Pure Science

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Readers went all-in on biotech this year. Gene editing brought the broad treatment of genetic disease into view; cancer-fighting T cells took on tumors; and scientists found a way to 3D print tissues inside the body. Beyond biotech, AI...

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From Blue Origin to Airbus, private space stations are on the way, with the first scheduled to launch next year. Commercial space stations are rapidly moving from concept to reality. As NASA prepares for the International Space Station’s...

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Among pressing ethical concerns are whether brain organoids could one day feel pain or become conscious—and how would we know? When brain organoids were introduced roughly a decade ago, they were a scientific curiosity. The pea-sized...

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The treatment reprograms T cells to hunt down a patient’s cancer. The approach could speed treatment and cut costs, but needs more study. With just a single injection, a new treatment transforms immune cells in cancer patients into...

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The LightGen chip is orders of magnitude more efficient too. But it isn’t ready to break out of the lab just yet. As generative AI models grow more powerful, their energy use is becoming a serious bottleneck. A new fully optical...

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Future What Will Your Life Look Like in 2035?Words by Robert Booth and Dan Milmo. Illustrations by Jay Cover | The Guardian “When AIs become consistently more capable than humans, life could change in strange ways. It could happen in the...

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Google plans to take a tangible first step in a new AI and computing moonshot by launching two prototype satellites to orbit in early 2027. Google recently unveiled Project Suncatcher, a research “moonshot” aiming to build a data center...

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A Tanzania-led study pitted gene-edited mosquitoes against a wide range of malaria parasites found locally. Mosquitoes are an uncomfortable, itchy nuisance. But for people in sub-Saharan Africa, a bite could mean death. The pests are...

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The microbots have tiny computers, sensors, and actuators. They can sense temperature and swim autonomously. The robots, each the size of a single cell, casually turn circles in a bath of water. Suddenly, their sensors detect a change:...

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Models that “think” through problems step by step before providing an answer use considerably more power than older models. It’s not news to anyone that there are concerns about AI’s rising energy bill. But a new analysis shows the latest...

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Artificial Intelligence OpenAI Releases GPT-5.2 After ‘Code Red’ Google Threat AlertBenj Edwards | Ars Technica “OpenAI says GPT-5.2 Thinking beats or ties ‘human professionals’ on 70.9 percent of tasks in the GDPval benchmark (compared to...

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An immune tag-team promises to hold the virus in check for years—even without medication. HIV was once a death sentence. Thanks to antiretroviral therapy, it’s now a chronic disease. But the daily treatment is for life. Without the drug,...

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The technology is still in its infancy. But its trajectory suggests that ethical conversations may become pressing far sooner than expected. As prominent artificial intelligence researchers eye limits to the current phase of the...

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GPT-4, Claude, and Llama sought out popular peers, connected with others via existing friends, and gravitated towards those similar to them. As AI wheedles its way into our lives, how it behaves socially is becoming a pressing question. A...

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The vaccine stopped runaway allergic reactions for a year in mice. It could evolve into a blanket therapy for food allergies, from peanuts to shellfish. ‘Tis the season for overindulgence. But for people with allergies, holiday feasting...

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COMPUTING After Neuralink, Max Hodak Is Building Something Even WilderConnie Loizos | TechCrunch “What makes this conversation remarkable is how concrete everything sounds. Hodak isn’t hand-waving about ‘someday.’ He’s got timelines,...

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History says we can’t be too sure. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman—perhaps the most prominent face of the artificial intelligence boom that accelerated with the launch of ChatGPT in 2022—loves scaling laws. These widely admired...

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The new gene therapy focuses on a type of DNA error shared by a wide range of rare inherited conditions. On the surface, cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs disease have nothing in common. Although both are inherited genetic disorders, one...

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Months after the one-and-done treatment, a three-year-old boy with Hunter syndrome is thriving. Ollie Chu was three years old when he received an infusion that would change his life. Born with a rare inherited condition called Hunter...

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There’s a golden opportunity to avoid mistakes made here on Earth. Space is getting busier as national space agencies and private companies increase the tempo of launches. But today’s approach to space exploration is unsustainable, say...

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Artificial Intelligence The AI Boom Is Based on a Fundamental MistakeBenjamin Riley | The Verge “The problem is that according to current neuroscience, human thinking is largely independent of human language—and we have little reason to...

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Behavior can be deceptive. What matters for consciousness is not what you do, but how you do it. You might think a honey bee foraging in your garden and a browser window running ChatGPT have nothing in common. But recent scientific...

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A range of CRISPR gene therapies are taking aim at chronically high cholesterol, reducing the risk of heart disease. The gene editor CRISPR is tackling fatty molecules in the body that contribute to one of the world’s top killers:...

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The tiny chips hitch a ride on immune cells to target inflammation in the brain. Scientists hope to kick off clinical trials within three years. From restoring movement and speech in people with paralysis to fighting depression, brain...

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Called 3D necroprinting, the sustainable system can print extremely intricate structures at high resolution. Mosquitos are perhaps one of the most universally loathed creatures. Not only are their bites itchy and annoying, they carry...

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Artificial Intelligence There Is Only One AI Company. Welcome to the BlobSteven Levy | Wired ($) “Even the most panicked Cassandra of a decade ago likely didn’t imagine that advanced AI would be controlled by a single, interlocking,...

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If dazzling potential doesn’t translate quickly into steady, profitable demand, the excitement can slip away surprisingly fast. The global investment frenzy around AI has seen companies valued at trillions of dollars and eye-watering...

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Commercial-scale fusion edges closer with record plasma pressure. A host of startups are racing to achieve commercial fusion power. Zap Energy just drew a line in the sand after announcing its latest device recorded the highest-ever...

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Gene editors usually take years to test and perfect. KJ Muldoon’s treatment took only six months. Now his doctors want to go even faster. Before the age of one, KJ Muldoon had already made medical history. He was the first person to...

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It uses light to record and transmit brain signals and worked for a year with minimal scarring in mice. As its whiskers flitter, the mouse’s brain sparks with activity. A tiny implant records the electrical chatter and beams it to a...

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Artificial Intelligence Fei-Fei LI’s World Labs Speeds Up the World Model Race With Marble, Its First Commercial ProductRebecca Bellan | TechCrunch “If large language models can teach machines to read and write, Li hopes systems like...

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The transatlantic procedure, carried out on a human cadaver in Scotland, suggests future stroke surgeries could be completed remotely. Robotic surgery has dramatically improved surgical precision, but it could also help surgeons treat...

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A growing digital afterlife industry promises to make memory interactive and, in some cases, eternal. Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to preserve the voices and stories of the dead. From text-based chatbots that mimic...

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The qubits are similar enough to those used by the likes of Google and IBM that they could slot into existing processors in the future. One the biggest challenges for quantum computers is the incredibly short time that qubits can retain...

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This herculean effort could help scientists unravel the causes of autism, schizophrenia, and even a deadly form of cancer. Like the seeds of a forest, a few cells in embryos eventually sprout into an ecosystem of brain cells. Neurons get...

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Computing The Next Big Quantum Computer Has ArrivedIsabelle Bousquette | The Wall Street Journal ($) “Helios contains 98 physical qubits, and from those can deliver 48 logical error-corrected qubits. This 2:1 ratio is unique and...

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The new radio portrait of the Milky Way is the most sensitive, widest-area map at these frequencies to date. The Milky Way is a rich and complex environment. We see it as a luminous line stretching across the night sky, composed of...

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The technology unleashes self-replicating viruses called phages on food bacteria to continuously hunt down and destroy bad bugs. It’s a home cook’s nightmare: You open the fridge ready to make dinner and realize the meat has spoiled. You...

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A bioprinter with a printhead the size of a sesame seed could deliver hydrogels to surgical sites. Elephant trunks and garden hoses hardly seem like inspirations for a miniature 3D bioprinter. Yet they’ve led scientists at McGill...

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A new study suggests orbital data centers could be carbon neutral, but steep technical challenges remain. As global demand for computing continues to explode, the carbon footprint of data centers is a growing concern. A new study outlines...

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Tech Nvidia Becomes First $5 Trillion CompanyHannah Erin Lang | The Wall Street Journal ($) “Nvidia is now larger than AMD, Arm Holdings, ASML, Broadcom, Intel, Lam Research, Micron Technology, Qualcomm, and Taiwan...

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What would a machine actually have to do to persuade us it’s conscious? As far back as 1980, the American philosopher John Searle distinguished between strong and weak AI. Weak AIs are merely useful machines or programs that help us solve...

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The lenses could give soft robots the ability to ‘see’ without electronics. Our eyes naturally adjust to the visual world. From reading small fonts on a screen to scanning lush greenery in the great outdoors, they automatically change...

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Patients regained the ability to read books, food labels, and subway signs. Globally, more than five million people are affected by age-related macular degeneration, which can make reading, driving, and the recognition of faces...

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Boosting protective immune cells healed blood vessels and improved the skin’s ability to repair damage. The first time I accepted that my grandpa was really aging was when I held his hand. His grip was strong as ever. But the skin on his...

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Computing Google’s Quantum Computer Makes a Big Technical LeapCade Metz | The New York Times ($) “Leveraging the counterintuitive powers of quantum mechanics, Google’s machine ran this algorithm 13,000 times as fast as a top supercomputer...

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As AI shopping goes mainstream, will people keep any real control over what they buy and why? Your phone buzzes at 6 a.m. It’s ChatGPT: “I see you’re traveling to New York this week. Based on your preferences, I’ve found three restaurants...

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It sounds like science fiction, but the system could help people with brain or spinal cord injuries regain lost abilities. In 2020, Keith Thomas dived into a pool and snapped his spine. The accident left him paralyzed from the chest down...

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Bacterial nanowires and memristors combine in artificial neurons that can control living cells. Most people wouldn’t give Geobacter sulfurreducens a second look. The bacteria was first discovered in a ditch in rural Oklahoma. But the...

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Like rooftop solar panels, the approach would use existing infrastructure to lower the cost and widen the reach of carbon-capture efforts. As carbon emissions continue to rise there’s growing recognition we need to find ways to reverse...