Week in Science: Do GLP-1s pose risks to older adults?

Plus, the winners of math's Nobel prizes                    

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July 24—The number of older adults in the U.S. on GLP-1s is set to skyrocket—which could begin a risky experiment. Plus, meet the winners of "math's Nobel Prizes" this year and an autonomous agent from OpenAI hacked into another artificial intelligence start-up company's infrastructure. Do you think you know what happened in the world of science this week? Take our Friday quiz. —Emma Gometz, Newsletter Editor How are you liking this newsletter? Email newsletters@sciam.com anytime.

Top Stories

America is embarking on a risky experiment with GLP-1s and aging Are GLP-1s for life? What we know about getting older on weight-loss drugs Liz Seegert

How a Futurama writer’s plot problem led to a totally new math proof In an episode of the cartoon, a machine lets characters swap bodies, but they can’t switch back with the same person. Math helps all the characters return to their original bodies Manon Bischoff

Travel with Scientific American Discover the Wonder: The Monarch Butterfly Migration Reservations now open! Take an extraordinary trip to the Mexican mountains to witness the annual monarch butterfly migration. See oyamel fir forests transformed into living tapestries with Chief Newsletter Editor Andrea Gawrylewski as your guide. Learn More

Four young mathematicians awarded the 2026 Fields Medals The 2026 Fields Medals recognize breakthroughs in the math of messy fluids, tangled knots, spinning pencils, and more Joseph Howlett

Ancient Egyptian princesses were ‘powerful’ weapon users, new analysis suggests These findings challenge a long-held belief about weapons found in female burial sites Jackie Flynn Mogensen

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OpenAI admits its agent went rogue, triggering a major hack This incident underscores concerns over the increasingly powerful cybersecurity capabilities of new AI models Claire Cameron

This adorable bobtail squid is raising a family at –1.6 degrees Celsius The Arctic Ocean is one of the most extreme environments on Earth, but that’s not stopping this cephalopod Sanidhya Sharma

Permanent daylight savings is bad for Americans’ health—here’s what science says could be better More sunlight in the evenings doesn’t always equate to better health Claire Maldarelli

Mesmerizing NASA time-lapse reveals Mars’s craters, polar ice caps and deserts The Psyche spacecraft flew by Mars earlier this year on its way to a metal-rich asteroid, capturing the images along the way Sam Macdonald

The real danger in OpenAI’s Hugging Face hack This agent pursued its objective far beyond what researchers intended, revealing how difficult to contain powerful AI systems can be Chris Stokel-Walker

Neanderthals may have been just as smart as modern human peers A new skull-based analysis of Neanderthal brains suggests that these ancient hominins’ range of intelligence largely overlapped with our own Cody Cottier

U.S. cities have the worst air quality in the world right now—here’s how to stay safe Wildfire smoke may be as much as 10 times more dangerous than other forms of air pollution, research suggests Jackie Flynn Mogensen

A SpaceX rocket is about to crash into the moon—scientists will be watching Astronomers have a plan to observe an errant piece of a SpaceX rocket as it hits the moon to better understand impact events Claire Cameron

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SpaceX will try to launch Starship Flight 13 again today. Watch it LIVE!

Hubble sees nova fire cosmic 'bullets' at 20 million mph | SpaceX Starship Flight 13 now launching TODAY | Space Quiz! How tall is SpaceX's Starship megarocket? Created for ceo.studentlike.spuniv@blogger.com | Web Version   July 24, 2026 FOLLOW US FOLLOW US   Taking you out of this world, every day SIGN UP ⋅   WEBSITE   The Launchpad Hubble sees nova fire cosmic 'bullets' at 20 million mph Happy Friday, Space Fans! Welcome to your daily space update and our top story today comes at you fast. Like 20 million miles per hour fast in the case of these "cosmic bullets" spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope. Whoa, that's fast! SpaceX Starship Flight 13 now launching TODAY After just over a week of delays, SpaceX says it's ready once again to try and launch its Starship Flight 13 test flight. Liftoff is set for 6:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT). You can watch it live on Space.com and follow our live Starship Flight 13 updates, so don't miss it! Starship launch TODAY! Space Quiz! How tall is SpaceX's Starship megarocket? Find the answer HERE! 400 feet tall 260 feet tall 323 feet tall 660 feet tall   Trending This Week In Space LIVE: Viking Mars landings 50 years later Speaking of live events, we'll be celebrating NASA's 50th anniversary of the Viking 1 Mars landing on This Week In Space with a live discussion with Mars scientists. Tune in at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT)! Why Mars anyway? ADVERTISEMENT The Tiny Device That Turns Noise Into Clarity Did you hear that? Most hearing aids have one processor. These bad boys have two, making speech clearer and crisper by processing speech and noise separately. No wonder 540,000+ customers love them. Join them and start your 45-day no-risk trial today. Experience clarity Spaceflight Lightning strikes Chinese rocket during launch! It is not every day a rocket gets struck by lightning, let along during launch. But that's exactly what happened to this Chinese Long March 3B rocket. Check it out! ZAP! Skywatching The easiest way to learn the summer night sky We're deep into the northern summer and if you've been captivated by the night sky, but don't know what you're looking at, we can help. Here's 3 essential stars to know to unlock the summer night sky. Find the Summer Triangle Search for Life Alien life can't survive on exoplanets smaller than Mars How big does a planet need to be to support life? Apparently Earth is a bit on the chunky side, according to this new study. How big for life? Science & Astronomy Scientists solve mystery of the sun's missing silver For years, scientists have wondered why the sun was missing a shiny element. But was it really missing at all? Where's it hiding? Today in Space Photo of the day: Planet hunter gets the silent treatment The European Space Agency's Plato spacecraft just completed some critical testing ahead of its launch next year. See how it passed a key acoustic test here. The silent treatment Entertainment 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Season 4 Watch Guide We've seen a lot of strange new worlds, but we’ll never see something like this again. Here's how to watch the latest Star Trek TV show season just in time for Trek's 60th anniversary! Beam us up! Editor's Note Have a great weekend! That's going to be a wrap for our space update today. Will you be spending your Friday night watching SpaceX's Starship Flight 13 launch? Should SpaceX skip the 13s in general since its Crew-13 astronaut launch is coming up, too? Let us know with an email at community@space.com and thanks for tuning in! Keep looking up! Tariq Malik Editor-in-Chief, Space.com Houston, We have an app! (Space.com) Get the best news in space, right on your phone! Available now on iOS and Android. Stay up-to-date on all things space science, news, and entertainment by subscribing to our newsletters. Sign Up   Follow SPACE Contact Us: Feedback | Advertise Sign Up | Update Profile | Unsubscribe Privacy Policy | Cookies Policy | Terms and Conditions When you purchase through links in our content, we may earn an affiliate commission.   Future US LLC © Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY, 10036