Week in Science: What's the biggest galaxy in the universe?

Deep surveys of the sky have turned up galaxies vastly larger than our own.                    

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June 5—This week in science, powerful new weight-loss drugs come with their own health risks. Plus, mathematicians devise guardrails for using AI in their discipline, and archeologists discover the oldest cave art in the U.K. in Wales. All that and more below. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor How are you liking this newsletter? Email newsletters@sciam.com anytime.

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What’s the biggest galaxy in the universe? Deep surveys of the sky have turned up galaxies vastly larger than our own. Are there even bigger ones yet to be seen? Phil Plait

New powerful GLP-1 drugs drop a lot of weight fast. How does that affect health? New-generation GLP-1 drugs, such as retatrutide, are achieving higher rates of weight loss. How much weight is too much and too fast to lose? Bethany Brookshire

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Mathematicians sign declaration to rein in AI use A group of researchers have proposed rules to prevent artificial intelligence from overpowering humans in math Leila Sloman

Microsoft’s new quantum computer chip has a fundamental problem Microsoft’s announcement of a new quantum computing breakthrough with its Majorana 2 chip continues a trend of bold claims followed by scant evidence Joseph Howlett

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For 100 years, scientists thought these red markings were natural—now researchers say they’re ancient human art A new analysis of red lines inside a cave in Wales suggests they were made deliberately by ancient humans some 17,000 years ago Adam Kovac

NASA’s Hubble captures gorgeous new photo of a spiral galaxy as it wanders through the Virgo Cluster Messier 88 is an active galaxy with a central supermassive black hole that is gobbling up gas and dust Adam Kovac

New protein-folding AI predicts the structures of 1 billion proteins The new open-source atlas, generated by an AI tool called ESMFold2, vastly increases the known protein universe Ewen Callaway, Miryam Naddaf, Nature magazine

China launches rival rocket to SpaceX Falcon 9 for the first time China apparently didn’t issue any airspace or maritime notices ahead of the maiden launch of this rocket on Monday Claire Cameron

How Gödel numbers let you do math with math itself By encoding mathematical statements into numbers, mathematician Kurt Gödel used ordinary arithmetic to check whether a statement can be proved Manon Bischoff

Trump administration takes aim at crucial ocean monitoring network The Ocean Observatories Initiative has been collecting data on physical, chemical, geological and biological conditions in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans for the past decade Adam Kovac

Top U.S. science funder slows research grants to universities It's not clear why the National Science Foundation may be limiting funding to certain U.S. universities Dan Garisto, Nature magazine

A new Ebola outbreak has killed hundreds—and the U.S. response is alarming experts A deadly Ebola outbreak is spreading fast—and U.S. cuts to foreign aid are making it worse Rachel Feltman, Tanya Lewis, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

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