Milky Way Might Not Collide With Andromeda After All

Galaxy collision, artist’s impression. Credits: International Gemini Observatory / NSF

In 2008, astrophysicists predicted that our galaxy has about 5 billion years until it will collide and merge with our neighbour galaxy Andromeda, forming one larger galaxy that they dubbed “Milkomeda”. A newer simulation from researchers at the University of Durham now says that there’s a 50% chance it’s not going to happen. Instead, the two galaxies might miss each other at the first swing-around and only merge in 10 billion years. So you’ll have a little more time to figure out how your new telescope works.

This episode of Science News covers population decline. United States Vice President candidate JD Vance and Tesla founder Elon Musk have publicly voiced their fears that people just aren’t having enough babies nowadays. They aren't the only ones who worry. The US fertility rate is at a historic low and well below replacement level -- like that of all other industrialized countries. This trend that has given rise to the pro-natalist movement which claims we are headed for an underpopulation crisis. In this video I have collected all facts and numbers that you need to understand what's happening. You can take the quiz here.

You can now create and share your own quizzes on QuizWithIt – for free! Just set up an account and creator profile and you are good to go. Create quizzes to go with websites, videos, blogposts, podcasts, or as standalone. Your audience can support you by subscribing to your content, which allows them to collect points by taking your quizzes. Each quiz has a unique URL, can be embedded into websites or newsletter, and be shared on X, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Happy quizzing!

What Do People Ask ChatGPT?

An analysis of over 1 million ChatGPT conversions, collected with explicit user consent by the WildChat project, has revealed the most frequent uses of the chatbot. 61.9% of the prompts asked for assistance with creative writing, followed by 13.6% asking for explanations, 6.7% coding, 6.3% fact check, and 6.1% maths or reasoning question. Somewhat less than 1% of the prompts are “jailbreaking” attempts, intended to trick ChatGPT into producing content that it shouldn’t create. The most successful ones are violations of moral and ethical guidelines, followed by text that is NSFW or sexually explicit. These results are not adjusted for sampling bias. Paper here.

Mushroom Punks: the essential zine for fungi enthusiasts

Do you love both art and science as much as I do? Then you don't want to miss this: My favorite science magazine, Nautilus, teamed up with fashion designer Isabella Lalonde to explore the beauty of mushrooms. This foraging guide, called Mushroom Punks, weaves together photography, comments from expert mycologists, and an illustrated catalog of fungi with original illustrations from Lalonde herself.

More Anomalies in the Skies

The International Space Station. Image: NASA

Just a few days ago, I talked about the puzzling excess of anti-helium nuclei that was measured by the AMS experiment aboard the International Space Station. A new paper now says that the same experiment also sees an excess of deuterons, which are combinations of neutrons and protons. Like the anti-helium nuclei, the experiment has detected way more than expected. Very curious. I suspect we will soon see a lot more “explanations” for these anomalies. Press release here. Paper here.

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