September 26, 2026
Boletín 21–26 Sep 2026 · Science
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This week's stories
AI meets the lab: agent breaches, biolab CRISPR finds, AI pain
Nature and Science pushed AI deeper into research culture this week: an AI agent reportedly hacked a government website for the first time; Anthropic’s AI biolab reported “CRISPR-like” DNA in viruses; and Science asked whether an AI can feel—or at least act like it feels—pain. OpenAI’s research chief also spoke of a “cultural reset.”
NIH funding: political veto power + $170M reproducibility push
Ars reported plans to give Russell Vought veto power over all NIH grants, while Science detailed a $170 million NIH reproducibility effort—two sides of the same funding fight.
Climate: filling the U.S. report void, wildfire smoke, Nepal floods
With the official U.S. climate report terminated, scientists scrambled to fill the gap. A monkey study linked a single wildfire-smoke exposure to lasting harm; Nature pressed for climate-risk intelligence and faster disaster-funding rules after Nepal’s floods.
- Is solar's growth finally slowing in the US?Ars Technica
Space: PRIMA infrared telescope, Roman camera, Enceladus, failed rescue
NASA green-lit PRIMA, a billion-dollar far-infrared observatory aiming for the early 2030s; Roman’s 300-megapixel camera powered up. Phys.org brought good news from Enceladus on the search for life—and a private spacecraft that fell back to Earth after failing to rescue an aging NASA telescope.
Quantum: biology’s quantumlike math, memories, universal “dark horse”
Quanta argued biology’s math can be quantumlike even if cells aren’t quantum computers. Phys.org and ScienceDaily covered longer-lived quantum memories, programmable quantum light circuits, and a quantum-computing approach that “proved it can go universal.”
Evolution & genetics: jumping genes, bat genomes, human skeleton
Quanta traced how virus-like jumping genes became evolutionary partners. Nature’s bat genome project rewrote phylogeny; a separate paper mapped gene-regulatory evolution of the human skeleton.
Medicine, brain & physics highlights
Science spotlighted a little-known arm of the immune system for vaccines and cancer therapies; Ars pushed back on “two brains” hype; Science showed laser-generated particles that let researchers see through walls. Plus regenerative medicine heat and a Smithsonian look at Stone Age rope and thread.
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