Scientists have found an explanation for a 'gravity hole' in the Indian Ocean. A gravity hole is an area where gravitational pull is low, causing the seafloor to sink. Deep beneath the ocean, there is one that is three million square kilometers in size and previously it has confused scientists. Now two researchers from the Indian Institute of Science, Debanjan Pal and Attreyee Ghosh, think they have solved the mystery. More than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) beneath Earth's crust, they found cold, dense remnants of an ancient ocean plunged into a 'slab graveyard' beneath Africa some 30 million years ago, stirring up hot molten rock. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Pal and Ghosh retraced the formation of the massive geoid by modeling how tectonic plates skimmed over Earth's mantle for the past 140 million years. They ran simulations and compared the shape of the oceanic low those models predicted with observations of the dent itself. The models that reproduced the Indian Ocean geoid low in its current form all had one thing in common: plumes of hot, low-density magma wafting up beneath the low. These plumes, as well as a distinctive mantle structure, are what created the geoid low; if they rise high enough, Pal and Ghosh reckon. "In short, our results suggest that to match the [shape and amplitude of the] observed geoid low, plumes need to be buoyant enough to come up to mid-mantle depths," the pair wrote. The first of these plumes appeared about 20 million years ago, to the south of the Indian Ocean geoid low, and around 10 million years after the old Tethys Sea sank into the lower mantle. As the plumes spread beneath the lithosphere and inched towards the Indian peninsula, the low intensified. But more research needs to be done to work out what is really going on as not all scientists are convinced. Science is crazy. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The U.S. cybersecurity firm Mandiant says suspected state-backed Chinese hackers exploited a vulnerability in a popular email security appliance to break into the networks of hundreds of public and private sector organizations globally, nearly a third of them government agencies including foreign ministries

Talk of artificial intelligence (AI) models posing a threat to humanity has “run ahead of the technology”, according to Sir Nick Clegg. The former Liberal Democrat leader and deputy prime minister said concerns around “open-source” models, which are made freely available and can be modified by the public, were exaggerated, and the technology could offer solutions to problems such as hate speech. It comes after Facebook’s parent company Meta said on Tuesday that it was opening access to its new large language model, Llama 2, which will be free for research and commercial use. Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, a chatbot that can provide detailed prose responses and engage in human-like conversations, have become widely used in the public domain in the last year. The models that we’re open-sourcing are far, far, far short of that. In fact, in many ways they’re quite stupid Sir Nick Clegg Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday, Sir Nick, president of global affairs at Meta, said: “My view is that the hype has somewhat run ahead of the technology. “I think a lot of the existential warnings relate to models that don’t currently exist, so-called super-intelligent, super-powerful AI models – the vision where AI develops an autonomy and agency on its own, where it can think for itself and reproduce itself. “The models that we’re open-sourcing are far, far, far short of that. In fact, in many ways they’re quite stupid.” Sir Nick said a claim by Dame Wendy Hall, co-chair of the Government’s AI Review, that Meta’s model could not be regulated and was akin to “giving people a template to build a nuclear bomb” was “complete hyperbole”, adding: “It’s not as if we’re at a T-junction where firms can choose to open source or not. Models are being open-sourced all the time already.” He said Meta had 350 people “stress-testing” its models over several months to check for potential issues, and that Llama 2 was safer than any other large language models currently available on the internet. Meta has previously faced questions around security and trust, with the company fined 1.2 billion euros (£1 billion) in May over the transfer of data from European users to US servers. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

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