A cheap pill eases long COVID fatigue, and koalas hid a secret die-off

Fluvoxamine, an antidepressant that's been on the market since the 1990s and costs almost nothing, won out: the statistical analysis found a 99 percent probability it beat the placebo. "This is an important step forward for patients who have been desperate for evidence-based options," said Edward Mills of McMaster University, the trial's senior author 1. It's one of the first medications in the world to show a real, measurable benefit for a symptom that has sidelined millions of people from work and family life with nothing to show for years of searching.

What they found: a severe population crash during a brutal glacial period, one so complete that every koala on the continent today traces back to a single small surviving population. "The study rewrites the timeline for the koala's genetic history in Australia," said PhD student Toby Kovacs, who led the work 10. The animals came back from almost nothing, on their own, and repopulated eastern Australia.

The difference isn't in how well autistic people learn; it's that their own preferences tend to be more varied and less predictable to an outside observer, which makes them genuinely harder to guess, for anyone. That single fact, not some deficit in reading social cues, may explain a lot of the friction autistic and non-autistic people report in getting to know each other.

One estimate says building restrictions in just New York, San Francisco, and San Jose cost the US economy $8,775 per worker every year 63. Right now, a record 22.6 million renter households, half of all renters, spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing 63.

Roughly 37,000 to 40,000 Americans die in car crashes every year. This is large-scale, transparent evidence that driverless cars, within the areas they currently operate, are meaningfully safer than we are.

The company's device, nicknamed WHAM, already pulled off something new: generating electricity by extracting it directly from charged particles in the plasma, rather than using heat to boil water and spin a turbine like every other reactor design 76. "From sausages to fusion," said CEO Kieran Furlong 76.

New Freedom of Information data shows six such licenses were granted in just the first three months of 2026, authorizing more than 100,000 animals for use over the next five years 99. More than 20,000 people have contacted their MPs on the issue since the campaign group Animal Aid's exposé in April. "Behind every licence is a living creature," said MP Neil Duncan-Jordan, who introduced the motion 99.

"When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer," he wrote. "But when our hearts expand... we can embrace others" 134.