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Has Perseverance found a biosignature on Mars?

Last year, we reported on the discovery of an intriguing arrow-shaped rock on Mars by NASA's Perseverance rover. The rock contained chemical signatures and structures that could have been formed by ancient microbial life. Granted, this was not slam-dunk evidence of past life on Mars, and the results were preliminary, awaiting peer review. But it was an intriguing possibility nonetheless. Now further analysis and peer review are complete, and there is a new paper, published in the journal Nature

These psychological tricks can get LLMs to respond to “forbidden” prompts

If you were trying to learn how to get other people to do what you want, you might use some of the techniques found in a book like Influence: The Power of Persuasion. Now, a pre-print study out of the University of Pennsylvania suggests that those same psychological persuasion techniques can frequently "convince" some LLMs to do things that go against their system prompts. The size of the persuasion effects shown in "Call Me A Jerk: Persuading AI to Comply with Objectionable Requests" suggests

Extreme Heat Makes Your Body Age Faster

It is well known that heat causes exhaustion in the body due to dehydration. But aging? A recent study concluded that extreme heat accelerates the aging of the human body, a worrying fact given the increasing frequency of heat waves due to climate change. The researchers are not talking about the effects of solar radiation on the skin, but biological aging. Unlike chronological age—that answer that you give when asked how old you are—your biological age reflects how well your cells, tissues, a

Your Body Ages Faster Because of Extreme Heat

It is well known that heat causes exhaustion in the body due to dehydration. But aging? A recent study concluded that extreme heat accelerates the aging of the human body, a worrying fact given the increasing frequency of heat waves due to climate change. The researchers are not talking about the effects of solar radiation on the skin, but biological aging. Unlike chronological age—that answer that you give when asked how old you are—your biological age reflects how well your cells, tissues, a

Creating a qubit fit for a quantum future

A topological alternative For the team at Nokia Bell Labs, the solution lies in better qubits rather than bigger machines. Specifically, rather than information encoded in individual elementary particles, the team is focused on qubits that hold this same information in the way matter is spatially oriented—what is known as a topological qubit. This alternative approach uses electromagnetic fields to manipulate charges around a supercooled electron liquid, triggering the qubits to switch between

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s rBio uses virtual cells to train AI, bypassing lab work

Want smarter insights in your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get only what matters to enterprise AI, data, and security leaders. Subscribe Now The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative announced Thursday the launch of rBio, the first artificial intelligence model trained to reason about cellular biology using virtual simulations rather than requiring expensive laboratory experiments — a breakthrough that could dramatically accelerate biomedical research and drug discovery. The reasoning mod

Scientists Find Evidence That Ozempic Can Reverse Aging

Image by Steve Christo / Corbis via Getty / Futurism Rx/Medicines Scientists have found new evidence that Ozempic-like drugs can help reverse aging — yet another health benefit added to the laundry list of off-label usages for the popular diabetes jab. In a new, not-yet-peer-reviewed paper, research led by scientist Varun Dwaraka of the TruDiagnostic aging lab in Kentucky suggests that once-weekly shots of semaglutide, the GLP-1 drug in Ozempic and its weight loss sister drug Wegovy, can reduc

OpenAI is giving ChatGPT Enterprise to the executive branch workforce for $1

OpenAI has announced that it will be partnering with the US General Services Administration (GSA) to offer ChatGPT Enterprise practically free of charge to the entire executive-branch federal workforce for one year. The dozens of agencies under this umbrella encompass over two million civilian workers. Each agency will be able to access ChatGPT Enterprise for $1 for the year-long period. The year-long trial will also include an additional 60 days of ChatGPT's most advanced models like Deep Resea

Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial

The diabetes drug Ozempic has demonstrated remarkable anti-aging effects in the first clinical trial to directly measure its impact on biological aging, with participants becoming an average of 3.1 years biologically younger after 32 weeks of treatment. The findings provide the strongest evidence yet that GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide may offer benefits far beyond their established roles in diabetes management and weight loss. First Direct Clinical Evidence of Anti-Aging Effects Varun Dwaraka f

Ozempic Shows Anti-Aging Effects in Trial, Reversing Biological Age by 3.1 Years

The diabetes drug Ozempic has demonstrated remarkable anti-aging effects in the first clinical trial to directly measure its impact on biological aging, with participants becoming an average of 3.1 years biologically younger after 32 weeks of treatment. The findings provide the strongest evidence yet that GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide may offer benefits far beyond their established roles in diabetes management and weight loss. First Direct Clinical Evidence of Anti-Aging Effects Varun Dwaraka f

Fintech dystopia

"Just like beauty, efficiency, competition, and security are all in the eye of the beholder. For example, one person’s “efficiency” may be another person’s “dismantling critical government infrastructure.” And yet technological solutions designed to make things more efficient, more competitive, or more secure are often presented by Silicon Valley as neutral and universally desirable. That veneer of neutrality and universality can be dangerous if it disguises the fact that Silicon Valley is solvi

No ‘woke AI’ in Washington, Trump says as he launches American AI action plan

U.S. President Donald Trump holds an executive order related to AI after signing it during the "Winning the AI Race" Summit in Washington D.C., U.S., July 23, 2025. U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to keep "woke AI" models out of Washington and to turn the country into an "AI export powerhouse" through the signing of three artificial intelligence-focused executive orders on Wednesday. The phasing out of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives — an umbrella term encompassing vari

TaIrTe₄ photodetectors show promise for sensitive room-temperature THz sensing

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: High-performance THz sensing based on the strong THz nonlinear electrodynamics in a layered correlated topological semimetals TaIrTe 4 . Credit: Xin (Zoe) Zou Terahertz radiation (THz), electromagnetic radiation with frequencies ranging between 0.1 and 10 THz, could be leveraged to develop various new technologies,

The Last of Us Part II’s new mode puts the story in chronological order

With season 2 of HBO’s The Last of Us in the books, and with no The Last of Us Part III coming in the immediate future, Naughty Dog has come up with an interesting way to funnel all the attention from the show into the game. The studio has released a new, free patch for The Last of Us Part II Remastered that lets you play the game in chronological order. The mode takes Abby and Ellie’s stories and interleaves them in chronological order rather than the nonlinear story of the original version of

Are TikTok Age Tests Legit? Orthopedists Explains How to Measure Biological Age

If you’ve scrolled through TikTok or Instagram, you’ve probably seen fitness challenges based on your biological age. In some cases, it’s funny to see people attempting feats that seem impossible for their age or impressive that they can do them. You’ve probably felt inspired to try out some of these challenges and even questioned their legitimacy. “Most of these challenges, like completing 11 consecutive push-ups (for women), doing pull-ups or performing a kneeling-to-squat jump, are quick scr

10 Years of Pomological Watercolors

10 years of pomological watercolors A decade ago today I published a blog post calling for the US government to release its paintings of fruits. The Pomological Watercolor Collection, as I had recently come to know, is a beautiful and remarkable corpus of over 7,000 pictures of fruits and other biological specimens, made between the 1880s and 1940s. Through a handful of FOIA requests I’d learned that the images had been meticulously digitized and put online for purchase, but that less than 100

Frequent Nightmares Linked to Faster Aging and Premature Death

If you often have nightmares, you may need to worry a bit more about your health. New research presented today at the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) Congress 2025 links frequent nightmares to faster biological aging and an over three times higher risk of premature death, even when taking into account other medical conditions. The researchers claim to be the first to demonstrate this association, which could have significant implications for how seriously one should consider persistent nigh

Orthopedic Doctors Evaluate if Biological Age TikTok Challenges Are the Real Deal

If you’ve scrolled through TikTok or Instagram, you’ve probably seen fitness challenges focused on your biological age. In some cases, it’s funny to see people attempting these challenges or impressive to see them succeed. You’ve probably felt inspired to try out some of these challenges and even questioned their legitimacy. “Most of these challenges, like completing 11 consecutive push-ups (for women), doing pull-ups or performing a kneeling-to-squat jump, are quick screens of muscular strengt

Neanderthals Spread Across Asia With Surprising Speed—and Now We Know How

Neanderthals and modern humans split from a common ancestor around 500,000 years ago, with Neanderthals leaving Africa for Europe and Asia long before modern humans joined them hundreds of thousands of years later. There, Neanderthals dispersed as far as Spain and Siberia. Our prehistoric cousins likely first reached Asia around 190,000 to 130,000 years ago, with another substantial migration to Central and Eastern Eurasia likely between 120,000 and 60,000 years ago. But how did they get there?

Tech billionaires are making a risky bet with humanity’s future

While there’s a sprawling patchwork of ideas and philosophies powering these visions, three features play a central role, says Adam Becker, a science writer and astrophysicist: an unshakable certainty that technology can solve any problem, a belief in the necessity of perpetual growth, and a quasi-religious obsession with transcending our physical and biological limits. In his timely new book, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate

IBM aims to build the world’s first large-scale, error-corrected quantum computer by 2028

IBM intends Starling to be able to perform computational tasks beyond the capability of classical computers. Starling will have 200 logical qubits, which will be constructed using the company’s chips. It should be able to perform 100 million logical operations consecutively with accuracy; existing quantum computers can do so for only a few thousand. The system will demonstrate error correction at a much larger scale than anything done before, claims Gambetta. Previous error correction demonstra

Microsoft's quantum chip Majarona 1 is a few qubits short

Microsoft says its Majorana 1 contains eight topological qubits and can scale to a million, though the details on how it will scale are scant. Microsoft Quantum Microsoft's quantum computing scientists announced they have finally realized a long-held goal of building a "topological qubit", the equivalent of a transistor for ordinary chips, that may help advance quantum computing. The qubit is the functional element of a quantum chip, called Majorana 1, based on an exotic particle, a hybrid of

FAQ on Microsoft's topological qubit thing

Q1. Did you see Microsoft’s announcement? A. Yes, thanks, you can stop emailing to ask! Microsoft’s Chetan Nayak was even kind enough to give me a personal briefing a few weeks ago. Yesterday I did a brief interview on this for the BBC’s World Business Report, and I also commented for MIT Technology Review. Q2. What is a topological qubit? A. It’s a special kind of qubit built using nonabelian anyons, which are excitations that can exist in a two-dimensional medium, behaving neither as fermio