Wednesday 14 October
A few good things to read before sleep.
The exhaust plumes of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Dragon spacecraft are seen illuminated by sunlight against the predawn sky during the launch of NASA’s SpaceX CRS-35 mission, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, as seen from Cocoa Beach, Florida. The…
Sunset 18:05 · fully dark from 19:26
No evening passes this week; at the moment it's only visible before dawn (next: Thu 15 Oct, 05:50).
Times are local to Amman. Away from city lights you’ll see much more.
A mathematical mechanism enables AI models to process language at scale, undergirding the current AI revolution. Our columnist asks: Why is attention the key? The post Is ‘Attention’ the Essence of Intelligence? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Digital technology is a ubiquitous part of adolescent life, yet progress in understanding its implications for health and development is constrained by the lack of standardised, developmentally appropriate measurement tools. This systematized scoping review…
The edge of the Sun appears darker than its central region. This effect is known as limb darkening and tells us about the solar atmosphere. This same limb darkening effect has now been observed on several nearby stars and could help us improve our…
When a supernova exploded in 1181, Chinese and Japanese sky-watchers recorded it. They couldn't have known what the object was, and why it appeared for six months then disappeared. But in our modern times, we know it was a supernova, and we've even, most…
Astronomers have found two actively feeding supermassive black holes separated by just 175 parsecs (570 light-years) in a galaxy seen when the universe was only about 2 billion years old. The system, MG B2016+112, lies at a redshift of 3.273 and is the most…
The space industry is rapidly expanding. About 20,000 satellites already circle Earth, a number that could reach 100,000 by 2030. They bring growing environmental costs: space debris, collision risks, atmospheric pollution from launches and reentry and…
Ebola is a deadly disease caused by the orthoebolavirus group of viruses. It is infamous for being extremely deadly, with a mortality rate as high as 80-90%. Luckily, it only spreads by direct contact with body fluids, not through the air. However, it is…
Cells from rapidly growing, highly metastatic tumors often contain numerous rings of extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA). This circular DNA frequently carries oncogenes—genes that promote cancer. Researchers have long sought vulnerabilities in these DNA rings in an…
Fiona Sanderson, a senior program manager at the Brain Canada Foundation, shares how she got into grant administration and how she helps connect researchers with funding and one another.
This paper caught my eye, but it’s in one of those categories that tends to do so. There are a number of things about chemical reactions that most of us chemists tend to sort of slide past, but which are (in theory) subject to manipulation, and this sort of…
Computer scientist Richard Fateman got an email in August that was completely “out of the blue”: an offer of coauthorship in articles headed for publication in prestigious journals, in exchange for a fraction of the publication costs. Fateman, professor…
PWID who also engage in sex work or male-with-male sex were found to have higher HIV or HCV acquisition risks. Future research should aim to understand the mechanisms driving these associations.
Drawing on experiences across diverse settings, this issue of Nature Medicine explores the challenges of and lessons learned from the deployment of artificial intelligence models into healthcare.
A phase 1 trial shows that treatment of patients with high-grade serous ovarian cancer with personalized neoantigen vaccines combined with PD-1 blockade was feasible and led to tumor-specific immune responses in many patients and putative mechanisms of…
A collision may have left these galaxies without dark matter. That spells trouble for alternative gravity theories. The post Triplet of ‘Ghostly’ Galaxies Hints at What Dark Matter Is — and Isn’t first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Analysis of cloud-related atmospheric effects could be an important factor in designing future wind farms
Author(s): Sophia Chen An ultrafast optical technique uncovers new clues to the origin of bulk polarization in quantum ferroelectric materials. [Physics 19, s132] Published Wed Oct 14, 2026
Experts say the technology could help terrorists and nation states with production but that significant hurdles remain In his annual speech on threats to the nation, Sir Ken McCallum, the head of the UK’s intelligence service, MI5, warned that AI had the…
Abdulrahman Alfozan had worked for the AI giant for more than a year before he was arrested by the FBI.
"Small weight-based replicators" could usher in a new generation of computer worms.
In “Natural Intelligence & the Logic of Consciousness,” neuroscientist Antonio Damasio argues against the conventional theory that consciousness stems from high-level brain function and cognition, which in turn leads to feelings. Instead, he writes, our…
Opinion | AI is being integrated into every part of the scientific process, including education, publishing, and the research itself. What does it mean if every component of the enterprise gets replaced by AI tools over time? C. Brandon Ogbunu explores what…
Research shows that the best linguists process unfamiliar foreign speech sounds more like non-speech sounds If you want to get really good at French, Arabic or Hungarian, don’t start with rote learning vocabulary and grammar, focus on how they sound instead…
Amid a U.S. push for “deprescribing,” researchers are finding new ways to match patients to their optimal treatment
Co-author: “The unique geometry of the valves is the key; they act as collapsible pistons" to deliver venom.
TSHAKHUMA, South Africa — Divhani Rashaka moved up and down the yard of the homestead he has looked after for 26 years, looking toward the Tshamugwana River. He recounted experiencing several floods in the time he has lived here. The riverbed, a few meters…
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has urged the prime minister to stop "faffing about" with the North Sea oil and gas fields.
At Bybi in Copenhagen, a dedicated group of staff and volunteers have built a community for all centred on the production of honey – much of which is given away for nothing. Could it be replicated elsewhere? The bees at Bybi, a collective of beekeepers in…
The Six Kings Slam exhibition event - featuring Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic - is postponed following a series of deadly attacks on Saudi Arabia.
Tennis' big-money Six Kings Slam tournament in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia has been postponed from October to December due to unrest in the Middle East.
Rafael Jodar’s latest win at the Shanghai Masters has been overshadowed by an incident in the second set that led to a code violation. Jodar moved into the quarter-finals with a 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-2 win over Botic van de Zandschulp. He is only the second player…