Download the Nature Podcast 23 October 2024In this episode:00:48 The hidden cities of UzbekistanResearchers have uncovered the scale of two ancient cities buried high in the mountains of Uzbekistan. The cities were thought to be there, but their extent was unknown, so the team used drone-mounted LiDAR equipment to reveal what was hidden beneath the ground. The survey surprised researchers by showing one of the cities was six times bigger than expected. The two cities, called Tashbulak and Tugunbulak, were nestled in the heart of Central Asia’s medieval Silk Road, suggesting that highland areas played an important role in trade of the era.Research Article: Frachetti et al.Video: Uncovering a lost mountain metropolis09:32 Research HighlightsHow children’s movements resemble water vapour, and why coastal waters might be a lot dirtier than we thought.Research Highlight: Kids in the classroom flow like water vapourResearch Highlight: Sewage lurks in coastal waters — often unnoticed by widely used test12:06 Watermarking AI-generated textA team at Google DeepMind has demonstrated a way to add a digital watermark to AI-generated text that can be detected by computers. As AI-generated content becomes more pervasive, there are fears that it will be impossible to tell it apart from content made by humans. To tackle this, the new method subtly biases the word choices made by a Large Language Model in a statistically detectable pattern. Despite the changes to word choice, a test of 20 million live chat interactions revealed that users did not notice a drop in quality compared to unwatermarked text. Research Article: Dathathri et al.News: DeepMind deploys invisible ‘watermark’ on AI-written text22:38 Briefing ChatWhat one researcher found after repeatedly scanning her own brain to see how it responded to birth-control pills, and how high-altitude tree planting could offer refuge to an imperilled butterfly species.Nature: How does the brain react to birth control? A researcher scanned herself 75 times to find outNature: Mexican forest ‘relocated’ in attempt to save iconic monarch butterfliesSubscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.Never miss an episode. Subscribe to the Nature Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music or your favourite podcast app. An RSS feed for the Nature Podcast is available too.
