Today in Science: Old assumption about autism overturned

Plus, missing Russian moon lander found? ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­

February 5, 2026—Meet the AI agent that can run your digital life. Plus, women are just as likely as men to receive an autism diagnosis, according to a new study, and scientists may have found a missing moon lander. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor TODAY'S NEWS An artist's rendition of the Soviet Luna 9 lander on the surface of the moon. Roscosmos (CC BY-NC 4.0) Space archaeologists may have found the long-lost Soviet Luna 9 lander on the moon. | 5 min read  Do apes have an imagination? The famous ape Kanzi may have understood pretend actions—suggesting he had the capacity to imagine. | 3 min read Many news organizations—including Scientific American—make an appearance in the latest batch of Epstein files. Our editors dug into the details. | 5 min read A new study shows that blood collected on a sanitary pad can be used to detect HPV, opening the door to more convenient and less invasive testing. | 2 min read Scientists are preparing specialized space suits in preparation for the first moon mission in more than 50 years. | 4 min read AI data centers and video games both rely on dynamic random-access memory. As cloud computing giants buy up memory hardware, the supply is limited for gaming companies like Nintendo. | 2 min read  More News TOP STORIES "AI with Hands" The AI agent OpenClaw isn't just another AI chatbot, it's actually capable of managing your digital life. The open-source program can interact with your files and software, downloading and using them for your needs without you having to do the grunt work.    Stuff it can do: Whereas other chatbots can suggest a plan of action, OpenClaw takes action. Given the task of transcribing voice memos, for example, the assistant can download transcription software from GitHub, install it, run the transcriptions and save them for you. It can send audio message updates on coding projects it's running for you in the background. Then, you can call it to give it its next instructions. While other AI agents like Claude Code are improving, OpenClaw's seamless integration into daily life is so far unmatched.    A word of caution: But before you rush to install OpenClaw, consider the risks. Experts have warned that the AI agent can bypass security boundaries and potentially expose sensitive information. But there's no reason to fear OpenClaw, writes Deni Ellis Béchard, Scientific American's senior writer for technology. Just treat it like a new hire: give it minimum permissions, clear rules and close supervision while trust is being established. —Emma Gometz, newsletter editor

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INFOGRAPHIC Amanda Montañez; Source: "Time Trends in the Male to Female Ratio for Autism Incidence: Population Based, Prospectively Collected, Birth Cohort Study," by Caroline Fyfe et al., in BMJ, Vol. 392. Published online February 4, 2026 (data) Diagnostic Skew For a new study published this week, scientists followed 2.7 million children born in Sweden between 1985 and 2020, about 2.8 percent of whom had been diagnosed as autistic by 2022. In early childhood, boys were much more likely to receive an autism diagnosis. But as the cohort aged, the researchers identified a "catch-up" effect—by age 20, women were nearly as likely to have been diagnosed with autism. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, boys are about three times more likely to be diagnosed as autistic than girls are (and scientists don't understand why). But these results suggest younger girls may be underdiagnosed and possibly missing out on critical care. SCIENTISTS AT WORK Kang-Chun Cheng In Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, Rassina Farassi—shown here with the skull of the extinct mammal Arsinoitherium—studies how humans came to walk on two legs. "We know that modern Gorongosa is similar to the seasonal and varied environments in which our hominin ancestors first evolved," says Farassi, but the park "has fossil sites that, as recently as 2016, had never been explored." Today, she observes grey-footed Chacma baboons (Papio ursinus griseipes) to help to model the evolution of bipedalism. "The best workplace I can imagine." Nature | 3 min read Content courtesy of Nature Briefing.   How do you like the Scientists at Work feature every Thursday? Let us know by clicking on a reply:  I like it, keep it! It's not my favorite ​ OpenClaw may be the first real step toward a truly helpful AI agent for ordinary folks. I've always felt that AI's purpose should be to improve human life and free us up to do more of the things we love (art, cooking, volunteering) and less of the tedious (filing taxes comes to mind). And yet, as with every tool that promises transformation, the same technology that can lift us up also carries the risk of being misused (agent technology could perpetuate some pretty convincing scams). Herein lies an echo of human nature itself. It's a reminder that AI, for better and worse, still bears our imprint. Send your comments, questions or feedback on this newsletter to: newsletters@sciam.com. Onward!   —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor

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Space & Physics: Artemis II moon mission delayed after test issues

Top stories in space and physics news                    

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February 5 — This week, we're covering the latest on NASA's Artemis II lunar mission, a "space archaeology" search for a long-lost Soviet moon lander, SpaceX's plan to launch a million "orbital data centers," a possible glimpse of an "Earth 2.0" and much, much more. Enjoy! Thoughts? Questions? Let me know via e-mail (lbillings@sciam.com), X or Bluesky. —Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Physical Sciences

Top Stories

Space archaeologists may have found a long-lost Soviet lander on the moon Scientists have spent decades searching for the final resting place of Luna 9, the first spacecraft to soft-land on the moon. Now they're on the cusp of finding it Ilya Ferapontov

NASA delays Artemis II moon mission after critical test raises issues NASA will review data gathered during a simulated launch of the Artemis II rocket before revealing a new date for its upcoming moon mission Claire Cameron

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Weird new object escalates 'black hole star' debate Researchers have found what might be a little red dot transitioning into its final state, where x-rays burst through its gas cocoon. Others argue the object is nothing special Joseph Howlett

SpaceX plans to launch one million satellites to power orbital AI data center Elon Musk's SpaceX is set to massively expand its orbital footprint in a bid to power next-generation artificial intelligence Claire Cameron

Another Earth or a blip in the data? We may never find out An exoplanet called HD 137010 b might be the closest thing astronomers have ever seen to "Earth 2.0." The trouble is that it's only been seen once—and may never be glimpsed again Joseph Howlett

Jupiter isn't as huge as we thought it was "Textbooks will need to be updated": the solar system's largest planet appears to be smaller and flatter than we knew Jackie Flynn Mogensen

Astronomers declare rare dark-sky victory over scrapped energy project in Chile After a year of protests from astronomers, authorities have abandoned plans for a giant, light-polluting renewable-energy facility in Chile's Atacama Desert Jenna Ahart

Physicists trace particles back to the quantum vacuum Scientists have found "strange quarks" that originated as virtual particles that sprang from nothing Clara Moskowitz

'Baby cluster' of galaxies may challenge cosmic models Dating to only a billion years after the big bang, JADES-ID1 may be the earliest, most distant galaxy protocluster astronomers have ever seen Lee Billings

Lost ancient Greek star catalog decoded by particle accelerator Synchrotron radiation has revealed a star map made by the ancient astronomer Hipparchus that was thought to be lost to time K. R. Callaway

NASA's next space suit for Artemis has out-of-this-world mobility Astronauts are flying to the moon for the first time since 1972, and scientists are preparing specialized space suits for the next milestone—landing there K. R. Callaway

NASA's Artemis II moon mission engulfed by debate over its controversial heat shield Experts have sounded the alarm over NASA's decision to use a heat shield design for Artemis II that may be riskier than the space agency claims Claire Cameron

What We're Reading

Jeff Bezos' rocket company, Blue Origin, pauses space tourism to focus on the moon. | The New York Times U.S. House takes first step toward creating "commercial" deep-space program | Ars Technica SpaceX's Starlink dodged 300,000 satellite collisions in 2025 | New Scientist

From the Archive

When We Find Earth 2.0, What's Next? We're looking for another Earth. But how likely is it that we'll find a duplicate of home? Phil Plait

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