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 | | An artist's rendition of the Soviet Luna 9 lander on the surface of the moon. Roscosmos (CC BY-NC 4.0) | | 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 | | | | |
BROUGHT TO YOU BY SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN TRAVEL | | 2027 Solar Eclipse on the Nile | | Experience the 2027 total solar eclipse—more than six minutes of totality—from the deck of a luxury Nile River ship on this incredible 10-day journey led by Chief of Reporters Clara Moskowitz. | | | | |
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) | | 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. | | 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: | | 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. | | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor
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