Science

Imagine this: you’re scrolling through TikTok, watching a few videos, and before you know it, you're caught in an endless stream of clips featuring men who claim to reveal how the world really works. Men who present themselves as strong and successful, surrounded by luxury cars, cigars, and bold opinions. For a moment, it might feel like they truly understand you. Like they’re offering a truth the rest of the world refuses to see. That’s the appeal of the manosphere: an online subculture where traditional ideas about masculinity, power, and women are repackaged into flashy, persuasive content.

You ask ChatGPT to rewrite a paragraph, get Spotify to generate a new playlist, or have Midjourney create an image for your presentation. Super convenient! In just a few seconds, you get exactly what you need. But behind these seemingly simple actions, massive data centres around the world are running at full capacity. Artificial Intelligence (AI) consumes a great deal of energy. But how much, exactly? And could it be done smarter? Researchers at the University of Twente believe it can.

AI helps clinicians quickly find the information they need, filtering hundreds of reports and documents, automating processes, and preventing something from being overlooked. But traditional AI isn't safe enough when it comes to high-level tasks, such as diagnosing. Here, explainability is crucial. Unlike non-explainable models that operate like black boxes, explainable AI follows a clinically acceptable reasoning and reveals how it arrives at a decision, so doctors can evaluate whether its output is trustworthy.

An electronic nose that can tell different whiskies apart? It might sound like a joke, but behind the idea lies a serious technology with significant impact. Dr Ir Sissi de Beer, scientist and programme director of Applied Physics at the University of Twente, is developing a portable sensor that, much like the human nose, can recognise scents. Handy at a whisky tasting, perhaps, but primarily intended to help farmers detect diseases in their livestock at an early stage — even before a vet would notice.

What happens when you let someone with no experience drive a rolling machine? In this episode of Kees Study, Kees explores how people learn new skills with technology.