A regular roundup of the latest science news explained in plain language for readers without a science background.
This issue pairs a global estimate that about 1 in 8 cancer cases stem from infections with fresh findings from space, from JWST's early galaxies to Roman's first look and Perseverance's watery Mars history. It also covers cells that swallow their dead neighbors, hidden ocean warming and a medieval remedy. Most worth reading is the Live Science cancer story, which puts numbers on how vaccination could prevent disease.
E-cadherin, the protein known as the "glue" holding cells together, also helps epithelial cells swallow nearby dead cells. In live zebrafish and mouse embryos, cells reshaped their lower surfaces to engulf debris while keeping their upper surfaces stable, so protective barriers stayed sealed.
A Lancet Oncology analysis estimates infections caused about 2.3 million new cancer cases in 2024, roughly 12% of the total. Four pathogens account for about 92% of those cases: H. pylori (760,000), HPV (750,000), hepatitis B (360,000) and EBV (260,000). Only 31% of eligible adolescent girls worldwide received at least one HPV vaccine dose in 2024.
NASA's Roman Space Telescope has shown pointing stability comparable to aiming a laser at a dime from about 150 miles away. Its coronagraph captured stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud, confirming it can produce focused images.
Streams that already watch this field. Follow one as it is — it costs nothing extra.
Real progress on the six open Millennium Prize Problems — the Riemann hypothesis, P vs NP, Navier–Stokes, Yang–Mills, Hodge and Birch–Swinnerton-Dyer: serious papers, partial results, AI-assisted advances, and what experts say about claimed solutions.
Where the P vs NP question stands: circuit and proof-complexity lower bounds, barriers, meta-complexity, geometric complexity theory, new reductions and hardness results, and how the community reads each claimed proof.
Progress in quantum hardware and error correction — experiments on real devices, not just proposals.