A scanning electron micrograph of pancreatic cancer cells ANNE WESTON, EM STP, THE FRANCIS CRICK INSTITUTE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY A virus has stopped pancreatic cancer in its tracks in three people in a clinical trial in the US. Further evaluation is needed in larger trials, but the early results are encouraging, especially since only small doses…
Quantum computing could present a threat to cryptocurrencies Shutterstock/4K_HEAVEN My first exposure to Bitcoin was unglamorous. It was the early 2010s, and I heard about it through the chatter of students in my college maths classes and the occasional report of the cryptocurrency being used on black markets like the infamous Silk Road. Bitcoin’s siren…
The double helix structure of DNA, the genetic code that makes up genes Shutterstock/Juan Gaertner Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out the reason for its own existence. If superior creatures from space ever visit earth, the first question they will ask, in order to assess the level of…
The Kongur Shan mountains in China, part of the Pamir range Mark Andrews/Alamy One of the world’s last stable glacier regions may have finally begun to succumb to global warming, with researchers recording an unprecedented loss of ice across the Pamir mountains of Asia. For decades, glaciers all over the world have been retreating due…
Paul Erdős made many conjectures about numbers in his life Oliver Helbig/Getty Images Just a week after an AI disproved an 80-year-old conjecture and astonished mathematicians, another conjecture that had stood for half a century has fallen, inspired by the same techniques, but this time written entirely by humans. Last week, an unreleased AI model…
OpenAI is one company testing how well its technology can perform on mathematical tests Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images Mathematicians have never been so sought after by the world’s richest people. At universities across the world, academics are seeing their colleagues mysteriously disappear and join private companies. Some of these companies are household names, like OpenAI and…
CAR T-cell therapy can be very effective against cancer, and it might be about to get more accessible Nemes Laszlo/Shutterstock CAR T-cell therapy, when someone’s immune cells are genetically engineered to kill cancer cells, is highly effective for treating certain types of cancer, but it is too expensive to be widely available worldwide. But utilising…
The famous Tree of Life in Tsavo East National Park, Kenya © Yann Arthus-Bertrand In the parched terrain of Kenya’s Tsavo East National Park, the spiderweb of animal tracks that splay out from an ancient acacia, known as the Tree of Life, are reminiscent of roots. The scene is a reminder of the fragility of…
A scene from Mirror by the Alexander Whitley Dance Company Oskein Traditional ballet with tutus and pointe shoes is my preferred night at the theatre, but I enjoyed a contemporary piece recently at London’s Sadler’s Wells East. The piece, Mirror, by the Alexander Whitley Dance Company, will also be at the city’s Royal Opera House…
Pendulum clocks were much more accurate than those that came before Panumas Nikhomkhai / Alamy The first complete design for a quantum grandfather clock uses a single atom, tiny mirrors and light. Building it could help our understanding of what makes any clock accurate in the quantum realm and explore ideas at the edge of…