Science 2024: Comets, Prodigious Chips and One Elon Musk

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The comet of the century arrived from beyond the sky in 2024, and it did so ahead of time. If Tsuchinshan-ATLAS had approached Earth at the dawn of Christmas, it would have been difficult to deny it a disturbingly random chance encounter.

Tsuchinhan-ATLAS was three months early. Josep M. Trigo, principal investigator of the Meteorites, Minor Bodies and Planetary Sciences Group of the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC), gave all the coordinates to locate it and dwelt on the importance of studying these capricious wandering bodies. At the end of September Tsuchinhan-ATLAS became visible from Earth, displaying a spectacular coma, a breath of gas and dust as bright as the brightest stars . It passed by the comet, like the Americans in Welcome, Mister Marshall , but it left us looking at the sky.

In August 2024, we learned about the unusual nature of the projectile that excavated the Chicxulub crater and wiped out the dinosaurs . Dinosaurs that, if we compress the history of the Earth into one year, became extinct in the era of Christmas carols, the planet’s Christmas .

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS photographed in October 2024. Michael Jäger, Gerald Rhemann, Dennis Möller , CC BY

The groin and Elon Musk

“The groin and God. The groin that dominates me has not yet been born.”

The phrase belongs to José Luis Cuerda’s masterpiece Amanece que no es poco . It is difficult to love Elon Musk publicly, but in 2024 we have talked about Elon and rockets , Elon and Tesla , Elon and satellites , Elon and Mars (will Elon Musk take us to Mars?), Elon and X .

The groin and Elon Musk! A relationship, if there ever was one

In January 2024, Neuralink, the company with which Elon designs augmented humans, implanted (with legitimate authorization) its N1 chip in the brain of a man with no mobility in his limbs. The neuroscientist from the UCM Manuel Martín Loeches told The Conversation what is behind and the future of brain implants like the one created by Elon Musk . Who Wants To Live Forever, sang Fredy Mercury. And who doesn’t?

Of silicon gods

Chip, the little god of all things . This is what Luis Antonio Fonseca Chácharo , a researcher at the Barcelona Institute of Microelectronics (IMB-CNM-CSIC), calls him.

Chips are the destination of what Paula Alvaredo Olmos, professor of materials science and engineering at the Carlos III University, describes as “ materials at war .” In the mad race for chips, minerals and rare earths are needed , the extraction of which violates all human rights, and they are the technological oxygen we breathe here, in the locomotive world. Chips, the basis of the future: quantum supremacy, quantum projectiles , the quantum computer that the Three Wise Men have not yet brought (let’s give the magicians some time, they still weigh a lot).

We will adapt

Elon Musk and whatever it takes, we will adapt. A revealing article published this year explains it well: humans adapted to the last ice age in a similar way to wolves and bears . The findings call into question long-held theories about how and where our ancestors lived during this harsh glacial period. They did not migrate to warm lands, some stayed in the cold, even if they did not have shoes.

In the quest for survival, we are now developing megamaterials that , as José Manuel Torralba, deputy director of IMDEA materials , points out , will transform our lives far beyond what we think they can be transformed. For the very optimistic, they will even free us from the evil that is coming, the one shown by the climate models generated by large computer machines, with artificial intelligence leading the way in knowledge.

The Cambrian explosion of artificial intelligence

Is there anyone out there who doesn’t use AI in science? Is there anyone left? The use of artificial intelligence has experienced its own Cambrian explosion in 2024, the geological period in which living forms on Earth emerged en masse.

2024 has been the year of recognition of AI by the Swedish Academy, with two Nobel Prizes ( Physics and Chemistry ) to AI pioneers and researchers.

But the debate for 2024 has heated up between those who claim that AI will never become intelligent in human ways and those who predict the dominance of machines.

Ramón López de Mántaras , a research professor at the CSIC, is on the side of humans: “Generative AI needs a body that allows it to interact with the world in order to achieve common sense knowledge,” says Mántaras. But Francisco Herrera Triguero, professor of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Granada, warns that the body is on the way: “ Language models are already being integrated with intelligent robotics , playing an important role.”

In fiction, the film Savage Robot gave an animated body to an AI that learns like we do, and reached the limit, the event horizon of artificial intelligence: emotions. The film raised the dilemma of motherhood for machines .

Also in the Cambrian of AI came Nexus , the new book by the historian and presidential advisor Yuval Noah Harari . Harari warns of control by the tyrants of artificial intelligence. AI scares us as much as Elon Musk.

Is fear growing? Fabian Patricio Cuenca, from the University of the Basque Country, says that even bread scares us .

“By Tutatis! The sky is falling on our heads!”

The end of the universe as we have told it

In 2024, the universe has been destroyed on paper. For decades, we have accepted that the best possible description of the dark energy that dominates the universe is a cosmological constant : this is what is known as the Hubble tension . But Adam Riess, a physicist and Nobel Prize winner, explained in April 2024 that measurements made with observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), reveal a blindness that has lasted for decades:

“Once we have ruled out measurement errors, what remains is the real and exciting possibility that we have misunderstood the universe.”

The tension over the Hubble tension explained this year by Vicent J. Martínez , professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Valencia, has generated controversies about the legitimate age of the universe (which could have aged considerably) and the nature of dark energy . An intense debate that has as its cosmic background whether the universe is as we have been told.

The wonders of science

Wonders arrived in 2024. We learned that the Earth may have had rings like Saturn’s , and a Spanish study revealed that between September 29 and November 25, we had a mini-moon , an asteroid just ten meters in diameter that was trapped by the Earth’s gravitational embrace. “More will come,” says astrophysicist David Galadí of the University of Córdoba : “The Earth inhabits a very busy cosmic neighborhood. Among the more than thirty thousand bodies close to Earth (most of them tiny) there are some in exotic orbits subject to capricious gravitational games.”

This year we also learned why some cats are orange (up to 700 genes regulate pigmentation in animals ) and we revealed the surprising reason why insects fly around light .

There have also been traces of connections between black holes and their galaxies , and physicists, including José Ignacio Crespo Anadón of CIEMAT, are making progress in their prodigious efforts to detect undetectable particles . Detecting the undetectable. Only physicists know how this happens, and what it means for understanding who we are, what we and the entire universe are made of.

This year, 2024, we have fought hoaxes, fought against misinformation, responded to corrosive creationist messages. A wonderful article by César Menor-Salván, professor at the University of Alcalá, tells how we have arrived here since the origin of life . Because, despite everything, the evolution of species continues on its way.

And how does time pass?

Spoiler alert: the United Nations has proclaimed 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ) . Let’s get ready, because physicists are moving like fish in water in the ocean of uncertainty.

An essential article by Alberto Casas González , research professor at IFT-UAM–CSIC, addresses one of the main topics of debate: modern physics suggests that time does not advance, it is just an illusion .

Geologists see time differently. Light is a scatterbrain compared to the slowness of mountain growth. This year, Carlos M. Pina explained what deep time is , the longest time in the world, the time that was necessary for humans, prodigious chips and Elon Musk to be here today.

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