Latest news stories - September 2026 - Click the links to read more
Novel 'speech clock' can estimate a person's chronological age
A new study published in Science Advances suggests researchers have developed a "speech clock" that can estimate a person's chronological age from hundreds of acoustic and linguistic characteristics of their speech. The difference between a person's actual age and their speech-predicted age was associated with multiple independent markers of biological aging, brain health, cognition, social adversity, and dementia.
House cats can unlock better cancer treatments
Scientists have mapped the genetics of cat cancer on an unprecedented scale and found surprising similarities with tumors in humans. The findings could help bring precision cancer treatments to cats while also revealing new clues about how human cancers develop and respond to drugs.
AI is changing the way we do biology and the way we treat genetic disease
"We trained a model, called ProtiCelli, that essentially allows us to see all 13,000 proteins inside a single human cell at once. Now we can measure and analyze this massive image and harvest a lot more information. This is an example of how AI is breaking barriers and unlocking capabilities we’ve never had before".
A 240-million-year-old fossil just changed the dinosaur timeline
A newly identified 240-million-year-old animal from Tanzania is forcing scientists to rethink the early dinosaur timeline. Dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda belongs to a group previously known only from South America, linking fossil deposits on the two continents. That connection suggests Tanzania’s supposed oldest dinosaur fossils may actually be millions of years younger than previously thought.
Life uses 4 DNA letters. Scientists made 8 work, expanding what living systems can be engineered for
Researchers at UC San Diego have demonstrated that a key cellular enzyme can accurately read an eight-letter genetic alphabet, doubling the four letters used by all known life on Earth. Detailed imaging revealed that RNA polymerase handles synthetic DNA letters in surprisingly similar ways to natural ones. The finding brings scientists closer to building expanded genetic systems that could perform entirely new biological functions.