Polytechnic University of Valencia

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 to researchers John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton for discovering the foundations that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks. Hinton for discovering the foundational basis that enables machine learning with artificial neural networks. This technology, inspired by the structure of the brain, is behind what we now call ‘artificial intelligence’. 

More frequent and severe wildfires increase the temperature of the exposed land surface one year after the fire, according to an analysis of forest satellite data collected from 2003 to 2016. In recent decades, large wildfires have doubled or tripled their average size in eastern Spain, Canada, and western United States, as noted in the research published in Nature. The authors call for consideration of these effects on surface temperature when managing forests.

The frequency and magnitude of extreme wildfires appear to have doubled in the last 20 years. Moreover, the six most extreme years for these events have occurred since 2017, according to a paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution in which the authors used satellite data from 2003 to 2023. 

The European Commission will renew the authorisation of the pesticide glyphosate in the European Union for 10 years, subject to "new restrictions and conditions". Following EU procedure, the announcement was made after member states failed to reach the majority required to renew or refuse approval.

The fire that originated on August 15 between the Tenerife municipalities of Arafo and Candelaria, in the northeast of the island, is advancing on several fronts and has affected more than 13,000 hectares, although the firefighting services have stabilized it in some points. The people evacuated in the last days have been thousands. As confirmed by the president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, the fire has been caused.

Nature's ban on publishing papers written by ChatGPT has brought several debates to the table: is it ethical to use it to produce science texts, and if so, should it sign them? Just as we don't make the Word proofreader a co-author of our articles, let's not make fools of ourselves by giving these new tools the status of co-authors as if they had an entity of their own.

A return to coal in Spain is not feasible in the short term, as many of the old thermal power plants have been dismantled. In the long term, the future of electricity production lies in renewable technologies, not only because of their environmental implications, but also because of energy independence with respect to third countries. In the short term, it is essential to continue using conventional technologies.

How to tackle the remaining forest fires? The author proposes that long-term policy measures are needed that go beyond reactive firefighting, which can aggravate the problem.

A study published in PNAS sets out a worst-case scenario for current climate change, explains the likelihood of its occurrence and analyses the devastating consequences it would have. It also includes a research agenda to address it.

We are finding fires that exceed the maximum extinguishing capacity of the resources that are being asked to control them by 4 or 5 times, which is nonsense, as well as recklessness. We should ask ourselves about our territorial, social and economic model for dealing with this situation so that we do not leave the fire-fighting services with this intractable and unsolvable problem.