The week in October when the Nobel Prizes are awarded is a busy one for science editors here at The Conversation, as my colleagues who worked late the past two evenings can tell you. To help you wade through the news, below are headlines from our coverage so far. Tomorrow we'll have a story from a nanotechnology expert on the Nobel Prize in chemistry, which was awarded today to three researchers for their work on quantum dots.

When ChatGPT came onto the scene late last year, there immediately was lots of hand-wringing in media circles around whether generative artificial intelligence would take jobs away from journalists. But my immediate worry with regard to media was the potential for disinformation. Harvard Kennedy School security expert Bruce Schneier shares that concern, particularly when it comes to politics, calling generative AI and large language models “uniquely suited to internet-era propaganda.” It remains to be seen how this powerful technology will change the information landscape, but his piece offers a valuable analysis of the major global trends around disinformation.

If you’re a regular reader, you know that The Conversation has written extensively on the microbiome and other microbial communities found in our bodies and the environment. But here’s one that was new to me: the necrobiome, or the microbes in people’s bodies that live on after we die. Environmental microbiologist Jennifer DeBruyn from the University of Tennessee provides a detailed picture of how they not only aid in the decomposition process but also recycle carbon and nutrients from our bodies once they enter the soil. “That our own microbes play an important role in this cycle is one microscopic way we live on after death,” she writes.

Also in this week’s science news:

If there’s a subject you’d like our team of science editors to investigate – after all the Nobel Prizes are announced – please reply to this email.

Martin LaMonica

Director of Editorial Projects and Newsletters
Attosecond light pulses help researchers understand the movement of electrons. Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Making ‘movies’ at the attosecond scale helps researchers better understand electrons − and could one day lead to super-fast electronics

Niranjan Shivaram, Purdue University

The 2023 Nobel Prize in physics recognized researchers studying electron movement in real time − this work could revolutionize electronics, laser imaging and more.
The intersection of politics and social media is fertile ground for AI-powered disinformation. AP Photo/John Minchillo

AI disinformation is a threat to elections − learning to spot Russian, Chinese and Iranian meddling in other countries can help the US prepare for 2024

Bruce Schneier, Harvard Kennedy School

ChatGPT and its ilk give propagandists and intelligence agents a powerful new tool for interfering in politics. The clock is ticking on learning to spot this disinformation before the 2024 election.
After you die, bacteria harvest your body for the nutrients that help push daisies. Matriyoshka/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Your microbes live on after you die − a microbiologist explains how your necrobiome recycles your body to nourish new life

Jennifer DeBruyn, University of Tennessee

With the help of the microbes that once played an essential role in keeping you alive, the building blocks of your body go on to become a part of other living things.

Sea glass, a treasure formed from trash, is on the decline as single-use plastic takes over

Lori Weeden, UMass Lowell

Sea glass, while an eye-catching treasure and a multimillion-dollar industry, exists because of decades of improper waste management.

Climate change is about to play a big role in government purchases – with vast implications for the US economy

Jesse Burkhardt, Colorado State University; Lauren Gifford, Colorado State University

The Biden administration directed agencies to consider the cost of greenhouse gas emissions in their future purchasing and budget decisions. An example shows just how much is at stake.

China’s WeChat is all-encompassing but low-key − a Chinese media scholar explains the Taoist philosophy behind the everything app’s design

Jianqing Chen, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis

The design philosophy of the everything app WeChat may seem paradoxical, being simultaneously pervasive and inconspicuous. But this idea of “everythingness” goes back to ancient Taoist philosophy.

Superconductivity at room temperature remains elusive a century after a Nobel went to the scientist who demonstrated it below -450 degrees Fahrenheit

David D. Nolte, Purdue University

Superconductivity may sound like science fiction, but the first experiments to achieve it were conducted over a century ago. Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, credited with the discovery, won a Nobel Prize in 1913.