SCIENCE & DEVELOPMENT

Will AI Take Over the World and All Our Jobs?

MANY of us have used AI tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E and Mid Journey and have been blown away by what those tools can do. Interacting with ChatGPT feels like talking to a real person who can answer almost any question we can think of, explain complex topics in simple words, summarise articles and even write poetry, Shakespeare-like prose, essays and homework assignments. DALL-E and Mid Journey are capable of producing spectacular images from text prompts making artists out of people with no artistic skills.

Remembering Lenin: Electricity, Logic and Science

THIS year is Comrade Lenin's death centenary year. For those who are socialists and communists, the Soviet Union was the hope of founding a new society in which the working people, and not the capitalist or the feudal classes, would own the means of production. For many, the Soviet Union gave hope for a different social order and the possibility of national liberation from the clutches of the colonial rulers.

Nobel Prize for Non-Profit Open Science: MicroRNAs

ON October 7, US scientists Victor Ambros of the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Gary Ruvkun of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of microRNAs, or miRNAs, as key regulators of gene expression, which is a novel physiological mechanism. So far no confirmed applications have emerged from this discovery, despite considerable potential and research.Every cell contains DNA molecules that house genetic information in the chromosomes.

West Asia Spinning into a Bigger Conflagration as Iran Enters Israel’s War on Gaza-Lebanon

ISRAEL’S policy of climbing the escalation ladder has now brought West Asia to the brink of a much larger war. With Israel entering Lebanon and Iran’s missile strikes on Israel, it is no longer about the fate of Gaza and its people, which has been under Israel’s genocidal attack for almost a year. The war is about to enter a new phase with Israel’s threatened response on Iran’s nuclear facilities and full US support. It risks drawing Yemen, Syria and Iraq into a much larger war with global implications well beyond the region.

Scientific Scrutiny - A Stitch in Time

THE recent letter signed by 26 eminent scientists and academics addressed to the principal scientific advisor of the government of India, in response to the 2024 Vigyan Yuva S S Bhatnagar awards  is remarkable and important in many ways.Firstly, because the signatories are among the most distinguished and highly awarded persons in the country in the fields of the physical sciences, life sciences and mathematics.

Boeing Troubles… In Space and Elsewhere

WHEN Boeing’s Starliner CST-100 spacecraft was successfully launched on June 5 earlier this year to the International Space Station (ISS), Boeing and NASA heaved a sigh of great relief. The launch was the first crewed flight test of Starliner, carrying two very experienced test-pilots and, one could say, veteran astronauts, Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore. Starliner was originally scheduled to launch its first crewed mission in 2017, but a long series of glitches and problems had seen multiple postponements, so the relief in early June was palpable.

Mpox Resurgence: Need for Global Coordination and Vaccine Equity

MPOX, formerly known as monkeypox until the WHO renamed it in November 2022 to avoid stigma, is resurging, particularly in Africa. On August 14, 2024, WHO declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) due to a sharp rise in cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and neighbouring countries, including Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda. This is the second time in history (the first being in 2022 also for mpox) that a PHEIC has been declared for a DNA virus outbreak, highlighting the urgent need for coordinated global efforts to control the virus.

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