As the parent of two little girls, I often think about how their childhood is different from mine. The seven-year-old is learning about AI at school. The five-year-old is given internet-based homework every week. And they are both absolutely repulsed by the idea of smoking. That was not the prevailing sentiment when I was young.…

It’s been hot in London this week. Really hot. A dangerous heat wave has hit Western Europe. Yesterday, the UK recorded its highest ever June temperature at 36.1 °C (about 97 °F). But as the weather app on my phone confirmed, it felt like 39 °C. It’s frightening that we are seeing such temperatures in…

This week, I covered the story of Casey Harrell—a man with ALS who is “the first power user” of a brain implant, according to the researchers who worked with him. Harrell is paralyzed and unable to speak coherently without the device. He has now spent almost three years using a brain-computer interface (BCI) that enables…

Earlier this week, Life Biosciences, a biotech company focused on reversing age-related diseases, announced that it had dosed its first volunteer. A person with glaucoma has had an experimental treatment injected straight into their eyeball. The idea is to try to treat the disease—which can cause vision loss—by regenerating healthy nerves in the eye. But…

The alert was raised on May 5. Four health-care workers in the Ituri Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo had died from an unknown illness within four days. Rapid response teams were sent to investigate, and tests at a research center in Kinshasa revealed the culprit: the Bundibugyo virus, one of the viruses…

This Sunday, a group of 42 athletes will gather in Las Vegas to compete in a somewhat unusual sporting competition. Participants in the inaugural Enhanced Games are being encouraged to take performance-enhancing drugs. The goal is to “push the boundaries of human performance.” The games’ organizers have said that competitors will only be taking substances that…