Hello Nature readers,
Today we investigate the oldest rocks on Earth, peer at sea slugs with a penchant for theft and consider how artificial-intelligence research is being used to keep tabs on us.

Does ChatGPT change your brain activity?

The brains of people using the artificial-intelligence bot ChatGPT to write an essay are less engaged than those without access to online tools. Researchers also found that relying on a chatbot for initial tasks might lead to relatively low levels of brain engagement even when the tool is later taken away. Computer scientist and study co-author Nataliya Kosmyna advises that the results are taken with a pinch of salt. The experiment studied only a handful of people over a short time. It cannot and did not show “dumbness in the brain, no stupidity, no brain on vacation”, she says.

New AI could shed light on ‘dark’ DNA

An artificial-intelligence (AI) model developed by Google DeepMind could help scientists to make sense of ‘dark matter’ in the human genome — areas of genetic code that do not code for proteins. The model, called AlphaGenome, takes long stretches of DNA and predicts various properties, such as the expression levels of the genes they contain and how those levels could be affected by mutations. Such predictions could help scientists determine how ‘dark’ areas of DNA contribute to diseases such as cancer and influence the inner workings of cells.

Sea slugs steal chloroplasts to snack on

‘Solar-powered’ sea slugs (Elysia crispata) steal photosynthetic equipment from algae and stockpile it to use as an energy source on a rainy day. The slugs store these stolen tools, called chloroplasts, in specialized depots in their cells — dubbed ‘kleptosomes’. Day-to-day, the chloroplasts let the slugs make nutrients using energy from sunlight. But when the going gets tough the energy-makers become food: the slug breaks them down and absorbs the resulting nutrients. Using this trick, researchers found that Elysia can survive for up to four months without another food source.

Meet the solar storm chasers

Many of the electronic gadgets and systems on Earth are vulnerable to one danger: electromagnetic disruption caused by a coronal mass ejection (CME). “A solar flare is the flash of ignited powder,” says solar physicist Ryan French. “The CME is the cannonball.” Inside three institutions — in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia — solar-storm watchers stare into the Sun to forecast when a CME might deliver a gut-punch to our networked world.

Futures: Family recipe

Times change, but stew is forever in the latest short story for Nature’s Futures series.

Podcast: the field feeding surveillance

A study of computer-vision research reveals “an overwhelming amount of uses of both papers and patents is in surveillance,” says cognitive scientist Abeba Birhane, who co-authored the research. Some applications are innocuous: computer vision is used in sport to track players and assess their performance, for example. Others not so much. “From the western world to African nations, you see that these governments are utilizing these surveillance systems to crush down dissent,” says Birhane.

If you listen to the Nature Podcast, we’d be very grateful if you would take this short survey for listeners. Thank you!