the conversation
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What Would Happen if the World Split in Half?
The very short version of the answer is: it would be the end of the world as we know it. All life on Earth would be brought to an end – so it would be a very bad day! Luckily, events that can tear a planet in half are very, very rare. But, believe it…
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How to Ensure Your Death Doesn’t Kill the Environment
We can all agree humans need to reduce their impact on the environment. And while most of us think of this in terms of daily activities – such as eating less meat, or being water-wise – this responsibility actually extends beyond life and into death. The global population is closing on eight billion, and the…
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How Drones and Artificial Intelligence Are Helping Surf Life Savers Spot Sharks Sooner
Australian surf lifesavers are increasingly using drones to spot sharks at the beach before they get too close to swimmers. But just how reliable are they? Discerning whether that dark splodge in the water is a shark or just, say, seaweed isn’t always straightforward and, in reasonable conditions, drone pilots generally make the right call…
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A Journey Into the ‘Emotional, Poetic World’ of AI Art-Making
Generative art-making is flourishing. Algorithms that turn text prompts into images, such as DALL-E and Stable Diffusion, are emerging as viable creative tools. And they’re fuelling much debate about their artistic legitimacy and potential to pinch our jobs. The sudden leap in fidelity of artificial intelligence (AI) art production has been made possible by advances…