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Washington, DC & Cambridge, UK
Joined April 2009
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The traditional Inca chronology has collapsed. New radiocarbon dates show the empire lasted longer than was previously thought—and met more resistance.
Learn more this week in Science: scim.ag/4yOd9Ah
ALT New radiocarbon dating efforts are rewriting a long-accepted timeline for many sites along the Qhapaq Ñan, an ancient road system, pictured here, that was built through the Andes by the Incan empire. The revised timing reveals hints of local resistance to the empire’s expansion during the 15th century. Photo: José Luis Matos Muñasqui, Archivo del Proyecto Qhapaq Ñan–Sede Nacional del Ministerio de Cultura del Perú
Researchers in Science report that many birds use vertical winds or gradual changes in wind speed or direction (wind shear) to soar, thereby reducing their cost of transport by switching from costly flapping flight to gliding flight.
📄: scim.ag/4dJr0Qc
#SciencePerspective: scim.ag/4yVNzth
Science Magazine retweeted
Are you a scientist using AI but worried about being scooped?
There are plenty of ways your data could leak to AI companies or colleagues down the line. Thankfully, there are also some things you can do to minimise your risk...
Latest for @ScienceMagazine
science.org/content/article/…
Science Magazine retweeted
First it was robots cartwheeling better than me. Now you're telling me snakes can do it, too?! Read about that and more in this edition of @ScienceMagazine's #ScienceAdviser: science.org/content/article/… Video: Yosuke Kojima and Ibuki Fukuyama/Current Biology (2026)
Science Magazine retweeted
New in @ScienceMagazine: 3,000 years before empires ran on armies, Andean elites may have run on vilca. Bone tubes at Chavín de Huántar just tested positive for DMT and bufotenine.
Borrowing an idea from one research discipline to solve a thorny problem in another is an age-old scientific trick. Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, for example, famously inspired algorithms in computer science that “evolve” solutions to complex problems.
But such clever leaps are fleetingly rare. For #AI, however, hopping between fields can be a breeze.
Researchers highlighted that ability with the release of 36 preprints produced with a single suite of AI tools called BootLoops. The so-called harness can be used with any large language model, such as Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
And in just 3 months, researchers used Claude outfitted with BootLoops to cross-pollinate at a massive scale, spotting—and precisely solving—problems in seemingly unrelated fields that share the same mathematical structures.
The resulting papers range widely, from figuring out the age of sunspots, to analyzing government health policies, to attempting to decipher a mysterious medieval manuscript.
Learn more: scim.ag/3TUUyDJ
Tall ice cliffs can calve faster than previously thought, but new observations suggest they are unlikely to trigger the runaway retreat feared in some projections of Antarctic ice loss.
Learn more in Science: scim.ag/4yjj5R3
ALT A calving glacial ice cliff in Antarctica.
In @SciSignal, scientists show that intracellular changes to receptor conformation alter how activating molecules bind to a biologically important GPCR from outside the cell through an “inside out” mechanism. scim.ag/4ynGkcI
14 years ago, the revolutionary genetic tool CRISPR/Cas9 was published in Science, work that Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna won a Nobel Prize for in 2020.
Bacteria and archaea protect themselves from invasive foreign nucleic acids through an RNA-mediated adaptive immune system called CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)/CRISPR-associated (Cas).
In the 2012 paper, researchers found that for the type II CRISPR/Cas system, the CRISPR RNA (crRNA) as well as the trans-activating crRNA—which is known to be involved in the pre-crRNA processing—were both required to direct the Cas9 endonuclease to cleave the invading target DNA. Furthermore, engineered RNA molecules were able to program the Cas9 endonuclease to cleave specific DNA sequences to generate double-stranded DNA breaks.
On #WorldCRISPRDay, read the landmark paper that describes the discovery: scim.ag/4nPmoe8
Science Magazine retweeted
Scientists uncover a surprising connection between the brain’s maze of blood vessels and fine motor control in the cerebellum, new tools provide scientists with an optogenetic means to control G protein signaling, and more this week in #ScienceSignaling. scim.ag/4dQ8vth
New archaeological discoveries at Shég’ Xdaltth’í’, a 13,800-year-old base camp site in interior Alaska, may provide evidence for a trans-Beringian cultural link with other sites to the west.
Learn more in @ScienceAdvances: scim.ag/4yj2hcA
ALT The image displays a collection of various stone tools and artifacts arranged in a grid on a black background. Each tool varies in shape and size, with some large and flat, while others are pointed or more triangular. A scale is visible below the artifacts for size reference.
AI-designed proteins can now expand the CRISPR toolbox beyond what evolution has produced.
In a recent Science study, researchers report the design of synthetic RNA-guided nucleases that match or exceed the activity of natural enzymes, revealing how structure-guided design can generate functional genome-editing proteins with substantially different sequences.
Learn more on #WorldCRISPRDay: scim.ag/4yXBW5c
STAT3 is a cytokine-sensitive switch regulating NK cell differentiation in a mouse model of antiviral response.
Learn more in @SciImmunology about the study’s possible implications for STAT3 immunotherapy and cancer progression: scim.ag/3WsoUhy
Science is publishing an Erratum for the June 2026 Research Article “Divergent evolution of nitrogen cycling along gradients of landscape water velocities.” scim.ag/4jm6vN3
ALT The image displays the word "Science" in gray text on a black background.
Join #ScienceWebinars for their next #Technology broadcast on Wednesday, 21 October at 12 p.m. ET ➡️ Battle for the gut: From microbial competition to therapeutic communities.
Register now: bit.ly/482ybzm
ALT Science Webinars promotional image featuring colorful illustrations of various microbes against a blue background. Text includes the webinar title "Can gut microbes help keep pathogens out?" and the date "21 October 2026," with time zones listed. Sponsored by Noster.
In Science, researchers present RFdiffusion3, a new generative AI system that designs proteins and nucleic acids atom by atom, which could enable the ability to engineer novel biomolecules with precise, complex functions.
Learn more: scim.ag/4hOQVIF
Honey bees inject venom with a two-stroke stinger.
Learn more: scim.ag/4yXrVF5 @NewsfromScience
By parsing metabolic data from more than 18,000 participants in China, scientists have derived new “clock” models of metabolic #aging that incorporate novel metrics linked to higher chronic disease risk and all-cause mortality. @ScienceTM scim.ag/4ynTiXI
ALT A person rides a bicycle on a flat surface. The shadow cast on an orange background shows the person on a larger bicycle with clock faces as wheels.
"Governments across the world are treating data as a strategic asset. But data alone are not enough. Infrastructure must be developed that can provide signals about which data are 'fit for purpose' for the increasingly vast number of potential uses," write Julia Lane and Natasha Noy in a new #ScienceEditorial. scim.ag/4hSEydb
ALT A quote on a white background reads, "We shouldn’t all need to be data experts to make use of data." Below, it attributes the quote to Julia Lane and Natasha Noy. A red quotation mark is styled above the text.
In the latest #SciencePodcast🎙️, Contributing Correspondent Lizzie Wade dives into how archaeologists are revisiting the standard Inca chronology as radiocarbon dates mix up the timeline for the empire’s inception and growth.
🎧 Listen here: scim.ag/4jmkwKA
Applying Fc engineering, researchers fashion potent bispecific antibodies against #SARSCoV2 that can be delivered via mRNA to target multiple viral epitopes and can constrain the virus’ ability to evade recognition. @ScienceTM scim.ag/4jpH795
