Denisovan DNA still runs our immune systems, and the brain learns in two steps

What they built was a catalog three times larger than any previously assembled: 3,127 Denisovan genetic variants that are still actively functioning in living people from Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Fiji [12]. People from Papua New Guinea carry up to 5% Denisovan DNA, an extraordinary proportion given that the Denisovans vanished around 30,000 years ago. That DNA is not sitting inert as an evolutionary footnote. It is switching immune genes on and off, regulating the body's response to pathogens, in people alive today [12].

First, cell bodies across all brain regions involved in the task expand briefly. This is a short-lived homeostatic response, the brain accommodating new input. Then, more slowly, the branching processes connecting neurons grow and stay grown in just the specific motor regions that handled the task. Permanent new wiring [28]. The second study worked with mice and found something stranger: you can trigger the slow synchronized brain waves of deep non-REM sleep in a specific brain region while the animal stays fully awake and alert [103]. That region gets the memory-consolidating benefits of sleep without the animal losing consciousness. The rest of the brain keeps watch while one area quietly rests [103].

But one signal in the data never made sense: sixteen minutes after the main shock, stations across the country registered a synchronized eastward shift of 5 to 6 millimeters [70]. No aftershock had occurred. No known process could explain it. A team led by University of Chicago geophysicist Sunyoung Park traced the signal back to a type of seismic wave called an ScS wave, a shear wave that travels down to the boundary between Earth's mantle and liquid outer core, reflects, and climbs back up [70]. When this particular wave returned to the surface, it triggered additional slip simultaneously along multiple major plate boundaries surrounding Japan [185]. The resulting event stretched across roughly 1,800 miles, making it the broadest seismic event ever documented. It released energy equivalent to a magnitude 7.5 earthquake. Nobody had seen this before [185].

The therapy carries three Yamanaka transcription factors, genes whose activation can reprogram mature cells to behave like younger versions of themselves, delivered via a disabled virus directly into retinal neurons. The trial's initial focus is age-related eye conditions including glaucoma. The eye was deliberately chosen because it is relatively self-contained: if something goes wrong, effects stay localized. There are 18 planned participants [190]. Second: the FDA reversed its previous opposition to a gene therapy for Huntington's disease developed by biotech company UniQure, clearing the path for the company to file for US approval [83]. Huntington's is caused by a single faulty gene and is always fatal. There are currently no approved treatments that modify the disease itself [83].

Nearly three years later, he uses the device to surf the web, maintain his work as a climate activist, reconnect with friends, and read to his daughter. A separate finding published this week in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America found that AI voice clones are up to 20% more intelligible than the real human voices they mimic, specifically in noisy environments [102]. For people who use computer-assisted speech because their own voice has been compromised by disease, that difference could matter more than it seems.

The drugs already quiet what users call "food noise," the background mental chatter about eating. The finding suggests they may quiet impulsive urges more broadly, including the kind that leads to aggression [110]. Separately, economist Tyler Cowen summarized a now substantial body of evidence on the shingles vaccine and dementia: three new studies from the US, Australia, and Canada, using large numbers and credible designs, found roughly 20% reductions in dementia risk among people 50 and older who received the Shingrix vaccine [136]. Women benefit more than men. The effect appears predominantly linked to Alzheimer's disease, and the mechanism may involve the varicella zoster virus (the same virus that causes chickenpox and shingles) playing a role in some forms of dementia [136].

Every single one ended in a draw [174]. Spain versus Cape Verde, predicted 3-0, finished 0-0. Copilot's reasoning was coherent: Spain has elite attackers, Cape Verde has a weak defense, therefore goals. What it could not model was Josimar "Vozinha" Dias, Cape Verde's goalkeeper, who saved everything that came at him and went viral for it. The AI was also wrong about Belgium-Egypt (predicted 2-1, finished 1-1), Uruguay-Saudi Arabia (predicted 2-1, finished 1-1), and Iran-New Zealand (predicted 1-0, finished 2-2) [174]. A pre-publication study found that in controlled tests of AI models' ability to predict soccer outcomes, even the best model was right only 43% of the time, compared to 59% for humans [174].