- 18 hours ago
Cows are warming a Bavarian farm with body heat – and a little help from special waterbeds. Also: Europe's large language model AI Apertus, mapping a mouse brain and: How secure are heart implants from cyberattacks?
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00:00science it's growing in popularity fast in india thanks to influences it's letting us prowl around
00:14inside a mouse brain with a colorful 3d map it's driving the development of a european open source
00:20ai alternative to chat gpt but let's kick things off in a barn in bavaria where the cows like to
00:28hang out on waterbeds why that's good for the animals and good for us this time on tomorrow today
00:40looks like a comfy spot nice and cool on a waterbed cows give off a lot of heat that can be
00:48captured and used for other purposes how does it work it's early summer at the spitalhof
00:57kempton research and testing farm in southern germany the dairy cows have to be shooed out of
01:02the barn today their stalls are getting a major upgrade today we need to finish the front 10
01:10spots we've already taken out and reinstalled 45 at the back it's going to be a long day again
01:19both residential and commercial buildings here will soon be heated using energy from the cows
01:25transferred via comfortable mats filled with water
01:33the waterbed supplier promoted them as a way to cool the cows down
01:38or as a way to remove heat in summer
01:44then a colleague who works in thermal systems said
01:47if we can keep it cool in summer maybe we can use the heat in winter
01:52either for heating somewhere else or other purposes that's how the current system was born
01:59cooling for the cows and heat for the farm the water mats are made by a french company
02:05the cooling and heating tech by a german farm in the pasture next to the barn technicians laid underground
02:13pipes to cool the water in summer
02:20physiologically cows are unable to sweat
02:25so they have to get rid of the heat in other ways
02:28many people think cows mainly need to be kept warm in winter
02:32but even then cows are usually too warm
02:35due to their metabolism they need to release a lot of heat
02:38even in winter up to 300 watts per cow per hour
02:44that's a huge amount of heat that needs to be removed
02:50hoses under the water mats are positioned where the cow rests its udder
02:56water at around 15 degrees celsius will flow beneath the mat
03:00since the cool spot is pleasant the cow remains in place warming the water slightly with its body
03:07that water flows to a heat exchanger which removes it to heat the farm's buildings
03:12at least that's the plan the full installation costs nearly 200 000 euros
03:19of course the investment is quite significant but we saw an opportunity to implement something
03:24innovative for the future that's the appeal of it
03:33it's almost eight weeks later the end of july
03:37all the work on the water mat system took 14 months just one pump is still missing
03:45this pump will be installed here then the system will be filled completely with water
03:49then we can start it up
03:50the system is already connected to another process milk comes out of the cow at around 38 degrees
04:00celsius as it cools down the heat the milk releases is already being captured to provide warm water in
04:07the barn now the cow's body heat will be added we'll be glad when we can flip the switch a big step
04:16we've been shooting for this goal for a long time today's the big day
04:22just have to flip the main switch
04:26here we go
04:30does it work
04:31the meters up on the first floor and a thermal camera show that it does
04:38the water leaves the barn at just over 18 degrees celsius is cooled to around 15 degrees celsius
04:44then flows back into the water mats and the cows seem to like them the mat is cool and the cow's body
04:51is warm especially it's utter when i press here you can see how the whole cow moves
05:00that means the cow is floating on the water it's not touching any solid surfaces
05:05the longer a cow lies in a relaxed state the more milk it produces and in this barn
05:13heat as well on average animals give off 200 to 300 watts per hour for the whole farm that means
05:21100 000 to 120 000 free kilowatt hours of energy in winter equal to burning about 10 000 liters of heating
05:29oil all in all if everything works we're looking at a payback period of eight to ten years it's a big
05:39investment up front but if it works as planned like we designed it on paper then we're all happy
05:51at spitalhof kempton system performance and the behavior of the cows on the mats
05:57are now being scientifically evaluated
06:07what's happening behind these walls lots of science india has more than 46 000 universities
06:14and is investing heavily in research into ai quantum technology and sustainable energy
06:21the results can have a direct impact on our lives but are often also complex
06:26people like mahesh shenoy are helping on youtube he explores science topics part of a growing
06:33movement in the country
06:38for youtuber mahesh shenoy science begins with curiosity and not textbooks photons are massless
06:44and i never understood why what's the problem if you see light to be addressed why can't you ever
06:49accelerate any object to the speed of light i think this this journey of discovering things
06:56i think that is pretty cool and i feel that that part that that scientific thinking that is applicable
07:03everywhere mahesh is part of a growing wave in india that is changing how science is talked about
07:09he is what is known as a science influencer it all started as a side hustle eight years ago as a bit to help
07:17students prepare for exams it has since led to his channel float head physics which deep dives into
07:24complex science using surprisingly light humor the channel currently has about half a million followers
07:32we study a lot of science topics and stuff in schools but the focus over there is mostly on
07:41curriculum but that fire is not there so for me science communication is a way of reaching out
07:49to folks who think that science is dull hey you know what no it's it's beautiful it's all around us
07:54today mahesh is putting his teaching methods to the ultimate test in a classroom buzzing with
08:01curious science students this isn't just a lecture it's a performance complete with skits
08:09animated visuals and a generous dose of humor
08:16if i see a video normally on physics i get bored in a few seconds when i watch yours
08:20i'll like hung on to every second of what you were saying so this video actually made me understand
08:26so much more in detail and it's so much more basic and easy to understand in like a fun way so
08:32it's a really good way of uh getting a new view of physics into our minds thank you for that
08:382500 kilometers away from this classroom science communication isn't just trending it's taking root
08:46meets tv venkateshwaran he's been a public science educator since before youtube was even a thing
08:52in india today he teaches a semester-long course to aspiring science storytellers for him breaking
08:59down complex science into everyday language isn't just a skill it's a civic duty one of the essential
09:07component of social responsibility is to communicate to the ordinary public what we are doing why we
09:12are doing where are we what we mean is communicating science to public that is people who are not
09:17technical his students take this idea and level it up they believe science communication is not about
09:25throwing facts around but inspiring a curious mindset it's not what to think but how to think
09:35it is not just about knowledge or it is not about is this knowledge relevant
09:38it is more to do with how you are building a way to think how you are building a specific
09:44perspective to think about it this approach is what leads them to believe science communication
09:50at its core is deeply political so in a democracy if you really want uh informed decision making from
10:00citizen that's what is democracy essentially right if i don't even know how do i decide that this is
10:06right or that is wrong so i think even for democracy to thrive science communication is essential
10:14that's an argument mahesh agrees with as well to him ignorance doesn't pose the biggest danger to
10:20society faith in false information does there are so many propagandas that are going on you look at
10:29whatsapp people start sharing messages there are forwards that are coming about this and that how do people
10:33decide whether i'm looking at something authentic or something that's fake we need to turn to somebody
10:38who is completely unbiased it's keeping what you think your opinions aside sticking to facts and seeing
10:44where the facts lead you and that's what science communicators do and that's why they're necessary for
10:49people to turn to learning science in india is no longer confined to classrooms it's happening on
10:57screens and in the comments sections science communicators like mahesh chanoy and tv venkateshwaran
11:04foster this shift they are encouraging young minds to look beyond their textbooks and preserve their inherent
11:12curiosity
11:17it was curiosity that drove neuroscientists to realize another dream to explore brain tissue from a mouse
11:24in unprecedented detail they were able to see what was going on in a region the size of a grain of sand
11:32tiny but still they claim the most detailed picture of a brain circuit board ever
11:38this is the brain of a mouse the colorful branches are single brain cells
11:44they form the dense network that characterizes brain tissue mapping out the neurons and their
11:50connections like this might help scientists better understand how the brain works
12:01artificial intelligence can produce texts images audio and video on demand but there are
12:08drawbacks the computers powering it all use lots of energy to crunch numbers and lots of water for
12:14cooling then there are ethical questions like which data can be used to train it europeans are working
12:20on their own ai systems to address these issues and at a recent hackathon swiss developers introduced
12:27their new model my name is imanol i'm a research scientist at the ethi center i was a co-lead
12:33of the apparatus project and i'm really excited to see what you might come up with because apparatus is
12:39a great model a great foundation with a lot of languages and so i'm excited to see what it can
12:44do and also what it cannot do apertus is making its big debut at the zurich hackathon in switzerland
12:52dozens of developers are eager to experiment with a new multilingual language model and start building
12:58the first applications my first impression of the door it's really good the fact that it's open source
13:05is really cool what's special about apertus is that it's a language model that's completely open
13:10and reproducible anyone can download it and use it however they like many different developers worked
13:17on apertus building a neural network that can recognize language patterns just like with other
13:23language models that network is the core of the ai apertus was trained on a swiss supercomputer called
13:30alps which used vast text data sets to fine-tune its pattern recognition what's special is that
13:37training took place in a thousand different languages also unique the training data complied with data
13:44protection laws copyright law and the eu's ai act ethical and legal standards were followed consistently
13:52an industry first existing models from us-based companies like openai are much more of a black box
14:00the data they're trained on is kept secret along with their architecture europe needs its own models
14:08because we don't want to depend on countries that don't necessarily share our interests or align with
14:14our principles we want to understand and improve these models ourselves because we may not always have
14:20access to the latest ones so we haven't been out the news model so apertus could help bring europe more
14:27digital sovereignty it's currently the continent's most powerful large language model but there are others
14:33like germany's toiken which was built in part by the fraunhofer institute its developers also emphasize
14:40the european angle but how do european models compare to those from across the atlantic toiken initiator
14:49joachim koehler runs a test hitting a chatbot built on apertus against one based on chat gpt
14:59he asks both about imanul schlag the developer behind apertus the apertus chatbot promptly gives
15:08a wrong answer it claims schlag is a swiss singer hallucinations like this illustrate that ai doesn't
15:15actually think instead it just strings words together based on probabilities all chatbots work
15:22this way their accuracy however varies when koehler asks the latest version of chat gpt the same question
15:31it answers correctly chat gpt performs better it hallucinates less chat gpt was trained with
15:40significantly more data and far more computing time it's now a fifth generation model apertus is the
15:48first in its family and for that the results are already really impressive
15:56sure comparing it to chat gpt seems to make sense but our goal isn't a chat gpt alternative or a personal
16:03ai assistant for every topic we're building a foundation for developing and researching generative
16:10ai where it's used and what tasks it takes on that's up to developers and domain experts
16:18what tasks can large language models reliably handle that's the focus of socio-informatics
16:24expert katerina zweig's new book she believes many hyped applications are overrated these chatbots
16:32these chatbots that mimic human communication there have been hardly any successful pilot projects so far
16:40i don't think they represent a big revolution therapy chatbots or ones that can book travel for
16:47instance remain too unreliable they're based on the same word stringing system that can cause
16:53hallucinations but llms also european ones still have great potential it just lies in a slightly
17:00different technological area this part of the technology automatically measures similarities between
17:08words and i think we'll see some very exciting software systems emerge from that there are
17:16already applications some are based on the token model they're still small though this prototype
17:22answers the question how many resources does switzerland consume by searching through an archive
17:28of tv reports for similar words it answers that the average swiss citizen now lives in about 50 square
17:37meters and other statistics the system only searches data provided by clearly defined sources
17:43that makes its answers more reliable
17:51europe needs its own approach it's not just about chasing after american or chinese research groups
17:58we need to find our own path and i believe that path lies in europe's strengths multilingualism regulation
18:11and especially our potential to use industrial data
18:17europe's own path means specialized reliable ai applications that comply with european law
18:25at the zurich hackathon both the attending companies and government agencies are interested in exactly that
18:33meanwhile developers are already shaping the raw apertus model in many different directions
18:38some focus on its multilingual capabilities like in media we want to make news more customized for
18:45users who don't speak the language for example we're building a product called paper mail where you can
18:52manage your physical mail just like an email inbox but let's be honest do we really need a range of language
19:02models in europe after all developing them requires a lot of expensive computing power and energy
19:10no i don't think we do i believe we can really benefit from a collaborative open source approach
19:16being transparent and working together if imanul schlag has his way the flagship model will be one made
19:24in switzerland apertus
19:29hackers seize control of heart implants and people who have them start dying that was the premise on a
19:35recent episode of tartort a popular german language crime series a fictional scenario but not all that far
19:44are fetched in the digital networked modern world could it really happen each pin represents a death and
19:52their number keeps growing
19:54a heart implant that kills instead of saving lives
20:04marcus schwab has lived with a heart implant for 16 years what's his take on the episode from the crime series
20:12it scared me a little to be honest when people started collapsing the uncertainty even with
20:21today's safety standards i mean i depend on this device without it i would die
20:29due to a genetic defect marcus schwab's heart could stop at any moment this transmitter sends data
20:35on his heart to a hospital where a cardiologist can monitor it the data comes directly from
20:41the implant in his chest the multimedia technician has kept some of his old implants they've saved his
20:49life more than once the device is implanted here and the cable runs downward from it this part is
21:01inserted directly into my heart muscle through the vein and into the heart inside the implant is a tiny
21:10computer that in emergencies can deliver electric shocks to keep the heart beating by trying to open
21:17the device marcus sets off an alarm which still works but he assures reporter daniele laga that it's not
21:23still connected to the hospital so no emergency personnel will respond an implantable cardioverter
21:32defibrillator or icd protects patients prone to ventricular fibrillation when the heart begins to
21:39race dangerously and twitch uncontrollably like this animal heart in some situations it can cause it to
21:46stop beating altogether when the implant detects this kind of fibrillation it instantly delivers a strong
21:54electric shock via the defibrillator's electrode the shock restores the heart's normal rhythm
22:01an icd shock can be as powerful as 800 volts but lasts only a few milliseconds
22:08hacking heart implants for use as murder weapons is that a realistic scenario mark rueff knows he
22:26investigates security vulnerabilities for clients i was impressed by the episode almost everything it
22:33showed i've seen before though not in that combination do you have to do the plan
22:44the lot is not enough to know what's interesting to be
22:48how many idiots have the time behind it again that don't need protocol yet daniela laga asks if
22:54he's heard of any real attacks on heart implants no he says definitely not on heart implants
23:01currently there are no real world methods that could be used so it's unrealistic for now and the
23:07near future he adds more realistic are attacks on health care systems hospitals and clinics are packed
23:16with vital infrastructure and sensitive patient data making them prime targets for cyber criminals
23:25in the last few years attacks on different health care facilities have repeatedly made
23:30headlines the hackers usually block access to i.t systems or steal sensitive data the goal is to extort money
23:41since early 2025 cyber attacks in switzerland have to be reported since then the federal office
23:49responsible for cyber security has received 158 complaints 13 from the health care sector
23:56health care systems are increasingly digital and connected that makes it easier for attackers to find and
24:04exploit weaknesses swiss experts analyzed the country's three most commonly used hospital information
24:10systems and discovered more than 40 moderate to severe security issues hacking individual medical devices
24:18devices like heart implants however isn't currently something cyber criminals focus on
24:23all this dot dot dot off in this is my count down with that
24:26that's what's a countdown with that's saying yeah we're from under the storm shows
24:32nach circa three and a half million herzschlägen erfolgt also you heard the police is
24:37shown at the tot markus schwab has his heart implant checked every six months during the checkup we asked the
24:45doctor what he thinks of the crime series episode i felt it didn't emphasize enough that these devices save lives
24:55in switzerland they save over 100 patients every year and they're not inherently dangerous
25:01during a checkup cardiologists test the implant and make adjustments if necessary they also update software
25:09as the doctor tells markus schwab his heart is going to start beating faster the reporter says it's like
25:17he's playing god with the patient's heart no says the cardiologist it's not god it's electrophysiology
25:25is it a little scary having someone just manipulate your heart
25:30no i find it fascinating i trust the doctor to make it work perfectly i'm just glad it's possible
25:36otherwise i wouldn't be alive in the crime series episode many patients die but there's no need to
25:43panic cyber criminals hacking heart implants remains an unlikely scenario
25:51and that's it this time around on our most recent journey through the world of science
25:55research and technology but hope to see you again soon on tomorrow today bye for now
26:06so
26:13you
26:15you
26:17you
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