We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In this episode of 'Discover Daily' by Perplexity, hosts Alex and Sienna delve into cutting-edge developments in technology and space. They explore Mozi, a revolutionary social networking app created by Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, designed to foster genuine connections and real-world meetups. Unlike traditional social media platforms, Mozi prioritizes privacy and meaningful interactions over content sharing and follower count...
Dec 17, 2024•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In this episode of 'Discover Daily', we explore SpaceX's ambitious plans to transform its Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, into a fully-fledged city. The company has formally requested incorporation, envisioning a self-sufficient community complete with housing, schools, and sustainable energy solutions, marking a significant evolution from a mere launch site to a potential space-age company town We then elve into an ...
Dec 16, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In today's episode of Discover Daily, we begin with a development for artificial intelligence research. Harvard University has unveiled a comprehensive AI training dataset, marking a significant step forward in democratizing AI education and development. This innovative release provides researchers and developers with high-quality, ethically sourced data that will accelerate the advancement of machine learning applications while addre...
Dec 14, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! What if familiar places suddenly felt alien to you? Discover the gripping world of jamais vu, the lesser-known cousin of déjà vu, as we explore this peculiar psychological phenomenon. Join us as we reveal how repetitive actions can trigger this mind-bending sensation and unravel the mysteries of human cognition. Plus, stay tuned for an exciting journey through the latest tech marvels reshaping our world. Kick off with a deep dive into Epic...
Dec 11, 2024•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In today's episode of Discover Daily, we explore OpenAI's release of Sora, their new text-to-video generation tool that's creating waves in the creative industry. The system, capable of producing 60-second videos from text descriptions, has already influenced major industry decisions, including Tyler Perry's pause on an $800 million studio expansion. Available to ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers, Sora enters a competiti...
Dec 10, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In this episode of Discover Daily, we explore groundbreaking developments in battery technology as researchers from the University of Bristol and UK Atomic Energy Authority unveil a revolutionary diamond-encased battery powered by carbon-14 radioactive decay. This innovative power source could last thousands of years, with potential applications in medical implants, spacecraft, and extreme environments where battery replacement is challeng...
Dec 08, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In this episode of Discover Daily, we dive into three compelling stories that intersect technology, science, and human behavior. The show kicks off with breaking news about Elon Musk's $56 billion Tesla pay package being voided by a Delaware judge, exploring the implications for corporate governance and executive compensation across the tech industry. Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick's ruling raises important questions about oversi...
Dec 07, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In today's episode of Discover Daily, we begin with news that Meta is embarking on an ambitious $10 billion project to construct a 40,000-kilometer subsea cable network. Nicknamed "W," this marks Meta's first exclusively owned undersea infrastructure. This massive project will connect multiple continents in a W-shaped pattern, linking the U.S. East Coast to India via South Africa, then to Australia and finally returning...
Dec 03, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In today's episode of Discover Daily, we explore how Earth bacteria demonstrated remarkable adaptability by rapidly colonizing samples from the asteroid Ryugu, despite rigorous containment protocols. The Japanese Hayabusa2 spacecraft's samples, initially microbe-free, saw bacterial growth expand from 11 to 147 organisms within a week of Earth exposure, raising important questions about containment methods for future space mission...
Dec 02, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In this episode of Discover Daily, we look at how scientists are getting closer to achieving human hibernation, with Harvard Medical School researchers identifying specific neurons in the hypothalamus that control torpor states in mice. This breakthrough discovery provides the first clear entry point for understanding how the brain initiates and maintains states of decreased physiological activity, bringing us one step closer to controlled...
Nov 28, 2024•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In today's episode of Discover Daily, we begin with a closer look at a groundbreaking archaeological discovery. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have unearthed the world's oldest known alphabetic writing in Syria, dating back to 2400 BCE. Found in a non-royal tomb at Tell Umm-el Marra, these perforated clay cylinders with etched writing predate previous alphabetic scripts by 500 years, challenging long-held beliefs about t...
Nov 27, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In this episode of Discover Daily, we explore the European Commission's groundbreaking antitrust investigation into Corning's Gorilla Glass business practices. The probe examines potential anticompetitive behavior, including exclusive agreements that require manufacturers to source nearly all their specialized glass from Corning. With Apple's significant investment in Corning's technology at stake, the investigation cou...
Nov 26, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In this episode of Discover Daily, we explore three compelling stories shaping our world. First, Amazon deepens its AI ambitions with a $4 billion investment in Anthropic, designating AWS as the company's primary cloud provider while allowing Anthropic to maintain partnerships with other tech giants. This strategic move positions Amazon more competitively against Microsoft's OpenAI partnership and Google's DeepMind. Second, ...
Nov 25, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In this episode of Discover Daily, we explore LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor. Scientists have dated this single-celled organism from which all modern life descends, to 4.2 billion years ago - just 400 million years after Earth's formation. This ancient organism possessed remarkable complexity, including 2,600 protein-coding genes, a sophisticated immune system with 19 CRISPR genes, and the ability to perform complex metaboli...
Nov 22, 2024•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In today's episode of Discover Daily, we explore how Niantic, the creator of Pokémon Go, is using player-generated data to develop a sophisticated Large Geospatial Model. With over 30 billion processed images and 10 million scanned locations worldwide, this AI system is creating detailed 3D maps of the real world, raising important questions about data privacy and user consent in the age of augmented reality gaming. We also examine th...
Nov 21, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In today's episode of Discover Daily, we explore a tense encounter between Norwegian fishermen and a U.S. nuclear submarine that highlights the complex reality of NATO operations in the High North. The USS Virginia's entanglement with fishing nets near Tromsø brings attention to the increasing military presence in Arctic waters and its impact on local fishing communities, as NATO maintains vigilance against Russian naval activiti...
Nov 19, 2024•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In today's episode of Discover Daily, we explore the world's first fully AI-generated video game, Oasis, developed by Israeli company Decart. Running entirely on a large language model, this groundbreaking game generates its Minecraft-like world in real-time, offering a unique glimpse into the future of gaming despite current technical limitations. We also investigate the concerning trend of "ghost jobs" flooding the jo...
Nov 18, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In this episode of Discover Daily we explore a new revelation: scientists have discovered that NASA's historic 1986 Voyager 2 flyby of Uranus occurred during an extremely rare solar wind event, leading to decades of potentially misleading assumptions about the ice giant's magnetic environment. The spacecraft encountered Uranus during a powerful solar wind compression that occurs less than 4% of the time, capturing the planet in a...
Nov 16, 2024•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In this episode of Discover Daily, we explore two major technological breakthroughs shaping our future. First, we discuss DeepMind's release of AlphaFold 3's source code, a significant advancement in protein structure prediction that promises to accelerate drug development by up to three years. With 76% accuracy in protein-ligand interactions and 65% accuracy in protein-DNA interactions, this open-source release marks a new era i...
Nov 15, 2024•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In today's episode, we explore TSMC's significant move to halt shipments of advanced AI chips to Chinese companies following U.S. Commerce Department directives. This decision specifically affects 7-nanometer and smaller designs, marking a crucial shift in the global semiconductor landscape and highlighting growing tensions in international tech relations. The restrictions target AI accelerators and GPUs while leaving consumer el...
Nov 12, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In this episode of Discover Daily, we explore South Africa's groundbreaking decision to become the first country to explicitly permit heritable human genome editing. This controversial move has sparked intense debate within the global scientific community, as it contrasts sharply with the prohibitive policies of over 70 nations. We examine the implications of these new guidelines, which focus on preventing genetic disorders and enhanc...
Nov 11, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! Deep in Utah's Fishlake National Forest lies Pando, the world's largest known living organism - a remarkable quaking aspen that appears to be a forest of 47,000 individual trees but is actually a single interconnected being. This 106-acre giant, weighing approximately 6,600 tons and surviving for an estimated 14,000 years, reproduces through a unique process called suckering, where new stems sprout directly from its vast undergro...
Nov 09, 2024•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In this episode of Discover Daily, we explore a shift in technology design as major companies like Volkswagen and Apple lead a return to physical buttons. This movement, driven by safety concerns and user experience, represents a significant departure from the touch screen-dominated interfaces of recent years. Studies show that physical buttons can reduce driver distraction by up to 40 seconds compared to touch screens, prompting regulator...
Nov 07, 2024•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In this episode of Discover Daily, hosts Alex and Sienna dive into the mysterious craters appearing in Siberia's permafrost. Recent scientific investigations reveal these massive holes, measuring up to 230 feet across and 160 feet deep, are caused by climate change triggering explosive releases of methane gas. As Arctic temperatures rise, surface ice melt travels into underground pockets of unfrozen, salty soil called cryopegs. This b...
Nov 05, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In today's episode of Discover Daily, we explore how Chinese military researchers have adapted Meta's open-source Llama model to create ChatBIT, an AI tool capable of performing at 90% of ChatGPT-4's capability. This development raises critical questions about the control of open-source AI technology and its potential military applications, with Meta's policy director explicitly stating that such military use violates t...
Nov 04, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In this episode of Discover Daily, we explore a symbolic clash between Russia and Google, where Russian courts imposed an astronomical fine of $20.6 decillion - a number so large it exceeds the world's total wealth. This unprecedented penalty, while unenforceable, highlights growing tensions between national governments and global tech platforms over content moderation and digital sovereignty. We then uncover alarming findings about t...
Nov 01, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In this episode of Discover Daily, we explore Reddit's remarkable journey to profitability, marking its first profitable quarter since going public with $348.4 million in revenue and a 47% increase in daily active users. The platform's success is bolstered by strategic AI partnerships with OpenAI and Google, transforming Reddit into a valuable data source for AI model training while creating new revenue streams through licensing ...
Oct 31, 2024•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In today's episode of Discover Daily, we explore how Apple secured a symbolic $250 victory in its ongoing smartwatch patent battle with Masimo, highlighting the complex landscape of intellectual property rights in wearable technology. While the amount seems minimal, Apple's true goal is blocking Masimo's smartwatch sales through an injunction, following Masimo's successful effort to temporarily ban certain Apple Watch m...
Oct 29, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In this episode of Discover Daily, we begin with Google DeepMind's Habermas Machine, an AI-driven mediation tool designed to help groups find consensus on divisive topics. By analyzing individual opinions and generating balanced group statements, the Habermas Machine has shown promising results in increasing agreement and facilitating more productive discussions. Next, we delve into the exciting revival of Scout Motors, a Volkswagen s...
Oct 28, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're experimenting and would love to hear from you! In today's episode of Discover Daily, we explore the mysterious world of cryptocurrency as a new HBO documentary reignites the debate over Bitcoin's creator by suggesting Canadian developer Peter Todd as Satoshi Nakamoto. Todd has gone into hiding following the documentary's claims, which present circumstantial evidence linking him to Bitcoin's creation, though the cryptocurrency community remains skeptical of these ass...
Oct 25, 2024•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast