2023 is coming to an end, a year in which investors have witnessed many scientific miracles. What are the expectations for the upcoming 2024?
Nature, a top scientific journal, recently released nine predictions of scientific and technological changes worth paying attention to in 2024, with the next-generation AI model GPT-5, the European supercomputer Jupiter, Chang'e-6, and "disease-resistant" mosquitoes on the list.
Prediction 1: GPT-5 vs. the new generation of AlphaFold
This year, the rise of large language models, represented by ChatGPT, has had a profound impact on the scientific community. Large language models have demonstrated excellent capabilities in text processing, data analysis, image and video generation, etc.
Nature predicts that OpenAI will release GPT-5, the next-generation AI model that supports chatbots, by the end of next year. Scientists are also closely monitoring the progress of GPT-4 rival Google Gemini.
A new version of Google's DeepMind AI tool, AlphaFold, will also be released next year. Researchers have used the tool to accurately predict the shape of proteins in 3D, and the new generation of AlphaFold will be able to simulate interactions between proteins, nucleic acids, and other molecules with atomic-level precision, which may open up new possibilities for drug design and discovery.
Prediction 2: Supercomputing Jupiter
Nature predicts that early next year researchers will launch Jupiter, Europe's first supercomputer with more than 1 billion calculations per second. Researchers will use it to create "digital twin" models of the human heart and brain for medical purposes and to perform high-resolution simulations of the Earth's climate.
U.S. researchers will install two supercomputers with more than 1 billion calculations per second in 2024: "Aurora" at Argonne National Laboratory in Le Mont, Illinois, and "El Capitan" at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Scientists will use Aurora to create a map of the brain's neural circuits and El Capitan to simulate the effects of a nuclear weapon explosion.
Prediction 3: Explore the Moon
According to Nature, NASA will launch another manned mission to the moon next year. Artemis 2 could launch as early as next November, carrying four astronauts — three men and one woman — on a 10-day flight around the moon. The launch of Artemis II will lay the groundwork for the next mission to the moon.
China is also preparing to explore the moon in depth in 2024, planning to launch Chang'e-6 for a lunar sample return mission. If the mission is successful, it will be the first time samples have been collected from the far side of the moon.
In addition to the Moon, countries have also accelerated the pace of exploration of other extraterrestrial planets.
Missions to explore the outer solar system satellites include NASA's Clipper spacecraft, which is scheduled to travel to Jupiter's moon Europa next October. The goal is to determine whether the satellite's subsurface ocean is likely to harbor life.
Japan's Mars satellite exploration mission, scheduled to launch in 2024, will visit two Martian moons (Phobos and Deimos). It will land on Phobos and collect surface samples, with a planned return to Earth in 2029.
Prediction 4: Producing "Super Mosquitoes"
The World Mosquito Program, a nonprofit organization, will begin producing disease-resistant mosquitoes at a factory in Brazil next year, according to Nature. The mosquitoes are injected with a bacterial strain to stop the spread of the disease-causing virus, which is expected to protect up to 70 million people from viruses such as dengue and Zika. Over the next decade, the World Mosquito Project will produce up to 5 billion of these "super mosquitoes" per year.
Prediction 5: "Aim for the Stars"
Nature predicts that the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile will begin operating some of its instruments by the end of 2024 and plans to conduct a ten-year survey of the entire Southern Hemisphere sky. With the Observatory's 8.4-meter telescope and a giant 3,200-megapixel camera, scientists hope to discover more new transients and near-Earth asteroids.
Also in Chile, the Simons Observatory in the Atacama Desert will be completed in mid-2024 and will be used to find signatures of primordial gravitational waves in the background of cosmic microwaves. The Simons Observatory's telescope will be equipped with up to 50,000 light-harvesting detectors, ten times more than similar projects currently underway.
Prediction 6: Trials of next-generation COVID vaccines
With the help of vaccines, people have survived the emergency phase of the pandemic, but the coronavirus has not really gone away.
According to Nature, the U.S. government is experimenting with three next-generation vaccines, two of which are intranasal vaccines designed to prevent infection by creating immunity within airway tissues. The third is an mRNA vaccine, which will enhance the response of antibodies and T cells, and is expected to provide longer-lasting immunity against multiple variants.
Prediction 7: Illuminate dark matter
According to Nature, the results of an experiment aimed at detecting dark matter particles, known as axions, will be published in 2024. The axon is an imaginary subatomic particle, a hypothetical particle proposed in the 1970s to solve the problem of conservation of CP, but these tiny particles have not yet been observed experimentally because they require sensitive detection tools and extremely strong magnetic fields.
The BabyIAXO experiment at the German electron synchrotron is using a solar telescope consisting of a 10-meter-long magnet and an ultra-sensitive, noiseless X-ray detector to track the center of the sun for 12 hours a day to capture the conversion of axons to photons.
2024 could be the year scientists determine the mass of neutrinos, the most mysterious particle in the Standard Model of particle physics. The researchers will complete the data collection in 2024 and will hopefully be able to make accurate measurements of these tiny particles. Previously, the results of the 2022 Karlsruhe tritium neutrino experiment showed that neutrinos have a maximum mass of 0.8 electron volts.
Prediction 8: The second round of debate on the mechanism of consciousness generation begins
Nature predicts that the next year could lead to new insights into the mechanisms by which human consciousness is generated. A large project to test two theories of consciousness through a series of adversarial experiments is expected to publish the results of its second experiment by the end of 2024.
Previously, in 1998, cognitive neuroscientist Christof Koch made a bet with philosopher David Chalmers that in about 25 years, scientists would determine the mechanism by which neurons in the brain produce consciousness.
On June 23 of this year, at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Consciousness Sciences in New York, the results of the contest were announced: Chalmers was declared the winner, and the philosopher over the neurologist. Koch had to admit that the study of the field of consciousness was still an ongoing pursuit.
Prediction 9: Addressing climate change
In the second half of 2024, the International Court of Justice in The Hague is likely to give an opinion on countries' legal obligations to address climate change and rule on the legal consequences for those countries deemed to be damaging the climate, according to Nature. While the ruling is not legally binding, its influence can push countries to strengthen their climate goals and be cited in domestic legal cases.
Negotiations on the UN Plastics Treaty, which aims to develop a binding international agreement to eliminate plastic pollution, will conclude next year. Since the 50s of the 20th century, 10 billion tons of plastic have been produced globally, of which more than 7 billion tons are waste, most of which pollute the oceans and cause harm to wildlife. But researchers are increasingly concerned that the U.N. negotiations, which began last year, are moving too slowly to achieve the desired goals.
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