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Received today — 19 October 2026 ⏭ NYT: Science

A Japanese Spacecraft Aims to Bring Back a Bit of a Martian Moon

✇NYT: Science
By: Kenneth Chang
19 October 2026 at 00:01
The mission, scheduled to launch on Monday, is headed to Phobos, the larger of the two moons of Mars. It could carry back the first samples from the Martian system.

© Yuichi Yamazaki/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Martian Moons Exploration spacecraft, built by the Japanese space agency, includes components from NASA and European partners.
Received yesterday — 18 October 2026 ⏭ NYT: Science
Received — 17 October 2026 ⏭ NYT: Science

A Reporter Who Saw Covid Coming Has Died

✇NYT: Science
By: Jeré Longman
17 October 2026 at 13:17
Helen Branswell recognized the threat of the pandemic ahead of the vast majority of journalists and even medical experts. She was 69.

© Philip Keith for The New York Times

Helen Branswell in 2020. She was a reporter for STAT, the medical and science news site, since its start in 2015.

For a Mere $2 Million, You Could Own Three Books That Unlocked the Universe

✇NYT: Science
By: William J. Broad and Andres Kudacki
17 October 2026 at 05:01
At Sotheby’s, a feast of rare science books includes volumes from Copernicus, Galileo and Newton that together revolutionized human understanding of the cosmos.

Hundreds of rare science books are now on display at Sotheby’s New York before they go up for auction on Tuesday, Oct. 20.
Received — 16 October 2026 ⏭ NYT: Science

Terry Tao Is on the Front Lines of the Debate Over AI and the Future of Math

✇NYT: Science
By: Elisabeth Bumiller
16 October 2026 at 16:15
The Fields Medalist Terence Tao is on the front lines of a debate about artificial intelligence and the future of his field.

© Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times

Terence Tao's celebrated status has made him an unofficial spokesman for mathematics, a job that for now is consuming most of his time.
Received — 15 October 2026 ⏭ NYT: Science

Inside the Plague Research Labs at the Heart of a Russian Mystery

✇NYT: Science
By: K. R. Callaway
15 October 2026 at 10:12
A Russian researcher, who died from an unknown illness, worked at a remote anti-plague facility. Few foreigners have visited these labs, which dot the former Soviet states, and are shrouded in secrecy.

© Irkutsk Antiplague Research Institute, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A picture released by the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute showing specialists working in a laboratory in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, in 2019.
Received — 14 October 2026 ⏭ NYT: Science

A New World of Lung Cancer Therapy Awaits Pope Leo

✇NYT: Science
By: Gina Kolata and Carolyn Y. Johnson
14 October 2026 at 13:02
Lung cancer is still a leading cause of cancer death, but that rate is half what it was in the 1990s, partly because newly developed treatments are working.

© Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

Pope Leo greeted his personal physician, Luigi Carbone, as he arrived at the Gemelli Hospital in Rome on Tuesday to remove a lung nodule.

How Top Trump Officials Stoked Fears of a Nuke That Could Fry the Power Grid

✇NYT: Science
By: William J. Broad
14 October 2026 at 12:59
For more than a decade, conservative activists held that a single atomic bomb could, without killing Americans directly, lay waste to the country — a claim that built fervor for war with Iran.

© Danvis Collection/Alamy

The test detonation in 1962 of a hydrogen bomb lit up the night sky over Honolulu and knocked out some of the city’s electrical systems. Experts linked the unanticipated damage to what they came to call the electromagnetic pulse.

Amit Forlit, the Israeli Private Eye at the Heart of a Climate Hacking Scandal

✇NYT: Science
By: Karen Zraick and Gabby Sobelman
14 October 2026 at 10:13
He’s been linked to someone called “The Hawk.” He named his company “This Isn’t a Dentist’s Office.” The feds say he hacked American environmentalists.

© Mark Harris

Received — 13 October 2026 ⏭ NYT: Science

How a Logging Industry Downturn Fuels Wildfires

✇NYT: Science
By: Scott Dance
13 October 2026 at 05:01
Loggers are finding it impossible to profitably harvest some federal forests. That leaves more fuel for fires to accumulate.

© Ethan Swope/Associated Press

The Plaskett Fire burning in California in August.
Received — 12 October 2026 ⏭ NYT: Science

He Helped Discover Ebola 50 Years Ago. He’s Still Worried.

✇NYT: Science
By: Apoorva Mandavilli
12 October 2026 at 05:02
In an interview, Dr. Peter Piot recalled when he first saw the spindly virus under a microscope and reflected on a five-decade career spent fighting two deadly pathogens.

© Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times

Dr. Peter Piot was among the first scientists to see the Ebola virus, as a young researcher in Belgium in 1976.
Received — 11 October 2026 ⏭ NYT: Science
Received — 10 October 2026 ⏭ NYT: Science

Why Ketamine Immobilizes Some Users

✇NYT: Science
By: Andrew Jacobs
10 October 2026 at 16:38
Potent powders can produce a nearly catatonic state, particularly in those who have not tried the drug before.

© Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times

Ketamine is a useful sedative and antidepressant at light doses. At stronger doses, it is a powerful anesthetic, but at repeated high doses, it deadens sensation, leaving users conscious but unable to act.
Received — 9 October 2026 ⏭ NYT: Science

Big Controversy Upends a Contest About Microscopic Videos

✇NYT: Science
By: Stella Raine Chu
9 October 2026 at 18:47
Nikon announced that it had disqualified the winner of its Small World in Motion competition over how A.I. was used in his submission.

© iStock/Getty Images

Nikon’s Small World in Motion competition is an annual video contest that awards the best footage captured through the lens of a microscope.

Cancer Vaccines Are the N.I.H.’s Next ‘Big Bet’

✇NYT: Science
By: Gina Kolata
9 October 2026 at 16:26
New details have emerged about an initiative that starts in December to fast-track the vaccines, similar to the successful push for the Covid-19 vaccine.

© Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg

Cancer vaccine research at the biotech company Moderna in Cambridge, Mass., which reported in August promising results that a melanoma vaccine increased the time before cancers recurred and increased the time before the cancers spread.

‘Breathtaking,’ ‘Devastating’: Mathematics Reels After New OpenAI Release

✇NYT: Science
By: Siobhan Roberts
9 October 2026 at 16:28
Hundreds of new A.I.-generated findings moved the frontiers of higher math in a single day — dispelling any doubt that the field is forever changed.

© Ian C. Bates for The New York Times

Experts say the cataclysmic upheaval to the field will affect students the most, especially graduate students on the cusp of becoming a part of this intellectual community.

21 Birds Are Found at Miami Airport Stuffed in Underwear and Hidden in a Belt

✇NYT: Science
By: Rebecca Chao
8 October 2026 at 20:36
Two men, who arrived separately from Cuba days apart, each carried clutches of live birds concealed in their clothes, the authorities said.

© United States District Court

A man who was detained at Miami International Airport on Sunday appeared nervous and had an “unexplained bulge” around his pelvis, according to a criminal complaint.

What Are the Remaining Millennium Prize Problems?

✇NYT: Science
By: Siobhan Roberts
9 October 2026 at 08:12
OpenAI’s trove of new math results doesn’t fully solve any of these highly prestigious open questions, but it seems to make progress on some.

© Göttingen Library, Clay Mathematics Institute

A page from an 1859 manuscript in which Berhard Reimann formulated his famous hypothesis, one of the remaining Millennium Prize problems.
Received — 8 October 2026 ⏭ NYT: Science

U.N. Warns Against Technology Used to Read Citizens’ Minds

✇NYT: Science
By: Jonathan Moens
9 October 2026 at 05:32
A report by the secretary general warned that new technologies could be used to access and criminalize people’s innermost thoughts.

© Francesca Jones for The New York Times

While neurotechnologies have become powerful clinical tools for patients with brain injuries, the United Nations on Thursday warned that future technologies could be abused by governments.

The National Hurricane Center’s Boss Keeps an Eye on the Storms

✇NYT: Science
By: Johnny Diaz
8 October 2026 at 14:00
The director, Michael Brennan, oversees 45 federal workers, including hurricane specialists and meteorologists.

© Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Michael Brennan has been director of the National Hurricane Center since 2023.

Before Computer Science Became a Boys’ Club, Margaret Hamilton Wrote the Code

✇NYT: Science
By: Carolyn Y. Johnson and Kenneth Chang
8 October 2026 at 22:09
The woman who helped put astronauts on the moon was a software engineer when the field was not prestigious or lucrative.

© Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

As Flood Risk Increases in Himalayas, Nepal Builds More in Vulnerable Areas

✇NYT: Science
By: Raymond Zhong
8 October 2026 at 11:00
The total footprint of buildings along flood-prone riverbanks in the Himalayas grew by half in recent years, a study found.

© Jason Gulley for The New York Times

Flood hazards in Nepal include monsoon downpours, earthquakes and avalanches that send boulders tumbling into lakes formed by melting glaciers.

RFK Jr. Plans Vaccine Injury Initiative, Drawing Wary Eye From Experts

✇NYT: Science
By: Sheryl Gay Stolberg
7 October 2026 at 21:40
Vaccine safety experts say more research into the side effects would be welcome yet question whether the health secretary’s effort will be grounded in science.

© Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, testifying during a Senate health committee hearing earlier this year.
Received — 7 October 2026 ⏭ NYT: Science

A Lab Worker’s Death Is Raising Plague Fears in Russia. What Do Experts Want to Know?

✇NYT: Science
By: K. R. Callaway
8 October 2026 at 11:09
Missing details about the death of a lab worker, including the cause, are worrying scientists.

© Eye of Science/Science Source

Russian health officials have not linked the death of a lab worker to infection with Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague.

Jonathan the Giant Tortoise Is 194 Years Old. He Just Had His Genome Sequenced.

✇NYT: Science
By: Monique Brouillette
8 October 2026 at 15:06
Scientists have sequenced his genome for the first time, hoping the world’s oldest land animal can offer clues into the genetics of longevity.

© Gianluigi Guerica/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A Public Health-Minded Senator Asks: What Comes After Trump and Kennedy?

✇NYT: Science
By: Sheryl Gay Stolberg
7 October 2026 at 15:59
Senator Patty Murray, a former chair of the Senate health committee, is forming a group of experts to examine how to insulate the C.D.C. from political interference.

© Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times

Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, at the Capitol last month.

Trump Administration Delays Threaten Funding for HIV Research

✇NYT: Science
By: Apoorva Mandavilli and Benjamin Mueller
7 October 2026 at 12:33
The networks also develop treatments and preventions for other infectious diseases and were instrumental in testing the Covid vaccine.

© Ihsaan Haffejee for The New York Times

Drawing blood at an H.I.V. clinic in South Africa last year. The research networks’ large footprint has enabled them to develop tools to prevent and treat H.I.V., including in marginalized or rare populations.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry Is Awarded to Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai

✇NYT: Science
By: K. R. Callaway
7 October 2026 at 11:17
The Nobel Committee recognized Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai for solving a century-old mystery about molecules with mirror images. Their work is crucial for pharmaceuticals and carries clues to the origins of life.

© Fredrik Sandberg/TT News Agency, via Reuters

Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai are awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry during a news conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, on Wednesday.

Russia Says It Found No ‘Emergency’ in Plague Lab

✇NYT: Science
By: Paul Sonne
7 October 2026 at 14:20
New information around the death of a lab worker, including a statement that she had been vaccinated against the plague, came as U.S. officials demanded more data.

© Tatyana Makeyeva/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The entrance to the grounds of the anti-plague institute in Irkutsk, Russia, on Wednesday. An employee of the institute died of a mysterious pneumonia.

OpenAI Releases Findings on 377 Math Problems, Further Roiling Field

✇NYT: Science
By: Kenneth Chang and Siobhan Roberts
6 October 2026 at 19:46
After a previous solution angered mathematicians, the company characterized the new release as being more responsive to concerns about A.I. disrupting research.

© Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

For 10 of the findings, OpenAI provided summaries of how the A.I. model came up with its solution. The average result took about three hours of computing, the company said.
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