Science in 2024: what to expect this year

Noah Baker

Hello, and welcome to the first episode of the Nature Podcast from 2024. So as we have done in many years previously, the first episode of this year's show is going to be a bit different from the regular show, and we're going to take a look at some things you should look out for in science in 2024. To do so, I am joined by Miryam Naddaf, who joined me last year, this is becoming a bit of a habit, isn't it?

Miryam Naddaf

Yes, I seem to specialize in watching what's new for science in the year ahead.

Noah Baker

Absolutely. So you've been writing an article where you've listed out a whole bunch of exciting things to look out for, we're probably not going to cover every single one because there's a lot — it's going to be a big year for science, we hope. But we're gonna get through as much as we can. So, I think without further ado, let's start off with AI. Anyone that hasn't been living under a rock or at least had access to an internet connection will be aware of just how big a story AI has been in 2023 and that isn't going anywhere in 2024. The poster children like ChatGPT have more to come. Tell us what can we expect from AI in 2024.

Miryam Naddaf

So, AI has been a big part of science and research last year with many positive contributions, but also stirring up a fair share of concern. So for this year, OpenAI — the company that released the large language model GPT-4 last year — is working on its next generative AI model GPT-5, and many predict that it will be released sometime this year. We also have Google's own next generation AI model and a competitor to GPT-4 the model is called Gemini and it comes in three sizes that process text, codes, images, audio and video. Now, Google released Pro and Nano Gemini in December last year, and it will very soon release Ultra Gemini.

Noah Baker

And another big AI that there was a lot of chatter about last year is Deep Mind’s tool, Google DeepMind’s tool AlphaFold, there's more to come from AlphaFold as well.

Miryam Naddaf

True. So AlphaFold is an AI tool to predict 3D shapes of proteins, which help researchers to design new drugs or unlock new drug targets. Now the new version of AlphaFold will model interactions between proteins, DNA, RNA and other molecules at an atomic resolution. And it will also be released sometime this year. But a bigger question might be whether regulations on generative AI will bite. Now the United Nations High-Level Advisory Board on AI will share its final report on the international regulation of AI sometime in mid-year.

Noah Baker

Absolutely. This has been a big question. I mean, already there have been EU legislation that's come through talking about Explainable AI, it's not completely clear exactly how those sentiments are going to be turned into reality owing to things like the black box problem. But it's a massive issue to watch from a policy perspective, as to how these kinds of AIs are going to be regulated and managed to make sure that we avoid the potential harms that can be caused by such powerful pieces of software and algorithms. And speaking of powerful bad actors, we're going to move towards using a bad actor for good. The headline of this particular part of the story you wrote last year is called ‘Weaponized Mosquitoes’ what an exciting phrase, tell us what do you mean by ‘Weaponized Mosquitoes’? And what are we going to be expecting in 2024?

Miryam Naddaf

And so, yes, so these disease fighting mosquitoes we call them are infected by a bacterial strain, which prevents them from transmitting viruses like Zika, or Dengue. Now, a nonprofit organization called the World Mosquito Programme will start producing up to 5 billion disease fighting mosquitoes per year at a factory somewhere in Brazil this year, and these mosquitoes will help — according to the organization — up to 70 million people from diseases like Dengue.

Noah Baker

That's amazing so they're literally going to be releasing these mosquitoes into the wild with the hopes that the diseases like Dengue and Zika will no longer be able to infect them, and thus, interrupt transmission and protect all of these people from these really significant diseases which are affecting populations around the world, but particularly in Brazil.

Miryam Naddaf

True, Dengue has been quite prevalent in South America last year. So these initiatives will really help.

Noah Baker

Okay, so going from small things with a huge impact. Let's go to huge things with huge impacts. And we're going to talk again about Moon missions. Now, last year, I listened back to what we talked about for 2023. And one of the big headlines was Moon missions, Moon missions, and yet again in 2024, we've got moon missions on the horizon, and particularly exciting Moon missions from NASA and beyond — tell us what's going to be happening in 2024.

Miryam Naddaf

So, once again, it's a very exciting year for moon missions. Let's start with our Moon. NASA is sending its first crewed lunar mission since the 70s. It's called Artemis 2 and it will carry onboard three men and a woman who will travel around the Moon for 10 days. It will really lay the groundwork for NASA's next lunar mission, Artemis 3, which really aims to land the first woman and next man on the Moon.

Noah Baker

And so that's NASA. But it's not just NASA that's got exciting things happening with the Moon. China too has exciting things coming up.

Miryam Naddaf

True. So, China also has a Moon mission. It's called Chang’e 6, which, if successful, would be the very first to collect samples from the far side of the Moon.

Noah Baker

And it's not just our Moon getting visitors in 2024, as you hinted at the beginning of your answer, tell us about those.

Miryam Naddaf

So I’ll call them moons, other moons in the outer solar system. NASA has a mission to Jupiter's moon Europa in October, which will assess if Europa’s underground ocean is habitable. Japan is also sending a mission to visit to moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, the rover will land on Phobos to collect samples and return them to Earth in 2029.

Noah Baker

Even more sample return missions, which I'm sure scientists will hope will be very illuminating. Now speaking of illuminating things, I'm going to move–these terrible segues–but I'm going to move on to the next story, which is all about illuminating dark matter, specifically using these particles that are believed to be emitted by the Sun called axions and these are dark matter particles. Now, tell me about these axioms and what are we looking for in 2024 when it comes to dark matter, and measuring dark matter?

Miryam Naddaf

So this year, we are expecting results from an experiment that studies tiny dark matter particles called axions, as you say, Noah what these are believed to be emitted by the sun and converted into light. But previous experiments have not been able to observe these tiny particles because they require very sensitive detection tools, and extremely strong magnetic field. Now researchers and the German Electron Synchrotron experiment have stepped up to this challenge with a unique setup. So, they're using a solar telescope made of a 10 metre long magnet along with super sensitive X-ray detectors, all placed on a rotating tower to track the centre of the Sun for 12 hours a day, potentially capturing how axioms are converted into photons, so into light.

Noah Baker

Endlessly complicated big physics experiments but I find them fascinating. And you've also gotten a note here in the article that you published last year, saying that 2024 could be the year that scientists nail the mass of the neutrino, this mysterious particle that barely interacts with anything that we know exists that can be measured, but we don't know exactly how heavy it is. Tell us, what can we expect about the mass of neutrino in 2024.

Miryam Naddaf

Now, the group at the KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino experiment has previously shown that neutrinos had a maximum mass of 0.8 electronvolts. But the team will continue to collect data this year, hoping to make a definite measurement of these tiny particles later in the year.

Noah Baker

Finally, a mass of the ‘ghost particle’ as I've heard it referred to. And so from one mysterious particle to a somewhat mysterious concept that's consciousness. Now you have a subhead in this story that says ‘the consciousness debate: round two’, which is very exciting. I assume not very much like Rocky round two? But tell us what is next for the debate around consciousness? Specifically, we're talking about the neural basis of consciousness here. Is that right?

Miryam Naddaf

Yeah, so consciousness is still a big puzzle in the neuroscience world. Now a large project is testing two theories of the neural basis of consciousness. And the group shared the results of their first experiment last year, and it made top headlines everywhere. But neither of the two theories completely matched with the brain imaging data they got. So the first round ended up in favour of philosophy over neuroscience. Now, the group may release the results of a second experiment towards the end of 2024. And maybe this next round will add to neuroscience a bit closer to solving the puzzle.

Noah Baker

Absolutely. I mean, it's one to keep watching because it's one of the big mysteries for us all. How are we all managing to even do the research in the first place to understand what our brains are doing in order to do the research is wonderfully cyclical. And another tool, which I'm sure will be very helpful in making these kinds of advances is supercomputers. For a long time, very, very high powered computers, superfast computers have been used to make these kinds of calculations to do this kind of imaging, and 2024 is also set to be a bumper year for superfast supercomputers tell us what are we expecting to come out in the coming months?

Miryam Naddaf

So this year, Europe's first exascale supercomputer called Jupiter will be switched on. Now these types of computers can perform one quintillion computations per second and researcher will use the supercomputer Jupiter to create digital twins of the human heart and the brain and also to run high resolution simulations of the Earth’s climate.

Noah Baker

And when you say a quintillion computations per second, that's a billion, billion computations per second — it's an insane number. But is exactly what is needed to do these things that you suggest. So things like digital twins, or sort of very accurate models of the human heart or the brain for things like medical purposes, you need all these computations. Now you're talking about Jupiter, which is an exascale supercomputer in Europe. But there's also news coming from the United States, tell us about that.

Miryam Naddaf

So, the US already has an exascale supercomputer, it's called Frontier. But this year, it will install two more Aurora and El Capitan. Now, researchers will use Aurora to create maps of the brain, neural circuits or what we call the connectome, and El Capitan would be used to simulate the effects of nuclear weapon explosions.

Noah Baker

Wow, what an incredible diversity of things, one of which makes me somewhat nervous. And speaking of things that make me a bit nervous, I think we would be remiss to not talk about one of the biggest stories and the biggest science stories facing all of us right now. And by all of us, I really do mean all of humanity. And that's climate change. And we're going to round off this discussion talking about how to save the planet. I really enjoy that particularly hopeful way of framing this, which is what you've done in your story. And this comes hot off the heels of the COP28 climate summit that happened in December last year, a lot was discussed at that climate summit. So give us some of the headlines. How are people feeling after that climate summit and what is coming in 2024 that we should be looking out for when it comes to fighting climate change?

Miryam Naddaf

So, countries have agreed to start transitioning away from fossil fuels and energy systems during the COP28 climate summit in Dubai. Now the goal is to achieve net zero by 2050, however, many were disappointed that the outcomes could have been more firm. Now looking forward to 2024 negotiations for the UN Plastic Treaty will wrap up this year. Now these negotiations aim to establish a legally binding global agreement to end plastic pollution, which has reached epic proportions since the 1950s. The world now produces more than 450 million tonnes of plastic every year. And about 85% of marine litter is plastic we see plastic forming islands in the oceans. However, some researchers have voiced concerns about these negotiations, which started in March 2022, advancing so slowly and may not really deliver on their promises.

Noah Baker

And there's also hopes that there will be outcomes from court cases at the International Court of Justice in the Hague all about legal obligations of countries to combat climate change. Tell us what we're looking for there.

Miryam Naddaf

So, the International Court of Justice, this is the world's highest court in the Hague, could give an opinion on nations legal obligation to combat climate change. This year, the court will rule on legal consequences for nations that are damaging the climate by their acts or emissions. The ruling, however, may not be legally binding, but it could really push countries to strengthen their climate goals and it could also be cited in domestic legal cases.

Noah Baker

Miryam, that was an awful lot of stuff that we just raced through. And we didn't even include everything that was in that article you published at the end of last year. There's more astronomy news from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which is going to continue gathering exciting data in ’24. There's also the Simons Observatory in the Atacama Desert in Chile, which is going to be completed in mid-2024, which will allow next generation cosmology experiments. An awful lot to continue looking out for. Luckily, there will be a place where you can hear the latest science news every week directly in your ears, which is the Nature Podcast and I hope that you will keep coming back to listen to us and hear more from Miryam and from me and from the rest of the team as time goes on. For now, though happy 2024 and Miryam, thank you so much for joining me.

Miryam Naddaf

Thank you, Noah and happy 2024.