Saturday, April 25, 2026

Today in Science: ChatGPT solves 60-year-old math problem

April 24, 2026—Happy Friday! A handy new material that's kind of like plastic and kind of like glass. Plus, some rare good news on the mental health front, and ChatGPT solved a 60-year-old math conjecture.

—Andrea Gawrylewski
Chief Newsletter Editor

TOP STORY

Not Plastic, Not Glass

As anyone who’s used Tupperware knows, plastic and glass have different strengths and weaknesses. Glass melts slowly but shatters easily, whereas plastic solidifies and melts abruptly but can better withstand impact. “Compleximers” are a new substance that melts slowly like glass and is impact-resistant like plastic. Someday this paradoxical stuff could make it easier to fashion and fix sturdy protective gear like helmets.

How it works: For decades scientists have observed that the lower the melting rate of glass or plastic, the less impact it can bear. But a recent study describing compleximers showed they completely defy this law. The trick could lie in the material’s structure: its long chains of molecules, called polymers, are held together by ionic bonds. In this structure, charged molecules in the material make the polymer chains cling to one another, and those bonds hold over longer distances than other chemical bonds.

What the experts say: Ionic interactions could make compleximers easier to work with. For example, their slow melting means compleximer-based objects would be easier to fix than ones made of durable plastics like thermosets. “Just by heating it with a heat gun, you can repair a scratch or a crack,” says Jasper van der Gucht, a physical chemist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. —Emma Gometz, newsletter editor

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INFOGRAPHIC OF THE DAY

Since 2005, people in the U.S. struggling with thoughts of suicide have been able to call a hotline number for help. In July 2022, the hotline number was shortened from a ten-digit number to simply “988.” After the shortening, the number of calls doubled, and an analysis of suicide mortality across the country found that deaths by suicide among young adults have fallen by 11 percent since the hotline was introduced.

Line chart shows quarterly suicide mortality rates among U.S. adolescents and young adults from 2010 to 2024. A comparison of expected and actual deaths is shown following the launch of the 988 Lifeline in 2022.

Amanda Montañez; Source: “Suicide Mortality among Adolescents and Young Adults after Launch of a Suicide and Crisis Lifeline,” by Vishal R. Patel et al., in JAMA. Published online April 22, 2026 (data)

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Brown and red gas billow in a stellar nursery

NASA/ESA/STScI/Joseph DePasquale/STScI

The Hubble Space Telescope turns 36 this year. To celebrate, it released an incredible new image of the Trifid Nebula, a formation dubbed the “Cosmic Sea Lemon” or a “Cosmic Sea Slug” hidden inside a stellar nursery some 5,000 light-years away.

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First question of today's science quiz: A passage from Homer's Iliad was recently found where?

Test how well you paid attention to the news this week with today's science quiz. Also, check out today's Spellements puzzle. If you spot any missing science terms from the puzzle, email them to games@sciam.com.