New research reveals how a tiny chemical mark on RNA helps wire the brain during development.

The last two decades have witnessed a dramatic growth of wearable sensor technology, mainly represented by flexible, stretchable, on-skin electronic sensors that provide rich information of the wearer’s health conditions and surroundings. A recent breakthrough in the field is the development of wearable chemical sensors based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) that can detect molecular fingerprints universally, sensitively, and noninvasively. However, while their sensing properties are excellent, these sensors are not scalable for widespread use beyond small-scale human health monitoring due to their cumbersome fabrication process and limited multifunctional sensing capabilities. Here, a highly scalable, wearable SERS sensor is demonstrated based on an easy-to-fabricate, low-cost, ultrathin, flexible, stretchable, adhesive, and biointegratable gold nanomesh. It can be fabricated in any shape and worn on virtually any surface for label-free, large-scale, in situ sensing of diverse analytes from low to high concentrations (10–10⁶ × 10⁻⁹ m). To show the practical utility of the wearable SERS sensor, the sensor is tested for the detection of sweat biomarkers, drugs of abuse, and microplastics. This wearable SERS sensor represents a significant step toward the generalizability and practicality of wearable sensing technology.

Humans are innately capable of recognizing other people they have seen before. This capability ultimately allows them to build meaningful social connections, develop their sense of identity, better cooperate with others, and identify individuals who could pose a risk to their safety.

Several past studies rooted in neuroscience, psychology and behavioral science have tried to shed light on the neural processes underlying the ability to encode other people’s identities. Most findings collected so far suggest that the identity of others is encoded by neurons in the amygdala and hippocampus, two brain regions known to support the processing of emotions and the encoding of memories, respectively.

Based on evidence collected in the past, researchers have concluded that neurons in these two brain regions respond in specific ways when we meet a person we are acquainted with, irrespective of visual features (i.e., how their face looks). A recent paper published in Nature Human Behaviour, however, suggests that this might not be the case, and that individual neurons in the amygdala encode and represent facial features, ultimately supporting the identification of others.

Silicon may be on its way out—this crystal transistor is ready to take over.

Learn more quickly and retain more? Here’s how, in just minutes.

Indiana’s newest cash crop isn’t soybeans or corn; it’s AI data centers — lots and lots of AI data centers.

The New York Times reports that Amazon is building a vast complex of AI infrastructure facilities on top of 1,200 acres of former cropland, all meant for startup Anthropic’s project to build an AI model that is as powerful, complex — and, just possibly, as intelligent — as the human brain.

To that end, Amazon has constructed seven data centers on site, with around 30 slated to be built in total, according to the newspaper. It’s such an outrageously ambitious project, with untold billions in investment, that Amazon has tapped four separate construction firms to get the complex finished as soon as possible.

This week, biologists discovered a new cellular organelle that’s like “a new recycling center within the cell.” Wild-growing tomatoes in the Galápagos are de-evolving. And geologists at the University of Southampton detected deep Earth pulses beneath Africa. Plus: Brain network functionality differs in people with psychopathic personality; sharks have a surprising vulnerability; and people with the highest measured IQ make better probabilistic predictions than people with the lowest IQ.

The world’s most advanced AI models are exhibiting troubling new behaviors—lying, scheming, and even threatening their creators to achieve their goals.

In one particularly jarring example, under threat of being unplugged, Anthropic’s latest creation Claude 4 lashed back by blackmailing an engineer and threatened to reveal an extramarital affair.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT-creator OpenAI’s o1 tried to download itself onto external servers and denied it when caught red-handed.

Scientists harnessed the unique properties of gallium to create the ink, which can be produced using conventional printing methods.

My exclusive interview with astronomer Wendy Freedman.