
These pictures show India's Shubhanshu Shukla is loving it in space
The Ax-4 crew is also contributing to the Wireless Acoustics project. (Photo: Axiom)
Insights from this work are crucial for developing interventions to protect astronaut health during long-duration missions, such as those planned for Mars.SCIENCE UNDERWAYShux has also redeployed a culture bag for the Space Micro Algae experiment. Microalgae are being studied for their remarkable potential to support life beyond Earth—they can generate food, oxygen, and even biofuel.Success in cultivating microalgae aboard the ISS could make them indispensable for future lunar and Martian outposts, providing sustainable life support and resource recycling.
Ax-4 Pilot Shubhanshu Shukla carries out operations for the myogenesis study in the Life Sciences Glovebox aboard the International Space Station. (Photo: Axiom)
The Ax-4 team, including Commander Peggy Whitson, Mission Specialists Sawosz 'Suave' Uznaski-Winiewski, and Tibor Kapu, has maintained a relentless pace of scientific activity:Tibor Kapu observed the Fruit Fly DNA Repair study, which examines how space radiation affects genetic integrity.
Shubhanshu Shukla looking out of the cupola of the Space Station. (Photo: Axiom Space)
By analysing how fruit fly DNA responds to the harsh conditions of orbit, researchers hope to develop strategies to shield human DNA from similar dangers during interplanetary travel.The crew contributed to the Wireless Acoustics project, evaluating a wearable acoustic monitor that measures sound levels throughout the station. This device is being assessed for comfort and accuracy, with its readings compared to those from traditional fixed sound meters.
Shux testing his photography skills in space. (Photo: Axiom)
Axiom added that a crewmember underwent an ultrasound scan as part of a project tracking cardiovascular and balance system changes. This study aims to enable real-time, AI-driven health monitoring for astronauts, with the potential to revolutionize healthcare both in space and on Earth.As the Ax-4 mission progresses, the crew's dedication to research, technology demonstrations, and outreach continues to expand humanity's understanding of living and thriving beyond our home planet.- EndsTune InMust Watch
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


India Today
18 minutes ago
- India Today
Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla calls Isro chief from space. Here's what they discussed
Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Axiom-4 mission, dialled his home space agency the Indian Space Reseaerch Organisation (Isro).Shukla had a telephonic conversation with Dr V Narayanan, Chairman of the Indian space telephonic exchange focused on Shukla's well-being and the scientific experiments being conducted during the mission. The Chairman of Isro stressed the importance of meticulously documenting all experiments and activities conducted on the insights gained from these activities are expected to play a crucial role in advancing India's human spaceflight initiative, the Gaganyaan programme aims to establish India's capability to launch a crewed spacecraft into low Earth orbit, with the Axiom-4 mission serving as a valuable learning experience. The telephonic discussion was attended by several senior Isro officials, including Dr Unnikrishnan Nair, Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, M Mohan, Director of Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, Padmakumar E S, Director of Isro Inertial Systems Unit. These officials interacted with Shukla, discussing various mission aspects and scientific endeavours currently underway on the Shukla provided updates on the progress and challenges of the experiments at the space station, highlighting their scientific objectives and the support from Isro, Shubhanshu expressed appreciation for the efforts of Dr V Narayanan and the Isro team in ensuring his safe journey to the ISS. Shubhanshu Shukla on the Space Station with fellow astronauts. (Photo: Nasa) Isro said that Dr V Narayanan regularly interacted with Shubhanshu prior to the mission, providing guidance and motivation for the journey. The Chairman also communicated with Prashant Balan Nair, the standby astronaut, ensuring all protocols and preparations were meticulously managed for a successful mission execution.- EndsTune InYou May Also Like


Time of India
30 minutes ago
- Time of India
Shukla speaks to Isro chairman, experiments reviewed
BENGALURU: Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla , currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Axiom-4 (Ax-4) mission, spoke with Isro chairman V Narayanan on July 6, 2025, Isro said Monday. The telephonic conversation focused on Shukla's health, mission progress, and the scientific work being undertaken in orbit. 'The chairman inquired about the experiments being conducted and emphasised the importance of detailed documentation post-mission. He noted that the observations and outcomes from this mission would provide critical inputs for India's upcoming human spaceflight mission, Gaganyaan,' Isro said Senior Isro officials also joined the discussion, including VSSC director S Unnikrishnan Nair, M Mohan, director, LPSC, Padmakumar ES, director, Isro Inertial Systems Unit, M Ganesh Pillai, scientific secretary, Isro and N Vedachalam, former director of LPSC. The officials interacted with Shukla and discussed various aspects of the experiments. Shukla, who has been conducting several scientific studies aboard the ISS under the Isro–Axiom Spaceflight agreement, shared updates on the objectives and challenges of the research. Narayanan reaffirmed that Isro continues to provide mission support and recalled his prior meetings with Shukla to guide and motivate him before the launch. He also noted regular interactions with standby astronaut Prashant Balan Nair to ensure mission readiness. Shukla's observations and inputs are expected to contribute significantly to the Gaganyaan mission , which aims to demonstrate India's ability to send astronauts into low Earth orbit and return them safely.


Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
AI might now be as good as humans at detecting emotion, political leaning, sarcasm 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 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. 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 x 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. That matters in fields like journalism, political science, 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.