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May 21, 2025—"Cosmic dawn" signals, eavesdropping-software claims, and Vitamin D is linked to slowed aging. —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor | | A view inside the trapped-ion quantum computer that carried out a first-of-its-kind simulation of molecular chemistry. The University of Sydney/Sciencebrush.design | | A new generation of experiments aims to study faint, long-wavelength radiation from the "cosmic dawn," when the first starlight shone from the earliest galaxies and the "universe as we know it began to take shape," writes Scientific American contributor Rebecca Boyle. At an average of 238,900 miles from Earth's radio noise, the moon might be one of the best locations for a full radio observatory to look for signals from this time, when the universe's "dark ages" came to a close. Insights into the cosmic dawn will help astrophysicists better understand the "epoch of reionization," when gravity transformed the universe's first stars into galaxies and galaxy clusters.
Why this is cool: Armed with data from sky surveys and space telescopes, researchers have already mapped the universe's young galaxies. And using Planck satellite data, they've mapped the pre-stellar dark ages, which kicked off when the universe was about 380,000 years old as atomic components combined to yield the cosmic microwave background. The latest efforts aim to fill in the gap, creating "toddler pictures of the universe." Why this matters: "As we get closer to seeing cosmic dawn, we should be seeing smaller galaxies, fainter galaxies, and fewer of them. We should be reaching the limit where there just are no more galaxies to see," says Jackie Champagne, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Arizona who studies the epoch of reionization. | | | Eavesdropping Device Claim | Apple has denied all eavesdropping and related allegations but recently settled a lawsuit brought by Siri personal-assistant users who reported unsettling coincidences between their personal conversations and targeted advertisements. U.S. plaintiffs who owned a Siri-enabled gadget purchased between September 2014 and December 2024, and who also placed a claim, can receive up to $20 for each affected device, writes Scientific American senior tech reporter Deni Ellis Béchard. Apple emphasized its commitment to privacy when asked for comment.
What's going on: The majority of people in the U.S. and UK report they believe either that their phone is listening to them to serve up targeted ads or that they think an ad is tied to a recent chat. However, confirmation bias could also be involved. We ignore the backdrop of thousands of ads in our daily life but grow suspicious of a single correspondence between our spoken words and ad content. What the experts say: "This isn't tin-foil-hat territory…Knowing how ravenous tech companies are for data, people can hardly be blamed for this attitude [of suspecting eavesdropping]," Béchard writes. | | - Beyond harming the health of millions of Americans, a Republican proposal to cut Medicaid would put potential short-term savings ahead of long-term health care costs borne by taxpayers, per a study by two gerontology researchers. The federal program provides health insurance primarily for people who are low-income, have disabilities or fall into both categories. Over a 10-year period, people affected by past Medicaid cuts compared with people who retained coverage had on average more chronic illnesses, lost some or all their capacity to bathe and perform other daily activities, and sought more hospital care.| 5 min read
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- How ProPublica uses AI responsibly in its investigations. | ProPublica
- Newspapers recommended an AI-generated summer reading list with fake books. | NiemanLab
- Power Hungry: A series about AI's impact on energy consumption. | MIT Technology Review
- Ed Smylie, who saved the Apollo 13 crew with duct tape, dies at 95. | The New York Times
| | Thanks to readers who sent in their favorite cyborg lines from cinema and literature in response to the end-note in yesterday's newsletter. (How could I have left out: "I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle"?) One of you sent the classic and chilling "resistance is futile" script segment between Captain Jen-Luc Picard and The Borg, from "The Best of Both Worlds, Episode I," of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." As the reader noted, and as history and the Borg saga bear out, resistance is not futile. But just to keep things light, my household has renamed an imposing, impenetrable-looking and highly rectangular building that sprouted up in recent years from a nearby meadow: it's the Borg Cube. | | —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor | | | | |
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