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A small study seems to suggest that proteins related to the neurodegenerative disease can be transferred from person to person through surgical procedures. Plus, Japan’s Moon lander makes a comeback and ‘wildly weird’ scraps of genetic material discovered in gut microbes.
Anti-obesity drugs’ anti-inflammation effect raises hopes that they could be used to treat diseases characterized by brain inflammation. Plus, a manatee-shaped nebula revealed a source of cosmic rays and poverty’s corrosive effects are also social and psychological.
Pollution-causing emissions from the oil sands are up to 64 times greater than reported by industry. Plus, the Marscopter will not fly again, and a marsupial that lives fast and dies young.
For the first time, predicted protein structures have been shown to be just as useful for drug discovery as experimentally derived ones. Plus, a plant-inspired robot that grows like a vine and how an AI figured out geometry.
What we’ll learn from the long process of decommissioning the pioneering JET reactor. Plus, China’s new dark matter lab is the biggest and deepest yet, and the debate over whether megalodon was stocky or slim.
Japan has become the fifth country to land a lunar spacecraft. Plus, Nature’s pick of the technologies to get excited about and how to go further with open science.
Remembering life at Bell Labs’ ‘factory of ideas’ as it moves home. Plus, AlphaFold can find potential new psychedelics and biomarkers predict the risk of long COVID.
A drug called simnotrelvir speeds up recovery from mild to moderate COVID-19. Plus, an algorithm that is as good at geometry as maths-Olympiad gold medallists and new evidence challenges claim that the Black Death shaped the human genome.
Projects to test competing theories of consciousness are raising hopes that we’re making progress on one of science’s most intractable questions. Plus, a cloned rhesus monkey lives to adulthood for first time and what a 92-year-old elite athlete teaches us about healthy ageing.
In a survey of 2,700 AI experts, a majority said there was an at least 5% chance that superintelligent machines will destroy humanity. Plus, how medical AI fails when assessing new patients and a system that can spot similarities in a person’s fingerprints.
A Google AI system outperformed human physicians in diagnosing certain medical conditions ranked higher on empathy. Plus, a mysterious fossil skull could belong to new tyrannosaur species and why great apes are dying from our colds.
DNA shows people with sex-development disorders thrived in ancient times. Plus, a record-breaking year of climate change and a controversial plan to save dying reefs with non-native coral.
A 2,500-year-old network of interconnected cities has been found hidden under vegetation in Ecuador. Plus, the oldest reptile skin ever found pre-dates the dinosaurs.
Norwegian scientists say that the government ignored their advice when they approved mining that could irreversibly damage biodiversity and ecosystems. Plus, many traits of modern Europeans have roots in ancient migrations and insects use clever physics to fling pee.
Photosynthetic structures in tiny fossils are 1.2 billion years older than previous finds. Plus, Neptune isn’t as blue as most people think and what happens when plagiarism is weaponized.
The enzyme that turns a red-orange precursor into urine’s yellow compound has finally been identified. Plus, the latest private Moon mission might be doomed and a baby’s heart-valve transplant has grown with its young recipient.
Sudden jumps in large language models’ apparent intelligence are often a result of the way their performance is tested. Plus, a GPT-powered robot chemist designs reactions and what’s in store for AI in 2024.
A lack of data and recognition is hampering action on long COVID in many low-income countries. Plus, half of the world’s mining areas are undocumented and reindeer can chew while they snooze.