This AI can spot sharks

and why the UK could be completely under snow

Coffee Table Science
August 04, 2024

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In this newsletter

AI that helps spot sharks near shores
11-minutes of daily exercise cuts death risk
AMOC Collapse would put the entire UK under snow
Saturn makes comet go interstellar

AI that helps spot sharks near shores

Researchers at the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory (BOSL) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in the US, are using artificial intelligence to spot sharks at Padaro Beach. When a shark is spotted, their system, SharkEye, sends text alerts to about 80 people, including lifeguards, surf shop owners, and parents of kids who take surfing lessons at the beach.

With a warming planet, sharks have started inhabiting newer waters, and authorities are banking on newer technologies to keep an eye on the shores. Drones have made it easier to monitor shark movements, but the process is heavily reliant on the drone operator’s accuracy.

Estimates suggest that human operators detect sharks only 60 percent of the time, raising concerns about safety of beach users. So, researchers at BOSL turned community helpers and used machine learning to train computers to detect sharks from video and image files.

This summer, the research institute is pegging its system against human operators to verify if it works better. Currently, AI calls are being manually reviewed but in the future, the system could send them out directly.

11-minutes of daily exercise cuts death risk

Walking for just 11 minutes at a brisk pace every day reduces the risk of premature death by nearly 25 percent, found a new study. The results are significant since they include data from 30 million people and also found that just 1,100 steps every day reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and some cancers.

Getting up early to hit the gym every day might not be everyone’s cup of tea, and 150 minutes of moderate exercise every week is too daunting when you are relaxing on a Sunday evening reading a newsletter on your couch.

But walking for 11 minutes every day is not that difficult, is it? especially when it has major health benefits.

Research carried out at the University of Cambridge analysed nearly 200 research papers, with a data set of 30 million people, to determine the beneficial effects of exercise routines.

Exceeding 150 minutes per week had marginal benefits, but achieving even half of this had significantly higher benefits, with cancer rates dropping by up to 26 percent.

If that also sounds too much to do, researchers have some good news. These 11 minutes every day do not have to be dedicated to an exercise regimen. Simply taking a walk or cycling to a nearby store instead of using a vehicle also delivers the same gains.

Playing outdoor games with kids is also enough.

The activity must increase your heart rate, that’s the key.

Research findings were published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

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AMOC Collapse would put the entire UK under snow

Scientists have warned that a collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a system of Atlantic Ocean currents that influences weather worldwide, could drastically change the climate in the US and the UK as well.

The AMOC pulls warmer waters from the southern hemisphere and circulates them in the North Atlantic, while the colder, saltier water flows to the south. This also helps prevent the southern hemisphere from overheating and the northern hemisphere from experiencing a deadly chill.

But warmer ocean temperatures and disruption in saltiness of the water caused by ice melts over areas such as Greenland, could bring the AMOC to a complete halt.

In decades that would follow, the Arctic ice will begin spreading south and extend all the way down to the southern coast of England. Average temperatures in Europe and North America would drop and seasons in the Amazon rainforest will reverse completely.

However, researchers at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands are worried that this could happen as soon as 2037 unless we act.

Until a few years ago, researchers were wondering if an AMOC Collapse was even possible. Now, they are working on predicting how early it can happen and drastically change the world we know it today.

The research findings were published in arxiv, a pre-print outlet.

If you’d like to know more about papers in pre-print, check out the Arxiv Weekly Insights newsletter.

Saturn makes comet go interstellar

The iconic gas giant in our solar system did something remarkable recently. It flung a comet into interstellar space at 6,700 miles an hour, which is more than four times faster than an F-16 fighter jet at its top speed.

The comet designated A117uUD was discovered only in June this year. Early analysis of its trajectory showed that it was likely an intruder into our solar system.

When researchers at the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) used the 142 observations available of the comet, they found that it had met up with Saturn in 2022 and its trajectory had changed significantly into an elliptical orbit that has set it on a journey into interstellar space.

This is the second time, astronomers have noticed a comet’s trajectory being changed. In 1980, Comet C/1980 E1 crossed paths with Jupiter and got flung outside the solar system too.

The findings were published in the Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society.