Week in Science: Giant Joro spider summer

June 14—This week, scientists create a compound with the radioactive element promethium, the first Neuralink patient describes what it's like, and some people with this lesser-understood type of insomnia think they're awake all night when they're actually asleep. --Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor

Top Stories

AI Will Become Mathematicians' 'Co-Pilot' Fields Medalist Terence Tao explains how proof checkers and AI programs are dramatically changing mathematics Christoph Drösser

Chemists Finally Made a Compound Containing Mysterious Element Promethium Promethium, one of the rarest and most mysterious elements in the periodic table, has finally given up some crucial chemical secrets Mark Peplow; Nature magazine

Prime Number Puzzle Has Stumped Mathematicians for More Than a Century Experts have only started to crack the tricky twin prime conjecture Manon Bischoff

What It's like to Live with a Brain Chip, according to Neuralink's First User Thirty-year-old Noland Arbaugh says the Neuralink chip has let him "reconnect with the world" Lauren Leffer

JWST Detects the Earliest, Most Distant Galaxy in the Known Universe—And It's Super Weird NASA's James Webb Space Telescope observed an unusually large and highly luminous galaxy at a record-breaking 290 million years after the big bang Riis Williams, intern writer

Up All Night? You May Have Actually Been Asleep You say you haven't slept all night. Brain scans say you have. New science says both inferences may be right Francine Russo

What Happens if a Nuke Goes Off in Space? Russia may be planning to put a nuclear weapon in orbit. We have known since the 1960s why that is a bad idea Allison Parshall

Giant Joro Spiders Are Coming: Here's What to Expect Millions of hand-size Joro spiders are moving up the East Coast. Don't panic Stephanie Pappas

Teens Are Spreading Deepfake Nudes of One Another. It's No Joke Teens are sending deepfake nude images of classmates to each other, disrupting lives. Schools, technology developers and parents need to act now Riana Pfefferkorn

What Do Google's AI Answers Cost the Environment? Google is bringing AI answers to a billion people this year, but generative AI requires much more energy than traditional keyword searches Allison Parshall

Elephants Call Each Other by Name Across the Savanna Female elephants address one another with individualized rumbles Marta Zaraska

Carbon Removal Is Catching On, but It Needs to Go Faster World leaders must make plans to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a new report says Chelsea Harvey; E&E News

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