Nicola Jones

One of my favourite stories of the year to write is always the 'year in review': it's so satisfying to look over the year and remember all that happened, from the AI energy surge to rocks retrieved from the far side of the Moon, a spike in dengue cases and hope for dementia. Here's hoping I didn't forget anything big :) https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/society/2024/top-scientific-news-and-breakthroughs-of-2024   Image credit: ChatGPT ("draw an illustration that combines visual elements relating to: a fly's brain, moon rocks, hurricanes, aurora, and plastic pollution. Have a river running through the picture to connect these elements.")   PS: TVBUAP, a television channel of a university in Puebla, Mexico, did a 10 minute section on Knowable’s top science stories of 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=ntMnbLGFGjU

If the large language models that power chatbots run out of stuff to read, what then? My feature for Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03990-2   Image credit: ChatGPT 4 ("Draw a picture of an oil rig drilling for oil, but instead of layers of rock underground there are books and documents; the oil is actually words and numbers.")

 This November-December, international delegates met to try to thrash out a treaty to end plastic pollution. Sadly, they couldn't agree on a draft text in time for their self-appointed deadline. But some good progress was made and work will continue in 2025. Meanwhile, here's my story for Nature on what individual countries are doing, policy-wise, to try to cut down on plastic. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03860-x   Image credit: ChatGPT 4 ("Draw a picture of a coastline clogged with plastic carrier bags")