January 23, 2025: Meet the blobs that rule all cellular life. Plus, giving AI more time to think, and physicists consider cats' fluid-like properties. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | • After his inauguration, President Trump signed a slew of executive orders. Many have strong implications for science in the U.S. and abroad. | 6 min read | | | • Bird flu is continuing to spread among poultry, dairy cows, and even some domestic cats. Here's the latest. | 3 min read | | | The Blobs Holding It All Together | For as long as scientists have looked closely at cells, they've known about the little blobs of molecules inside of cells. But recently, researchers are discovering that those blobs, called biomolecular condensates, are everywhere in cells, doing a myriad of vital tasks connected to just about every aspect of cellular function. The blobs are made of clumps of protein and RNA molecules, and they form in a similar process that separates oil from water. They've been shown to protect cells from dangerously high or low temperatures; they repair DNA damage; they control the way DNA gets turned into crucial proteins.
Why this matters: When biomolecular condensates malfunction, they may trigger diseases like Alzheimer's or cancer. Harmful protein aggregation behind cognitive disease, for example, might arise because of gene mutations that make condensates prone to congeal into solid clumps. And some condensates called paraspeckles control gene regulation. If they're not working correctly, they could lead to all manner of diseases, including cancers.
What the experts say: "There's going to be a lot of cool stuff in the next 10 years," says Simon Alberti, a biophysicist at the Technical University of Dresden. His group has found that condensates can act as a superglue to hold damaged DNA strands together while enzymes repair them. | | | Think a Bit More, Chatbot | The latest approach in developing state-of-the-art artificial intelligence is to slow chatbots down. Yes, slow them down. Called "test-time compute," the idea is to allow additional seconds or minutes to elapse between a user's prompt and the program's response while the AI double checks its own work. Using this tactic, some AI developers have seen a dramatic jump in the accuracy of chatbot answers.
Why this matters: Test-time compute could improve AI accuracy and its capacity to tackle complex reasoning problems. The latest version of ChatGPT is o1, and OpenAI (the company that built ChatGPT) says this version is better at writing computer code and nearly 40 percent more accurate at answering Ph.D.-level physics, biology and chemistry questions. All thanks to test-time compute strategies.
What the experts say: This strategy grants machines the same grace we give people when they take an extra beat to tackle tough questions, says Aviral Kumar, an assistant professor of computer science and machine learning at Carnegie Mellon University. He thinks this could bring us closer to models with humanlike intelligence. | | | • Some political science researchers have examined whether there are "social tipping points"—that is, moments where social movements become widely accepted. For example, researchers in the U.K. found that nonviolent campaigns (like protests) there that involved more than 3.5 percent of the population led to long-lasting political change. But such tipping points may not exist for some topics or in some regions, writes Andy Extance, a scientist, science writer and activist. Protestors should persist regardless of whether social tipping points exist, or powerful political opposition, he says. "Facing such a reality, it might be tempting just to give up in the face of opposing forces, but we must not." | 5 min read | | | Yesterday I wrote about an idol of mine—astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan. Unsurprisingly, I am not alone. Today in Science reader Buzz Owens, moved by Sagan's words, converted text from the Cosmos series into song lyrics. He fed those into an AI tool that creates a song out of lyrics. The result is pretty cool, you can listen here. Sagan had a particular cadence to his speaking style, plus a knack for poetic explanations of ideas. It's no surprise to me that he inspires music. | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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