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The Cold Blob, Predictable AI, Predictable Humans, and A New Proton Accelerator
This week’s science bits from SWTG
Marcus Gee-Lim
July 09, 2025
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Just One More Bigger Collider, Bro
I had an interesting discussion about CERN's plans for a bigger collider with particle physicist Harry Cliff, moderated by Philip Halper. You can watch it here:
AI Image Creation is Surprisingly Predictable
Figure: The images created from the convolutional neural net (CNN) next to the new analytical computation that uses no neural nets. Source: Lamb & Ganguli, arXiv: 2412.20292
A team of AI researchers have reported that image creation with diffusion models can be predicted to high accuracy with an analytic computation that requires no training, given the same initial seed and access to training images. Diffusion models are a type of neural net similar to large language models, but they seed an image with random noise and then assemble pixels from what they have learned during training. The new study suggests that there are underlying regularities in this process that we so far haven’t appreciated. That said, the case that was studied in the new paper used only very small images, and the commercially available image generation models are much more complicated than the examples they looked at. Paper here.
This week’s episode of Science News is about a new (conceptual) particle accelerator. Particle accelerator technology has just gotten bigger and bigger over the years, making physics more and more expensive. Luckily, researchers are looking into alternatives to the CERN’s multi-kilometer accelerators. Today we’re taking a look at the so-called micronozzle, a new concept in the world of particle accelerator tech — and a promising one.
Also, you can now create and share your own quizzes on QuizWithIt for free! Each quiz has a unique URL, can be embedded into websites or newsletter, and be shared on social media. Happy quizzing!
Finally an Explanation for the Atlantic Cold Blob?
Image: Kai-Yuan Li/UCR
The North Atlantic Ocean has a patch of water that is about 0.3°C colder than the surrounding area down to a depth of 3km, a fact that has puzzled scientists for more than 50 years. Various explanations have been proposed, ranging from cloud cover to wind patterns to ocean currents. Climate scientists now blame the cold spot on the weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), an ocean current which is responsible for the comparably mild climate in central and Northern Europe. They ran various computer models and found that only those with the weakening AMOC were compatible with the observations.
Implicitly, this is more evidence for the weakening of the AMOC. That the AMOC might entirely shut down is one of the most discussed climate tipping points. The result could be a sharp drop in winter temperatures in parts of Europe of as much as 10°C. Paper here, press release here.
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AI Predicts Human Behavior
AI researchers trained a large language model on a huge dataset (Psych-101) with information from over 60,000 people making millions of choices across 160 experiments. They found that the model was able to outperform all previous models of human behavior, even for new scenarios it hasn’t seen before. This slightly creepy finding foreshadows just how well AI will be able to predict our every-day choices if we interact with them daily. Paper here, press release here.
