by While 2022 has in many ways been the year of AI-generated imagery (is that real art?), Cosmos believe that scientists can generate great – or at least very interesting – images and videos without the help of a bot.
Here are eight of our favorite photos and videos of the year, taken or directed by scientists.
A deep-sea batfish
Museums Victoria took the ship CSIRO RV investigator toured the Cocos (Keeling) Islands this year and saw some great stuff, like this batfish. Read more.
Lego time lords
How do you illustrate a story about a groundbreaking theory of time travel that is experimentally tested at a restricted nuclear facility? With Lego, of course. Professional time master Michael Wouters made this rendition of a cesium clock, nuclear reactor, and scientist (not to scale). Read all about it in issue 94 of the magazine.
Jupiter by JWST
We could spend all day looking at images from the James Webb Space Telescope, to be honest, but this one of Jupiter’s aurora sent the newsroom into a real tizzy. Read more.
What if Borane was a lion?
Illustrating chemical breakthroughs is difficult because the molecules are too small to see. This stunning image depicts a catalyst that could safely store hydrogen – the lion’s catalyst chooses hydrogen over all the carbon-based rocks around it. Read more.
octopus slime throwers
A throw from a female octopus which strikes a male attempting to mate with her / Credit: Godfrey-Smith et al, 2022, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0
Australia’s ‘dark octopuses’ have been caught tossing debris, sometimes at each other. Read more.
The year of the Football World Cup, a computer learns to play football from scratch
Video demonstrating the machine learning study. Credit: Liu et al., Sci. Robot. 7, eabo0235.
This video, showing a football game simulated by a machine learning program without any knowledge of football, its rules or its tactics, had the entire newsroom laughing. Read more.
Sandy, purest, cutest, goofy
It turns out that dingoes have almost completely pure ancestry – and we know that, in part, thanks to Sandy Malaki, a pure, wild-born Australian desert dingo. Awww. Read more.
Glow-in-the-dark spider fossils
When a team of French scientists popped this spider fossil under UV light, “more or less on a whim”, they were stunned to find it glowed, thanks to tiny creatures called diatoms. Read more.
Cosmos
Content organized by the editorial staff of Cosmos Magazine.
Read science facts, not fiction…
There has never been a more important time to explain facts, cherish evidence-based knowledge, and showcase the latest scientific, technological and technical breakthroughs. Cosmos is published by The Royal Institution of Australia, a charity dedicated to connecting people with the world of science. Financial contributions, large or small, help us provide access to reliable scientific information at a time when the world needs it most. Please support us by donating or purchasing a subscription today.
