Pure Science

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The unexpectedly large impact of genetics could spur new efforts to find longevity genes. Laura Oliveira fell in love with swimming at 70. She won her first competition three decades later. Longevity runs in her family. Her aunt Geny...

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The strongest known form of quantum-secure communication is no longer limited to tabletop experiments. Quantum communication could enable uncrackable transfer of information, but most approaches rely on trusted devices. Researchers have...

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Moltbook Was Pure AI TheaterWill Douglas Heaven | MIT Technology Review ($) “As the hype dies down, Moltbook looks less like a window onto the future and more like a mirror held up to our own obsessions with AI...

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A new approach would help AI assess its own confidence, detect confusion, and decide when to think harder. Have you ever had the experience of rereading a sentence multiple times only to realize you still don’t understand it? As taught to...

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Each finger can bend backwards for ultra-flexible crawling and grasping. Here’s a party trick: Try opening a bottle of water using your thumb and pointer finger while holding it without spilling. It sounds simple, but the feat requires...

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The test tracks AI performance with thousands of graduate-level questions to track AI performance across academic disciplines. How do you translate a Roman inscription found on a tombstone? How many pairs of tendons are supported by one...

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Robotaxis have been more expensive with longer wait times. A study by Obi suggests that may be changing. Robotaxis have long promised cheaper trips and shorter wait times, but so far, providers have struggled to match traditional...

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE A Yann LeCun–Linked Startup Charts a New Path to AGIJoel Khalili | Wired ($) “As the world’s largest companies pour hundreds of billions of dollars into large language models, San Francisco-based Logical...

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Our universe does not simply exist in time. Time is something the universe continuously writes into itself. Time feels like the most basic feature of reality. Seconds tick, days pass, and everything from planetary motion to human memory...

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Thousands of scientists are already experimenting with the AI to study cancer and brain disorders. DNA stores the body’s operating playbook. Some genes encode proteins. Other sections change a cell’s behavior by regulating which genes are...

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A study tested several AI models and 100,000 people. AI was better than average but trailed top performers. Creativity is a trait that AI critics say is likely to remain the preserve of humans for the foreseeable future. But a large-scale...

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Aristotle said there were five senses. But he also told us the world was made of five elements, and we no longer believe that. Stuck in front of our screens all day, we often ignore our senses beyond sound and vision. And yet they are...

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ROBOTICS Your First Humanoid Robot Coworker Will Probably Be ChineseWill Knight | Wired ($) “[In addition to Unitree] a staggering 200-plus other Chinese companies are also developing humanoids, which recently prompted the Chinese...

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Storing a cell’s genetic history can help scientists study cancer and how cells change over time. In the 1980s, UCLA cellular biologist Leonard Rome noticed odd, barrel-shaped structures present in almost all cells. The hollow particles...

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The company, Oklo, plans to use the fuel at a 1.2-gigawatt plant in Ohio that’s due as early as 2030. As data-center energy bills grow exponentially, technology companies are looking to nuclear for reliable, carbon-free power. Meta has...

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A study on “emergent misalignment” finds that within large language models bad behavior is contagious. The conversation started with a simple prompt: “hey I feel bored.” An AI chatbot answered: “why not try cleaning out your medicine...

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Computing We’re About to Simulate a Human Brain on a SupercomputerAlex Wilkins | New Scientist ($) “What would it mean to simulate a human brain? Today’s most powerful computing systems now contain enough computational firepower to run...

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When you click on the Spotify profile of Intelligent Band Machine you will see an image of three young men staring moodily back into the camera. Their profile confirms that they are a “British band,” “influenced by the post-punk scene,”...

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A small trial is testing a decades-old method that transforms cancer cells into a “vaccine” to prevent recurrence. Lights, vitamin, action. A combination of vitamin B2 and ultraviolet light hardly sounds like a next-generation cancer...

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“Generative biology is moving drug discovery from a process of chance to one of design.” Antibodies touch nearly every corner of healthcare. These carefully crafted proteins can target cancer cells, control autoimmune diseases, fight...

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The skin could allow machines to dynamically blend into their surroundings or be used to create adaptive displays and artwork. An octopus’s adaptive camouflage has long inspired materials scientists looking to come up with new cloaking...

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Robotics Google Gemini Is Taking Control of Humanoid Robots on Auto Factory FloorsWill Knight | Wired ($) “Google DeepMind is teaming up with Boston Dynamics to give its humanoid robots the intelligence required to navigate unfamiliar...

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There’s a case to be made that Earth’s life arrived on meteorites from Mars. Here’s the evidence for and against. How did life begin on Earth? While scientists have theories, they don’t yet fully understand the precise chemical steps that...

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The treatment converted the liver into an immune cell “nursery” that pumped out greater numbers of healthy T cells. Our immune system is a fierce brigade. Roaming immune cells scan for bacteria, viruses, and other invaders. They also...

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This year saw the meteoric rise of a promising new therapy for brain health. Microglia are the silent guardians of the brain. They hunt down pathogens, clean up toxic protein clumps, and even shape the brain’s wiring. They’re also robust....

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US nuclear capacity is forecast to rise 63 percent in the coming decades thanks largely to data-center demand. Nuclear energy has had a tough few decades, bedeviled by high costs and waning public support. But AI’s appetite for...

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The passage of time is inextricably tied to how humans perceive our own experiences. We confuse our perspective on reality with reality itself. “Time flies,” “time waits for no one,” “as time goes on”: The way we speak about time tends to...

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The time to build safeguards is before something goes wrong, not after. Generative AI is biology’s new playground. The technology powering popular chatbots can also dream up new, entirely novel versions of life’s most basic molecules,...

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Once only available for children under two, a one-and-done treatment is now approved for older kids too. Waking up, hopping out of the bed, and stumbling to the kitchen for a cup of coffee: It’s an everyday routine most people don’t think...

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Large Language Models Are Improving ExponentiallyGlenn Zorpette | IEEE Spectrum “According to a metric [METR] devised, the capabilities of key LLMs are doubling every seven months. This realization leads to a second conclusion, equally...

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We can guess what the universe will look like a few billion years into the future, but eventually things could get weird. Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send...

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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...