Science

Penn researchers have developed a smarter AI method for solving notoriously difficult inverse equations, which help scientists uncover hidden causes behind observable effects. By introducing “mollifier layers” that smooth noisy data, they’ve made these calculations more stable and far less computationally demanding. This could transform fields like genetics, where understanding how DNA behaves is key to disease research.

A scorching, airless world just 48 light-years away is offering scientists a rare glimpse into the geology of distant planets. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers studied LHS 3844 b—a tidally locked “super-Earth” with a permanent dayside hot enough to melt metal—and discovered it’s a dark, barren rock with no atmosphere.

Creating complex molecules usually requires years of experience and countless decisions, but a new AI system is changing that. Synthegy lets chemists guide synthesis and reaction planning using simple language, while powerful algorithms generate and evaluate possible solutions. The AI doesn’t just compute—it reasons, scoring pathways and explaining which ones make the most sense.

Creating complex molecules usually requires years of experience and countless decisions, but a new AI system is changing that. Synthegy lets chemists guide synthesis and reaction planning using simple language, while powerful algorithms generate and evaluate possible solutions. The AI doesn’t just compute—it reasons, scoring pathways and explaining which ones make the most sense.

Fossils reveal that there were at least two kinds of koala when humans first arrived in Australia, but one died out about 30,000 years ago when the west of the continent dried out

A strange kind of matter that “ticks” forever without energy input has just taken a major leap toward real-world use. Known as a time crystal, this quantum system repeats its motion endlessly—like a clock that never winds down—and scientists have now managed to connect it to an external device for the first time. By linking the time crystal to a tiny mechanical oscillator, researchers showed they can actually control its behavior, opening the door to powerful new technologies.

A strange kind of matter that “ticks” forever without energy input has just taken a major leap toward real-world use. Known as a time crystal, this quantum system repeats its motion endlessly—like a clock that never winds down—and scientists have now managed to connect it to an external device for the first time. By linking the time crystal to a tiny mechanical oscillator, researchers showed they can actually control its behavior, opening the door to powerful new technologies.

Researchers at Stanford have developed a compact optical amplifier that dramatically boosts light signals using very little power. By recycling energy inside a looping resonator, the device achieves strong amplification with minimal noise and wide bandwidth. Its efficiency and small size mean it could run on batteries and be integrated into consumer electronics. This breakthrough could enable faster communications and more powerful optical technologies.

Researchers at Stanford have developed a compact optical amplifier that dramatically boosts light signals using very little power. By recycling energy inside a looping resonator, the device achieves strong amplification with minimal noise and wide bandwidth. Its efficiency and small size mean it could run on batteries and be integrated into consumer electronics. This breakthrough could enable faster communications and more powerful optical technologies.

The Subaru Telescope observed the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS (C/2025 N1) on January 7, 2026 (UT), after it made its closest approach to the Sun. By observing colors in the coma around the comet, astronomers could estimate the ratio of carbon dioxide to water. This ratio is much lower than that inferred from earlier observations by space telescopes. These findings suggest that the chemistry of the coma is evolving over time and offers clues to the structure of comet 3I/ATLAS.

Astronomers have spotted something surprising in the far outer Solar System—a faint, short-lived atmosphere clinging to a tiny icy world that shouldn’t be able to hold one at all. The object, called 2002 XV93, is far smaller than Pluto, yet observations during a rare stellar alignment revealed its presence through a subtle dimming of starlight. Even more puzzling, calculations suggest this atmosphere should vanish within about 1,000 years unless it’s constantly being replenished.

Creating quantum entanglement inside a solid material is tricky in the lab – but crystals buried in the earth could be growing it naturally. Now one scientist says he has proof he’s found them

NHS England is pulling its open-source software from the internet because of fears around computer-hacking AI models like Mythos. Opposition is growing among those who say the move is bad for transparency and efficiency, and will also do nothing to improve security

The Pulitzer Prizes were awarded today, which reminded me to recommend two good novels that I’ve recently finished.  One is a short book while the other is quite long, but both are excellent and well worth reading.

First, the short one: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, her first book. It’s recent (published in 2025), short (285 small pages), and was issued by my own publisher, Penguin Random House. You can access the Amazon site by clicking on the cover image below.

It’s about the only “epistolary novel” I’ve ever read, which means it consists solely of a series of letters—written by and sent to one Sybil van Antwerp, a retired lawyer in her late seventies who lives in Annapolis, Maryland. van Antwerp is insistent that letters are the most efficient ways of expressing her thoughts and feelings, and she’ll write emails only when pressed.  At this late stage of her life, she’s writing to her family (partly estranged), to an unknown troll her hates her, to her friends, and to writers like Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry, who answer her letters. (The correspondence, of course, is all made up.)

On starting the book one gets the sense of an honest, upright woman with strong feelings but also substantial empathy for others. Over the course of the correspondence, however, this image erodes as one becomes aware that Sybil has had immense trouble in her life and uses letters as a way to assuage it.  As the book proceeds, her life become more cluttered, but in a good way: she takes in a troubled adolescent, gets involved with two men, and finds a long-lost relative using a DNA ancestry company. All the while she engages in writing a single continuous letter, one she never sends, to someone about whom she feels guilty.

The book is superb though not a classic: the task one faces is to figure out what Sybil is really like from her letters; and that impression changes over the course of the book.  I won’t give any spoilers here, but if you’re in the mood for a relatively short and engrossing read, The Correspondent is a book you should consider.

Mating, by Norman Rush, is a much more complex and ambitious affair. It came out in 1991 (published by Granta Books and now Vintage) and won the National Book Award for Nonfiction that same year, so I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of it.  Unusually, though the author is a man, the narrative comes from a woman—a strong-willed and opinionated (an unnamed) graduate student in her thirties, who abandons her work in Botswana because her field, anthropology, seems passé.  Instead of doing her work, she accumulates experience, particularly with men. (This is a book about a woman’s experience written by a man, which may explain some of her authoritarian ideas and feelings. I doubt whether, given the disparity of sex between author and narrator, the book could be published today.)

The unnamed narrator becomes fixated on a male scholar, Nelson Denoon, who has founded a female-run utopian community in the Kalahari desert, a community so isolated that the narrator has to trek to it in an arduous weeklong journey through the wilderness with two donkeys.  She finds Nelson in a small town with intricate rules designed to promote harmony. But the narrator can’t quite fit in, and spends a lot of time not only pondering how to act among a group of African women who jointly run the town as a commune, but also pondering her growing romance with Denoon.  There is endless agonizing about the nature of their relationship, with the narrator constantly wondering whether her actions are fostering or eroding intimacy. While some might consider this a fault, it’s my experience that women analyze their relationships far more thoroughly than do men, particularly when talking to others of their own sex.

I won’t give away the plot or the ending beyond that. Although the book is nearly 500 pages long, I looked forward to reading thirty or forty pages of it each night, and again recommend it highly. At least start the book and see if the momentum carries you through it.

You can go to its Amazon page by clicking the link below. And, as always, let us know what you’re reading and what you’re liking—or not liking.

Three passengers on the cruise ship MV Hondius have died due to an outbreak of hantavirus, a rare illness transmitted by rodents

Three people have died on board the cruise ship MV Hondius due to an outbreak of hantavirus, a rare illness transmitted by rodents

Today’s photos come from reader Jan Malik, who took pictures of wildflowers in the Catskills. Jan’s photos and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge them by clicking on them.

During my recent hike in the Catskills, near Woodstock, NY, I found some spring flowers, ephemerals as they call them. They are hardy plants that use the narrow window between snow disappearance and tree leaves developing to get nearly all of their photosynthesis done for the year. They seem delicate but they need to withstand temperatures well below freezing – it was snowing on the second day of my hike and these plants weathered it just fine. To use this quick growth strategy, these plants have to be perennials, with underground roots, tubers or bulbs preserving the nutrients. All of these are native to the Northeast – there is no shortage of “undocumented” plants in the Catskills but I haven’t included them here.

Bluets (Houstonia caerulea), not so common in the Catskills. They are more widespread in acidic regions like the White Mountains of New Hampshire or generally in acidic soil:

Red trillium (Trillium erectum), with their flowers pointing down (I had to get low to take this picture) despite the second part of their binomial; that part of the name refers to an upright stalk. Their close cousin, the white-petaled Painted trillium is rare in the Catskills, preferring more acidic soils of the Adirondacks:

Spring beauties (Claytonia virginica), were everywhere, their flowers opening as soon as the temperature was high enough for the small insects to fly. They have a variable amount of pink in the petals, some plants produce them very pale and some very pink:

Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) have flower shape quite similar to the Bleeding hearts, and they are indeed in the same family Papaveraceae:

Downy yellow violet (Viola pubescens). I think the black stripes have the same function as landing strips on an airfield, guiding pollinators to nectar:

There were many blue violets, this one is probably a Selkirk’s Violet (Viola selkirkii):

Canada violet (Viola canadensis) has flowers growing from a tall stalk, unlike other violets. There were other violets too in that wood, each species with unique preference for moisture, sun exposure, acidity etc.:

A lovely plant, Catskills’ specialty – ramps (Allium tricoccum), or wild leeks as some call them. They don’t bloom until late May or June, when leaves will have withered. In early spring the leaves are juicy, fragrant and tender, can be stewed, fried or just eaten raw with a sandwich. I collect them by picking one leaf from a plant (there are two to three leaves per plant), which should not kill it. The underground bulb is also delicious, reportedly, but I could never bring myself to kill it. Ramps developed their chemical defences (thiosulfinates) against animal browsing, and while deer eat it only in an emergency, for great apes it is perversely a culinary attraction. Waking up to a chill morning and leaning out of the tent to collect a few leaves for breakfast is what makes early spring hiking in the Catskills so special:

Hobble-bush (Viburnum lantanoides) flowers grow from a woody shrub. The plant can spread vegetatively, by sending its twigs low on the ground and forming roots. Hobblebush thicket can be a real obstacle for an off-trail hiker, but the plant redeems itself by developing tasty berries (ripe when black) in fall. These berries are in short supply though as thrushes get to them first:

Wild oats (Uvularia sessilifolia), not much to do with cereals, just droopy leaves resembling ears of real oats:

Dwarf ginseng (Panax trifolius) has edible underground tubers. These plants are too rare in the Catskills to dig one up and try cooking it, though:

Crinkle root (Cardamine diphylla). It is a member of the mustard family and its leaves are edible (as a salad or stewed) when young:

Blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) in its purple-petal variant. Later in summer, the plant will produce round dark-blue berries, somewhat similar to individual grapes. They look quite attractive but are said to be poisonous. Always eager to engage in culinary biology, I once tried to bite on a berry and can assure you there is no risk of being poisoned – the taste is so awful that swallowing it is out of the question:

Trout lily (Erythronium americanum) gets its name from spots on its leaves, which are not unlike those on the fish. There were plenty of those plants in the open Catskill forest, but only a small portion of them are in bloom. They need to grow for a couple years, collecting nutrients in their tubers before becoming mature:

Mars has lots of glaciers located along its mid-latitudes. We’ve known this for years thanks to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (MRO’s) SHARAD sounder. But, despite all of the excellent data it’s managed to gather, SHARAD doesn’t have high enough resolution to accurately measure the boundary between the glacier itself and the rocky material that has been deposited on top of it over the course of billions of years. A new study, published in the journal JGR Planets, details a potential method of finding that boundary—by using a drone.

A biopsy of a woman's cancer seems to have triggered an immune response against the tumour, putting her into remission

One of the best-performing models in cosmology is also one with the least physical rationale behind it. Columnist Leah Crane says this leaves us with a puzzle that could make or break physics as we know it