logo
Watch the skies, Shux is passing by

Watch the skies, Shux is passing by

BENGALURU: Be alert, look up at the clear sky and track the live movement of the International Space Station (ISS). This has become the latest trend among many stargazers and astronomy enthusiasts, especially after India's first astronaut, Group Captain and mission pilot of Axiom-4 Shubhanshu Shukla, boarded the ISS.
Ever since Shukla docked into the ISS on June 26, there has been heightened excitement among astronomy enthusiasts and scientists. It has now caught the attention of citizens who are keen to watch and track the movement of the ISS overhead.
There was a lot of enthusiasm among Bengalureans and people across South India on July 5, for the ISS was clearly visible over the horizon and many even videographed it. "It was like a bright moving star slowly passing by," they said. The same was seen on Monday, when the ISS crossed the Indian Ocean around 7.07-7.10pm and Bengalureans were able to see it with the naked eye in the southern direction at a 15-degree elevation.
Experts from ISRO and Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium said the enthusiasm among citizens to see and track ISS has increased. There are many mobile applications that can be downloaded through Play Store on mobile phones to track the ISS' live location.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

AI could be as emotional as humans in online conversations
AI could be as emotional as humans in online conversations

Hans India

timean hour ago

  • Hans India

AI could be as emotional as humans in online conversations

When we write something to another person, over email or perhaps on social media, we may not state things directly, but our words may instead convey a latent meaning – an underlying subtext. We also often hope that this meaning will come through to the reader. But what happens if an artificial intelligence (AI) system is at the other end, rather than a person? Can AI, especially conversational AI, understand the latent meaning in our text? And if so, what does this mean for us? Latent content analysis is an area of study concerned with uncovering the deeper meanings, sentiments and subtleties embedded in text. For example, this type of analysis can help us grasp political leanings present in communications that are perhaps not obvious to everyone. Understanding how intense someone's emotions are or whether they're being sarcastic can be crucial in supporting a person's mental health, improving customer service, and even keeping people safe at a national level. These are only some examples. We can imagine benefits in other areas of life, like social science research, policy making and business. Given how important these tasks are – and how quickly conversational AI is improving – it's essential to explore what these technologies can (and can't) do in this regard. Work on this issue is only just starting. The current work shows that ChatGPT has had limited success in detecting political leanings on news websites. Another study that focused on differences in sarcasm detection between different large language models – the technology behind AI chatbots such as ChatGPT – showed that some are better than others. Finally, a study showed that LLMs can guess the emotional 'valence' of words – the inherent positive or negative 'feeling' associated with them. Our new study published in Scientific Reports tested whether conversational AI, inclusive of GPT-4 – a relatively recent version of ChatGPT – can read between the lines of human-written texts. The goal was to find out how well LLMs simulate understanding of sentiment, political leaning, emotional intensity and sarcasm – thus encompassing multiple latent meanings in one study. This study evaluated the reliability, consistency and quality of seven LLMs, including GPT-4, Gemini, Llama-3.1-70B and Mixtral 8?×?7B. We found that these LLMs are about as good as humans at analysing sentiment, political leaning, emotional intensity and sarcasm detection. The study involved 33 human subjects and assessed 100 curated items of text. For spotting political leanings, GPT-4 was more consistent than humans. These matter in fields like journalism, political science and or public health, where inconsistent judgement can skew findings or miss patterns. GPT-4 also proved capable of picking up on emotional intensity and especially valence. Whether a tweet was composed by someone who was mildly annoyed or deeply outraged, the AI could tell – although, someone still had to confirm if the AI was correct in its assessment. This was because AI tends to downplay emotions. Sarcasm remained a stumbling block both for humans and machines. The study found no clear winner there – hence, using human raters doesn't help much with sarcasm detection. Why does this matter? For one, AI like GPT-4 could dramatically cut the time and cost of analysing large volumes of online content. Social scientists often spend months analysing user-generated text to detect trends. GPT-4, on the other hand, opens the door to faster, more responsive research – especially important during crises, elections or public health emergencies. Journalists and fact-checkers might also benefit. Tools powered by GPT-4 could help flag emotionally charged or politically slanted posts in real time, giving newsrooms a head start. There are still concerns. Transparency, fairness and political leanings in AI remain issues. However, studies like this one suggest that when it comes to understanding language, machines are catching up to us fast – and may soon be valuable teammates rather than mere tools. Although this work doesn't claim conversational AI can replace human raters completely, it does challenge the idea that machines are hopeless at detecting nuance. Our study's findings do raise follow-up questions. If a user asks the same question of AI in multiple ways – perhaps by subtly rewording prompts, changing the order of information, or tweaking the amount of context provided – will the model's underlying judgements and ratings remain consistent? Further research should include a systematic and rigorous analysis of how stable the models' outputs are. Ultimately, understanding and improving consistency is essential for deploying LLMs at scale, especially in high-stakes settings. (The writer is associated with the University of Limerick)

​Quick fix: on India's Research Development and Innovation scheme
​Quick fix: on India's Research Development and Innovation scheme

The Hindu

time8 hours ago

  • The Hindu

​Quick fix: on India's Research Development and Innovation scheme

The Union Cabinet recently approved a ₹1-lakh crore Research Development and Innovation (RDI) scheme that aims to incentivise the private sector to invest in basic research. The scheme will primarily consist of a special purpose fund established within the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), which will act as the custodian of funds. The funds will be in the form of low-interest loans. The ANRF is conceived as an independent institutional body, with oversight by the Science Ministry, to allocate funds for basic research and to incentivise private sector participation in core research. The involvement of the ANRF here is a novel move as the newly created organisation is meant to be the equivalent of a single-window clearance mechanism for funding research and development for universities and academic institutions. It is also expected to get about 70% of its budget from private sources. In sum, through the RDI and the ANRF, the government is looking to stake the bold claim that it has played its part and that it is now up to the private sector to come forward and reverse the ratio from where the government today accounts for about 70% of India's R&D spend. However, already incipient in the government's tall ambitions are traces of what has caused previous such schemes to falter. The first of these is conservatism. It turns out that a condition for availing funds is that only products that have reached a certain level of development and market potential or, what are called Technology Readiness Level-4 (TRL-4) projects, would be eligible. There are nine TRL levels, a hierarchy that was first conceived by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the 1970s. TRL-1 represents a basic level of research and TRL-9 a state of advanced readiness. TRL-4 appears to be an arbitrary decision to support any promising research that has progressed halfway. Were there such a magic sauce, venture capital industries, premised on the fickleness of predicting the 'next big thing', would not exist. The scheme also seems to forget that technologically advanced countries have become what they are because of their military industrial complexes — where the spectre of war incentivises the development of technology that is risky and expensive but, over time, may prove to be of immense civilian value — examples are the Internet or the Global Positioning System. India continues to haemorrhage scientists to the West due to the lack of opportunities commensurate with their training. Finally, it lacks a deeply skilled manufacturing sector that can make the products that scientists conceive of. Budgetary allowances cannot overnight fix that which requires major surgery.

Ax-4 enters final leg, aboard space station, return any day after July 9
Ax-4 enters final leg, aboard space station, return any day after July 9

Time of India

time8 hours ago

  • Time of India

Ax-4 enters final leg, aboard space station, return any day after July 9

BENGALURU: The Axiom-4 mission (Ax-4) crew, including Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla (Shux), has entered the final stretch of their time aboard the International Space Station (ISS), with their return to Earth anticipated any day after July 9. As of July 8, the crew has completed 13 days in orbit as part of the mission that was planned to last up to 14 days aboard the orbiting lab. While no formal announcement has been made about the undocking schedule, preparations are likely under way for the complex coordination required to bring the team safely back. Returning from space is no simple affair. Multiple factors — including weather at the landing site, spacecraft readiness, and alignment with other station and orbital schedules — must align precisely. Ground teams from Axiom Space, SpaceX , Nasa , and international partners will be monitoring all parameters closely before giving the final 'go' for re-entry. Meanwhile, science has continued uninterrupted. Mission pilot Shux has remained at the centre of several key experiments. Over the past few days, Shux examined cyanobacteria — a type of photosynthetic bacteria that can produce their own food using sunlight — under different conditions aboard the ISS. By comparing strains, scientists hope to understand how spaceflight alters the growth and function of these photosynthetic bacteria. He continued with his muscle loss (myogenesis) study and conducted a microscopy session and collected cell samples to investigate how microgravity accelerates muscle loss, a critical issue for long-duration missions. In another experiment, he deployed culture bags for the 'Space Microalgae' study. These tiny organisms, with their ability to produce food, oxygen, and even biofuels, are being studied as potential life-support tools for future interplanetary journeys. His work extended to redeploying components of the 'Voyager Displays' experiment, focused on how space affects gaze coordination and pointing accuracy — vital for designing future spacecraft interfaces. The rest of the Ax-4 crew has also kept up a packed research schedule. Commander Peggy Whitson has been supporting and guiding the team with her decades of space experience. Among other projects, the crew continued working on the PhotonGrav study, collecting brain activity data using near-infrared spectroscopy. This is part of a broader effort to develop neuroadaptive technologies that could help astronauts interact more intuitively with onboard systems — and could eventually benefit people on Earth with neurological or motor impairments. Mission Specialist Tibor Kapu completed work on 'VITAPRIC', nurturing radish and wheat microgreens that may one day provide astronauts with fresh produce on long-duration missions. He also continued with the 'Fruit Fly DNA Repair' study, which tracks how radiation in space affects genetic material — key for developing safeguards for future human missions beyond low Earth orbit. The crew has participated in several more studies: from the Wireless Acoustics experiment to evaluate wearable sound monitors, to the 'Acquired Equivalence Test' that probes cognitive function in weightlessness. Data has been collected for cardiovascular and balance system changes under the 'Telemetric Health AI' project, aimed at advancing real-time health tracking. As Earth awaits their return, the Ax-4 astronauts remain focused. Each hour in orbit is still being put to use — ensuring that when they do return, they bring back not just stories and photographs, but data that may aid in shaping the future of human spaceflight.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store