The Impact of El Nino on the World

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This comes against a backdrop of a lot that's going on across the world right now. There have been huge heat waves in China with records are broken there. Antarctica had its highest temperature recorded in July at 8.7 degrees Celsius. With hot temperatures also comes more extreme weather and loads of other potential knock ons. It could lead to droughts in Australia and Southeast Asia, increased rainfall in places like the Horn of Africa.

In this episode:

00:23 Using ChatGPT to generate a research paper from scratch

A pair of scientists have produced a research paper in less than an hour with the help of the generative artificial intelligence (AI) ChatGPT. The aim of this exercise was to explore the technology’s ability to act as a research ‘co-pilot’ and spark debate about its use. While AI tools like ChatGPT have the potential to speed up research, it is still unclear what role they should play in research.

Nature News: Scientists used ChatGPT to generate an entire paper from scratch — but is it any good?

06:28 Last week saw the world’s hottest day on record – twice

On Monday last week the average worldwide temperature reached 17.01 °C, beating a record set in 2016. Then, on Tuesday that record was broken again, as average temperatures hit 17.18 °C. Further record-breaking days may follow this year as a result of climate change, and the arrival of the El Niño weather phenomenon, which is expected to strengthen in the coming months.

Bloomberg: Earth Keeps Breaking Temperature Records Due to Global Warming

Nature News: El Niño is here — how bad will it be?

10:03 Anti-ageing protein boosts monkey memories

Injecting monkeys with the naturally occurring protein klotho can improve their cognition. Previous work had shown that elevated levels of the enzyme could improve cognitive functions in mice, now researchers have shown that injecting klotho into old rhesus macaques caused them to perform better in memory-related tasks. While the mechanism behind this effect is unclear, it’s hoped that the finding could ultimately lead to new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases in humans.

Nature News: Anti-ageing protein injection boosts monkeys’ memories

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