But, which doesn't

15:13

sound very. glamorous. But the glamorous

15:15

part is the amount of kit

15:17

that's kind of plugged into it

15:19

and so coming out of it.

15:22

So you have three or four

15:24

quite large assemblies like metal boxes

15:26

basically with a whole load of

15:28

wires and sensors coming out of

15:30

them which are the different elements

15:32

of this equipment. And one very

15:34

exciting box is the spectrometer isn't

15:36

it? So tell me what the

15:38

spectrometer does. That's right. It's a

15:41

time of flight secondary ion mass

15:43

spectrometer so we can see really

15:45

minute quantities present and we'll... also

15:47

see its distribution in three dimensions.

15:49

So we're looking at the boundary

15:51

between two different grains and we're

15:53

seeing magnesium, we're mapping magnesium and

15:55

can see as time progresses when

15:57

there's a lot of magnesium where

15:59

there's less magnesium. Is that something

16:02

you'd expect? Magnesium? We would expect

16:04

magnesium with silica and water sort

16:06

of like netted in there. What

16:08

else is beginning to emerge? So

16:10

I have to change the view

16:12

to change to a new element

16:14

so I can change to calcium.

16:16

Okay so you've got a menu

16:18

of different things you can look

16:21

out for. Okay like a drop-down

16:23

menu so you're selecting calcium. So

16:25

you're selecting calcium. So you're selecting

16:27

calcium. isn't a different area of

16:29

the map than the magnesium, which

16:31

we kind of expect. We can

16:33

look at iron as well. Iron

16:35

is another common positive iron that

16:37

we see in these meteorites. We

16:40

can look at that as well.

16:42

It can form some very interesting

16:44

structures that kind of look a

16:46

little bit like worms. We're very

16:48

careful that they just look like

16:50

worms, not actual worms. Yes, if

16:52

they found actual worms, I think

16:54

I would have stumbled on the

16:56

scientific discovery of the century. But

16:58

hey, magnesium, calcium and iron, I'll

17:01

settle for that. Meanwhile, at the

17:03

facility, a couple of hours soon

17:05

pass. Well, these scans take quite

17:07

a while, so in fact, I've

17:09

left Luke and Heather and Diane

17:11

to it for a good few

17:13

hours. and I've been nosing around

17:15

the university, but I'm just going

17:17

to come back into the into

17:20

the room here and see how

17:22

they're getting on. Hello, you're still

17:24

here. Yeah, yeah. Good. So, have

17:26

you had a busy few hours?

17:28

But yeah, it's kind of interesting.

17:30

We're seeing these microtextures and relationships

17:32

between the minerals we're seeing because

17:34

we're able to get this really

17:36

detailed resolution. Well, we can't say

17:39

anything conclusive about what it all

17:41

means for like, no, origin of

17:43

the solar system, delivery of water

17:45

to the Earth, and how these

17:47

asteroids have evolved in space just

17:49

now. It's promising that we're seeing

17:51

these interesting microtextures. It's not just

17:53

about the raw data that's coming

17:55

off the microscope. It's about us

17:57

all working together and collaborating and

18:00

collaborating. the nice bit about science

18:02

getting to work with fun people.

18:04

Luke Daly ending that report from

18:06

Gareth Mitchell. This Wednesday saw the

18:08

announcement of the winner of this

18:10

year's Arbal Prize. It's kind of

18:13

like the Nobel Prize for maths

18:15

and is awarded by the King

18:17

of Norway for outstanding scientific work

18:19

in mathematics. The trouble with maths

18:22

on the radio is that much

18:24

more than physics or biology, it's

18:26

a very visual subject. Numbers are

18:28

easier on the eye than the

18:30

ear. Luckily, science writer Tamandra Harkness

18:33

was in Oslo for Wednesday's big

18:35

announcement, so I set her the

18:37

challenge of explaining the maths that

18:39

won the prize for Professor Misaki

18:42

Kashuara in just three minutes. I'm

18:44

afraid even the chair of the

18:46

Arbil committee, which chooses the winner,

18:48

says this year's maths, is exceptionally

18:51

abstract, but I'll give it my

18:53

best shot. I see Masaki Keshawara

18:55

as the Isthambard kingdom Brunel of

18:57

mathematics, prolific, inventive, and with a

18:59

talent for building bridges between parts

19:02

of mathematics that seemed completely separate.

19:04

Here's just one example. He invented

19:06

a new way of understanding the

19:08

symmetries of mathematical objects. Many everyday

19:11

objects combine different kinds of symmetry.

19:13

A plain square tile, for example,

19:15

has rotational symmetry. turn it through

19:17

a quarter, half or full turn

19:19

and it still looks the same.

19:22

It also has reflective symmetry along

19:24

a diagonal line between opposite corners

19:26

or in a line splitting opposite

19:28

sides in half. And it has

19:31

translational symmetry like sliding sideways across

19:33

a regular toiled floor. Some objects

19:35

like spheres have an infinite number

19:37

of symmetries. You can rotate a

19:40

sphere in any direction. around any

19:42

axis and it still looks the

19:44

same. Or you can reflect it

19:46

in any plane that cuts it

19:48

in half which is an infinite

19:51

number of planes. Mathematicians describe these

19:53

combinations of symmetries using group theory.

19:55

Think of a symmetry group as

19:57

a set of all the ways

20:00

you can move an object and

20:02

have it still look the same,

20:04

with a rule for combining those

20:06

moves. Kashiwara found a new way

20:09

to understand these combinations of symmetries

20:11

by bringing in a completely separate

20:13

branch of mathematics called graph theory.

20:15

Now, I'm afraid graph theory is

20:17

nothing to do with the kind

20:20

of graph you probably do at

20:22

school, with an X-axis and a

20:24

Y-axis. What mathematicians call graph theory

20:26

is a way of making simplified

20:29

models of systems as nodes connected

20:31

by links. If you ever had

20:33

a construction toy with plastic balls

20:35

joined together with straws, you have

20:38

the idea. Railways, plumbing systems, even

20:40

computer networks, can all be modeled.

20:42

with graph theory. What Kashuara did

20:44

was bring together graph theory and

20:46

groups that describe combinations of symmetries.

20:49

He found a way to represent

20:51

the combined symmetries of an object

20:53

as a graph of nodes connected

20:55

by links. He called this new

20:58

invention a crystal basis and mathematicians

21:00

have been using it to solve

21:02

problems for nearly 30 years. It's

21:04

just one of many bridges he's

21:07

built between mathematical continents. Thank you,

21:09

Tamandra Harkness, and with 15 seconds

21:11

to spare, that was impressive. Penny

21:13

Sasha, managing editor at New Scientist,

21:15

is still here with me. Hello

21:18

Penny. Penny. Penny. Penny. Hi. So,

21:20

you've sat through, us covering the

21:22

missing stuff in the universe, space

21:24

time, tricky maths and meteorites. what's

21:27

left to talk about? What a

21:29

treat! You know what? I'm really

21:31

surprised to be bringing you a

21:33

few findings about possible life on

21:36

Mars, because this isn't something that

21:38

I've ever really been interested in.

21:40

at all. I'm always much more

21:42

distracted about the life we know

21:44

we have. But the last few

21:47

weeks has been a few pieces

21:49

of new discoveries, new analyses, which

21:51

I think are actually starting to

21:53

get really interesting. Okay, so a

21:56

skeptic. Yeah, it has been tipped

21:58

over. Not so much a skeptic.

22:00

I'm open to there being life

22:02

elsewhere in the universe. Yeah, yeah.

22:05

I just don't normally find the

22:07

science that interesting, but a guilty

22:09

secret there. So yeah, what is

22:11

it? largest organic compounds ever found

22:13

on Mars. So these were found

22:16

by the Curiosity Rover in a

22:18

rock sample that's about 3.7 billion

22:20

years old in an ancient lakebed.

22:22

So these are the kinds of

22:25

places that they're looking for possible

22:27

signs of former life on Mars

22:29

because lakes might have been nice

22:31

places to live once upon a

22:34

time. And what they found were

22:36

alkanes, so that's kind of these

22:38

organic chains of hydrocarbons, about 10

22:40

to 12 carbons in length. And

22:42

now work on earth suggests that

22:45

these probably came from the heating

22:47

of the kinds of acids like

22:49

fatty acids that yes they do

22:51

exist anyway in rocks but they're

22:54

very common in life. So it's

22:56

very possible that these kind of

22:58

longest organic compounds that have ever

23:00

been found on Mars might have

23:03

come from say the degradation of

23:05

a cell wall or life that

23:07

was once there but is no

23:09

more. And that really sort of

23:11

caught my eye because a few

23:14

weeks ago there was a big

23:16

space conference in Texas. And there

23:18

they were talking about some even

23:20

cooler rocks really from a different

23:23

lakebed, different rover, but around the

23:25

same age. And these have these

23:27

incredible sort of speckled patterns in

23:29

them, which I really like the

23:32

kinds of calcium sulfate chemicals that

23:34

you sometimes see around these kinds

23:36

of patterns on earth, microbial patterns.

23:38

and they're doing all kinds of

23:40

interesting chemical analyses to understand you

23:43

know where these ones microbes three

23:45

point seven billion years ago and

23:47

so what's got scientists so excited

23:49

then the key bit here is

23:52

the sulfate the sulphur they've just

23:54

found is reduced, so that means

23:56

it's gained an electron. The reason

23:58

that's interesting is there's two ways

24:00

to get that. One, it could

24:03

be produced by redox reactions, which

24:05

is this way that microbes can

24:07

produce their own energy. Or you

24:09

could heat up a rock really

24:12

high, well, quite high, and that

24:14

could happen abiotically, but there's absolutely

24:16

no sign like large crystals or

24:18

the kinds of things you'd expect

24:21

in geology if they'd been heating.

24:23

So that's a very complicated way

24:25

of saying these are two quite...

24:27

tantalizing hints of microbial chemistry, the

24:30

kind that we do see on earth.

24:32

It's interesting to note that the bar

24:34

for what they're looking for is much

24:36

lower than it would be, you know,

24:38

here on earth you'd be looking for

24:40

a fossil hopefully. Yes, yeah. Well, what

24:43

we don't know, I guess, is whether

24:45

these speckled patterns kind of are fossils,

24:47

but they do actually date back to

24:49

almost exactly the same... time that we

24:51

have the earliest fossil evidence of microbes

24:53

on earth? How cool would that be

24:55

if they were sort of evolving and

24:58

living at the same time? Yeah, so

25:00

the hunt for life when you don't

25:02

actually know what form the life would

25:04

take? I know it is all sort

25:06

of premised on life on Mars once

25:09

having been very like life here which

25:11

I mean we don't know if that

25:13

has to be true. We don't know.

25:15

No assumptions made in science. The chance

25:18

to blow your own trumpet or other

25:20

new scientists' trumpet, they've done a really

25:22

interesting freedom of information request relating to

25:24

how our politicians use AI, do tell.

25:26

Yeah, this is a great story

25:29

by Chris Dokker. Peter Kyle,

25:31

the Minister for Science, Technology,

25:33

Innovation, has publicly said or

25:35

he told other journalists that

25:37

he loves using chatGPT essentially.

25:39

He uses it to get

25:41

the background on things, understand

25:43

context, go deeper. So that

25:45

prompted Chris to submit a

25:47

freedom of information request to

25:49

access his chatGPT log. I think

25:51

it's fair to say many people

25:53

were flummoxed with some caveats. This

25:55

was fulfilled and he received not

25:57

the entire log, but any personal

25:59

use. removed and just the sort

26:02

of professional capacity left intact and

26:04

it included things like asking what

26:06

quantum and antimatter is and quite

26:08

entertainingly what science podcast he might

26:10

like to appear on. Just to

26:13

dwell on that for a brief

26:15

moment, chat-GPT, this generative... AI large

26:17

language model suggested to the minister

26:19

that he should go on infinite

26:21

monkey cage which inside science teams

26:24

quite miffed at because actually there's

26:26

no way he'd get on infinite

26:28

monkey cage he's not a comedian

26:30

he should come on inside science instead

26:32

clearly but what's really interesting about this

26:35

is how the government think chat GPT

26:37

should be used or what role they

26:39

think it plays because to me chat

26:41

GPT is something that you can just

26:43

type in like a Google search and

26:46

there's that there's no way the government

26:48

would hand over everyone's Google search. Yes

26:50

that was the first thing I asked

26:52

well if you can't F-O-I that can

26:54

you F-O-I Google search and generally speaking

26:56

no you can't and so I think

26:59

that's the sort of concerning kernel kernel

27:01

in all of this is that

27:03

potentially the government is seeing chat

27:05

G-G... as advice, providing advice like

27:07

an advisor because you can submit

27:10

FOI requests on the advice given

27:12

by WhatsApp and email as opposed

27:14

to just looking something up on

27:16

Google or even in a dictionary.

27:18

That's not FOIable. And I really

27:21

don't think large language models are

27:23

at that stage yet. They are

27:25

essentially a search tool and one that

27:27

can be quite inaccurate at times

27:30

at that. So that's the interesting

27:32

bit. Yes, large language models are

27:34

still at that stage of suggesting

27:36

that you put glue on pizza

27:39

to glue the ingredients. Yeah, indeed.

27:41

So maybe shouldn't be advising ministers.

27:43

That's us out of time. Thank

27:45

you so much Penny Sarshay, managing

27:48

editor at New Scientist. My

27:50

pleasure. Once again, that email

27:52

address for your listener questions.

27:55

BBC Inside Science at BBC.co.

27:57

UK. UK. Until next time, bye

27:59

for me. Chesterton. The producers were

28:01

Jerry Holt, Sophie Olmiston and Ella

28:04

Hubber. Technical production was by

28:06

Kath McGee. The show was made in

28:08

Cardiff by BBC Wales and West.