October 17, 2026
Boletín 12–17 Oct 2026 · Science
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This week's stories
AI and research: maths in flux, arXiv caps, AI-written dissertations
Science wrote that OpenAI “just changed math forever”, though no one yet knows exactly how, and reported AI edging closer to the Riemann hypothesis; the Simons Foundation, Anthropic and OpenAI pledged $15 million to help mathematicians evaluate AI-assisted results. ArXiv now caps submissions at two papers per researcher per month after uploads hit 40,000 in September, a surge its scientific director blames mainly on AI slop. A working paper found that about 30% of US STEM dissertation abstracts filed in early 2026 contained AI-generated text, and graduates who used AI were less likely to stay in academia.
Bleached corals revived by a healthy neighbour’s touch, as 44% of reef-builders are judged threatened
Researchers at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station found that a bleached coral fragment recovered within eight weeks when it touched a healthy fragment of the same individual, which formed a tissue bridge and passed over its symbiotic algae. Separated pairs died after 20 weeks, and fragments from different animals did not fuse. Separately, a Nature reassessment of 892 reef-building coral species classified 340 of the 774 with enough data — 44% — as threatened, mostly because of projected thermal stress.
A historic El Niño and shrinking polar ice
NASA satellites are tracking an El Niño that NOAA says could be the strongest since 1950, with eastern Pacific surface waters already about 1.7 °C warmer than the long-term average; Science warned the “super” El Niño could wreak ecological havoc worldwide. Antarctic sea ice peaked on 14 September at its third-lowest winter maximum on record, while Arctic ice reached its annual minimum on 12 September, tied for tenth-lowest. NASA also captured strange waves high above Hurricane Simon.
AI-designed enzymes that cut proteins on demand
Two Nature papers, mainly from David Baker’s lab at the University of Washington, used AI design tools to build new cysteine and zinc proteases around the catalytic cores of natural enzymes, tuned to cut specific target sequences. After mutation tweaks, the best designs sped up peptide-bond cleavage by factors of a billion and ten billion, and one zinc design cut proteins linked to Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia in cells. Ars notes that delivery and immune responses remain big hurdles before any therapy.
Plastics: microplastics make radicals, and where degraded plastic goes
A Columbia team reported in Nature that the boundary between water and microplastics generates hydroxyl radicals; all six common plastics tested did so, with the most water-repellent, polyethylene and polypropylene, the most active. The radicals clumped proteins and broke up mouse red blood cells in the lab, though the researchers stress that whether microplastics directly cause human disease is still unknown. Nature also asked where plastic goes when microbes degrade it, and ScienceDaily reported a plastic-eating “Pac-Man” enzyme.
Counting the planet: more protected land than thought, methane satellites pass a blind test
A combined global and national dataset published in Nature suggests up to 27% of land is conserved, close to the 30%-by-2030 pledge that official figures put barely halfway met, although gaps in ecological representation remain. In a year-long blind test in the Arizona desert, many of 12 methane-sensing satellites accurately detected and quantified controlled releases, with purpose-built instruments performing best. Phys.org reported that about 2% of the natural gas supplied to a Midwest city leaks into the atmosphere.
Timekeepers scrap the leap second
Member states of the General Conference on Weights and Measures voted on 15 October to abolish the leap second immediately, rather than by 2035, and replace it with a leap hour once Earth-rotation time and atomic time drift 3,600 seconds apart. That correction likely won’t be needed for thousands of years. Nature framed the move as avoiding a catastrophic “negative second”; leap seconds have long disrupted computing systems.
Space: Venus missions back on track, Neutron slips again
NASA’s DAVINCI probe is now scheduled to launch in December 2030, a year earlier than planned, with the VERITAS orbiter following in November 2032, after budget threats had imperilled both. NASA outlined its role in JAXA’s Martian Moons eXploration mission and released underwater images of the Artemis II heat shield taken after splashdown. Rocket Lab’s first Neutron launch slipped again amid trouble with carbon composites, and Science described a mountaintop microwave observatory that will peer into the infant universe.
China’s rise in science
Nature’s special on China describes a country on course to lead the world in R&D: it overtook the US in purchasing-power-adjusted research spending in 2024 and has topped the Nature Index for the first time. Beijing aims to raise R&D spending by at least 7% a year to 2030, but basic research is just under 7% of its R&D budget against 14.4% in the US, and publication pressure feeds research-integrity problems. Companion pieces looked at China’s booming AI research and the countries to watch in biomedical engineering.
Deep past: flightless Jurassic birds, a stiff early neck, new Inca dates
A fossil from China shows that some Jurassic bird ancestors were flightless, living alongside species that could fly. A Nature study found that the first necks of early tetrapods, formed as the skull separated from the shoulders, were surprisingly rigid. Science reported a bonanza of new dates rewriting the history of the Inca, lead-tainted teeth revealed the unequal toll of medieval mines, and rabbits were a royal luxury in England until the Black Death made them commonplace.
US science policy: USDA labs, Antarctic logistics, NIH and Kennedy
USDA scientists won a reprieve from lab closures, though Science asked for how long, and NSF backed its choice of a new Antarctic contractor despite concerns from a government watchdog and researchers. The NYT reported that the NIH hospital board rebuked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over a new vaccine injury clinic, and examined how he is advancing an anti-vaccine group’s goals.
Also this week
A study of more than 100,000 people linked active brown fat to lower rates of type 2 diabetes, depression and anxiety. Quanta reported that three “ghostly” galaxies lacking dark matter, probably left behind by an ancient collision, are bad news for modified-gravity theories. A war game on solar geoengineering, reported by Wired and republished by Ars, collapsed into US–China suspicion without any deal, and high-speed video revealed how honey bee stingers pump venom.
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