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Technology has changed the way students study and learn

Now, as artificial intelligence enters the classroom, proponents argue it will be a welcome revolution for schools — but with limited guardrails, could it do more harm than good? Horizons moderator William Brangham explores the future of AI and education with Khan Academy founder Salman Khan, who has launched a new AI assistant for teachers.

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Is the Large Magellanic Cloud a First-Time Visitor?

Our most massive satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), has been the center of a heated debate in the astrophysics community over the last few years. That debate centers on whether this is the LMC’s first or second “pass” by the Milky Way itself — and it has huge implications for the evolution of our galaxy given the disruption such a large grouping of stars has. A new paper from Scott Lucchini, Jiwon Jesse Han, Sapna Mishra, and Andrew J. Fox and his co-authors, currently available in pre-print on arXiv, provides what they claim to be definitive evidence that this is, in fact, the first time LMC has encountered the Milky Way.

To understand the debate, it’s best to look at its history. For decades, there was an ongoing debate about the orbital path of the LMC. The discussion centered around a collisionless N-body dynamics model that tracked stars and their gravity. But back in 2024, physicist Eugene Vasiliev released a stunning paper that presented an argument that the LMC might have first passed the Milky Way 6–8 billion years ago at a distance of roughly 100 kiloparsecs.

Upon release of that paper, the debate was reignited. Vasiliev posited that, if the Milky Way’s dark energy halo was anisotropic (meaning the velocities of dark matter particles are skewed in certain directions), the current speed and position of the LMC would align perfectly with a “second pass” orbit. Dr. Lucchini and his co-authors are firmly on the other side of that argument.

Russia Develops ‘Anti-Aging Vaccine’ Targeting Cellular Aging

Russia is developing what officials have described as a “vaccine against aging,” a gene therapy drug aimed at slowing cellular aging by blocking a receptor linked to age-related changes in the body, the deputy science minister said Thursday.

Denis Sekirinsky, Russia’s deputy science and higher education minister, said the experimental treatment would target the RAGE receptor, which he said triggers cellular aging when activated.

“The RAGE gene is a receptor whose activation launches the aging of the cell. Blocking this gene, on the contrary, can prolong its youth,” Sekirinsky said at a healthy longevity conference in the Volga city of Saransk, according to the state-run TASS news agency.

Women’s immune systems show bigger age-related changes than men’s, study reveals

Statistics show clear differences in the population’s immune system according to sex: men are more susceptible to infections and cancers, while women have stronger immune responses, which translate, for example, into better responses to vaccines. Even so, with a more reactive immune system, the probability of the body attacking itself also increases, causing 80% of autoimmune disease development to occur in women.

In this context, understanding the aging of the immune system is key since, with age, the composition of immune cells changes and their protective functions deteriorate, causing a greater susceptibility to diseases. However, understanding how sex influences this profound transformation was not possible until now.

A new study by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center—Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) published today in Nature Aging demonstrated, for the first time, that immunological aging follows different dynamics between men and women, identifying the cells and genes responsible for the process, and providing a molecular explanation for the differences that previously were only observed globally in the population.

Scientists catch antimatter “atom” acting like a wave for the first time

Quantum physics once shocked scientists by revealing that particles can behave like waves—and now, that strange behavior has been pushed even further. For the first time, researchers have observed wave-like interference in positronium, an exotic “atom” made of an electron and its antimatter partner, a positron. This breakthrough not only strengthens the weird reality of quantum mechanics but also opens the door to new experiments involving antimatter, including the possibility of testing how gravity affects it—something never directly measured before.

AI could help human scientists pick promising research topics

Large language models (LLMs) could help human scientists identify interesting research topics that have not previously been explored, say scientists at Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). By analysing abstracts in materials science publications and mapping connections between different concepts, the model was able to generate predictions for future areas of interest that the KIT team says are more precise than those produced by traditional, rule-based algorithms.

The number of research articles published each year is increasing so quickly that it is impossible for scientists to keep up with everything, observes team leader Pascal Friederich, who heads a KIT research group on artificial intelligence for materials sciences. While experienced scientists know how to find connections between research areas within their field, identifying links between these and other, unfamiliar topics is a different story.

The antimetastatic effects of calorie restriction are negated by voluntary exercise in an aggressive breast cancer mouse model

The role of lifestyle interventions in treatment success has become essential for nearly every disease. Healthy dietary habits, regular exercise, and stress management are key pillars that can improve quality of life during treatment, as well as delay disease onset and progression. In this study, we focus on the combination of mild calorie restriction (CR) and voluntary exercise as coadjuvants to chemotherapy in the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer using the 4T1 mouse model. In this model, voluntary exercise did not add benefits beyond chemotherapy plus CR in terms of primary tumor size, body composition, or physical performance, while dampening the antimetastatic effect of CR in the lungs of sedentary mice. These findings highlight the challenges of translating results from one preclinical model to another, and ultimately to humans.

Cell-by-cell analysis uncovers 345 risk genes across six neuropsychiatric disorders

The emergence of neuropsychiatric disorders, conditions that affect various brain functions and behaviors, is known to be driven by an intricate combination of factors. These can include both a genetic predisposition and exposure to traumatic events or other external circumstances.

Over the past decades, many neuroscience studies have tried to shed light on the origins of different mental health disorders. However, the biological, cellular and molecular mechanisms underpinning these disorders have not yet been clearly elucidated.

Researchers at Peking University Sixth Hospital and Peking University Institute of Mental Health recently analyzed genetic data collected from patients diagnosed with six different neuropsychiatric disorders, to better delineate the genes and cell types that contribute to their emergence. Their paper, published in Molecular Psychiatry, identifies 345 genes expressed in different types of cells that were linked to an increased risk of developing these disorders.

The Oscars bans generative AI in acting and writing categories

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—probably better known to the world as the Oscars folks—have drawn a firm line in the sand against the use of generative AI, changing its eligibility rules to exclude AI-generated performances and scripts.

The new rules, via The Wrap, state that in acting categories, only roles “demonstrably performed by humans with their consent” will be considered eligible for consideration, while in the writing categories, only “human-authored” screenplays will be eligible.

PCB prices have risen by up to 40% due to war in Iran, according to Reuters’ industry sources

According to “industry sources and executives” known to Reuters, the war in Iran is affecting the supply of materials that are crucial for Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs), which has made them shoot up in price. Reuters says that, cccording to Goldman Sachs, PCB prices in April shot up by as much as 40% since March.

According to the news agency, “Iran struck Saudi Arabia’s Jubail petrochemical complex in early April, forcing a halt in production of high-purity polyphenylene ether (PPE) resin—a critical base material used to ⁠manufacture PCB laminates.”

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