Week in Science: Vibe-mathing" solves 60-year-old problem

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May 1—This week, two marathoners finished the race in under two hours, a truly impressive feat that scientists say their shoes helped them accomplish. Should athletes be allowed to use performance enhancing gear? Add your thoughts to the discussion. Also, a math amateur found a solution to a 60-year-old problem using ChatGPT, and an experiment shows how darkness can move faster than light. Enjoy! —Emma Gometz, Newsletter Editor Have thoughts? Email newsletters@sciam.com anytime.

Top Stories

An amateur just solved a 60-year-old math problem—by asking AI A ChatGPT AI has proved a conjecture with a method no human had thought of. Experts believe it may have further uses Joseph Howlett

City birds appear to be more afraid of women than men, and scientists have no idea why “I fully believe our results, that urban birds react differently based on the sex of the person approaching them,” said a co-author of a study that made this finding, “but I can’t explain them right now” Claire Cameron

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The science behind the Adidas shoes that helped two marathoners break the two-hour mark A sub-two-hour marathon has long been seen as a tantalizing benchmark for elite runners—and shoemakers have been in a race to design footwear that can help them get there Adam Kovac

Entire NSF science advisory board fired by Trump administration Members of the National Science Board, which the U.S. Congress founded in 1950, were given no explanation for their termination Dan Garisto, Nature magazine

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What’s faster than light? Darkness A recent experiment revealed that individual dark points on a light wave can move faster than the wave itself Adam Kovac

The Simpsons reference that refutes one of history’s greatest mathematicians In one famous episode of The Simpsons, Homer finds a counterexample to Fermat’s last theorem Manon Bischoff

Ozempic’s greatest benefit might be its anti-inflammatory power A growing body of research suggests that GLP-1 drugs do more than control appetite and blood sugar. They could also fight inflammation Lauren J. Young

Africa could split apart sooner than scientists thought New research reveals that a rift in Earth’s crust is just a few million years away from splitting the continent of Africa into two—and creating a new ocean Adam Kovac

How geneticists uncovered a common root of two neurological diseases Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) can have the same genetic cause, a discovery that won two neurogeneticists a portion of the 2026 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Allison Parshall

Human genome decoder J. Craig Venter dies at age 79 Scientist and medical technology entrepreneur J. Craig Venter published the first bacterial genome ever decoded in 1995. The result heralded a new age of discovery for genetics Claire Cameron

A major humpback whale rescue effort is attempting to do something extraordinary Rescuers had called off the effort to save “Timmy,” a humpback whale that had stranded in the Baltic Sea last month. But now a last-ditch attempt to move the creature by barge is underway K. R. Callaway

A giant hailstorm just killed an emu at a Missouri zoo A hailstorm of these proportions is “unusual” but not unheard of in Missouri at this time of year, one expert says Jackie Flynn Mogensen

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