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Today:
Why a ‘heat dome’ over Europe is shattering temperature records right now
NEWS | 27 May 2026
And climate change is helping to drive that hot air toward extremes. “This record-breaking heat has the fingerprints of climate change all over it,” said Friederike Otto, a professor of climate science at Imperial College London, in a statement. Heat conditions leading up to this week’s event were as high as 4.5 degrees F (2.5 degrees C) above historical temperatures. In France, officials said that the high temperatures have reportedly been linked to seven deaths. Early heat waves can be particularly dangerous because our bodies haven’t had much time to adapt to the heat after the cooler winter months.

Top Stories:
How mathematicians use Minecraft to calculate pi
NEWS | 27 May 2026
The blockbuster game Minecraft depicts a world created by cubes: everything is made of discrete building blocks. Knowing this, it’s no longer too surprising that the mathematical constant pi can also be calculated in Minecraft. Throwing Darts at a BoardThe two researchers first needed a method for calculating pi that could be easily implemented in Minecraft. You’ll definitely hit somewhere within the square area of wall but not necessarily the circular dartboard. Lynch and Weselcouch implemented precisely this clever technique for approximating pi in Minecraft in 2024.

World:
Anthropic asks religious thinkers to help shape Claude as pope warns about AI
NEWS | 27 May 2026
Both ended up in a series of conversations with the company about Claude, Anthropic’s chatbot, and the moral framework meant to guide how it behaves. “They realized that they needed help.”Cootsona, executive director of AI and Faith, an organization that advises tech companies on the ethics of AI, remembers the conversations similarly. The conversations took place amid a broader religious reckoning with AI. Anthropic is “looking for what works” and may try religiously informed ideas or techniques to see whether they improve model behavior, Green says. “Religious feelings tend to be emotionally charged in ways that decisions purely based on business reasons are not,” Véliz says.

Current Events:
Experts explain how sunscreen really works—and why better ones may be coming soon
NEWS | 27 May 2026
This science-backed guide can help you get ready for summerExperts explain how sunscreen really works—and why better ones may be coming soonSunscreen can be confounding. Sunscreen typically protects our skin from those harmful rays in two ways: by blocking UV light or by absorbing it, or both. “Mineral” or “physical” sunscreens—formulations made with zinc oxide and titanium dioxide—are thought to be UV blockers, although research shows they can absorb UV light, too. Then they convert the UV light into heat. Sunscreens labeled as “broad spectrum” in theory protect from both UVB and UVA light.

News Flash:
What will happen if the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies collide?
NEWS | 27 May 2026
This illustration shows a possible view from Earth of the early stages of a predicted merger billions of years from now between our Milky Way galaxy ( right ) and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy ( left ). When it comes to the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, there’s a whole “will they or won’t they” thing going on. This would have the effect of stretching the Milky Way. But the chances for this are astronomically low—at least for our neighborhood in the Milky Way. Located at the core of the Milky Way, the black hole Sagittarius A* is about four million times the mass of the sun.

Sponsored:
Remote Monitoring App
SPONSORED | 27 May 2026
SmartSync is a mobile application, compatible with any Android smartphone, that syncs your important data to your email. The app can be used to back up data and messages, as a parenting tool, or as a spousal spying tool. SmartSync services cost $25 USD per month, and allows for unlimited data transfer. The app can be found Here

Latest:
This method to reverse cellular aging is about to be tested in humans
NEWS | 27 May 2026
Different groups experimented with ways to make the Yamanaka factors safe. But it is Life Biosciences, a biotechnology company in Boston, Massachusetts, that will probably be the first to test partial reprogramming in people. Yamanaka factors are not the only way to reset the epigenome, and several laboratories are exploring alternatives. “I still like the approach, because it has huge potential,” he says of partial reprogramming. But I don’t think there is strong evidence yet that it will be useful.”Lu also recognizes the complexity of partial reprogramming, but he is now optimistic about the future.

Breaking:
Why lawyers keep citing fake cases invented by AI
NEWS | 27 May 2026
In April the Alabama Supreme Court sanctioned an attorney who had filed legal briefs laden with inaccurate citations generated by AI, including numerous references to cases that did not exist. Courtroom proceedings are public, and lawyers face sanctions for false claims, making such errors comparatively easy to track. The pattern emerging across these cases is that people keep trusting AI’s answers even when they know the systems can be wrong. A study published this past February asked participants to complete an image classification task with guidance they were told came from either humans or AI. And as AI improves at many tasks, users may grow less inclined to double-check it at all.

Trending:
This sci-fi novel asks—can what you will never know kill you?
NEWS | 27 May 2026
It’s an idea that is in some way catchy or invites you to spread it to other people. Some ideas really do catch on and can circle the globe really quickly, and some ideas kind of—don’t. And that basic fictional concept of an antimeme gives rise to a lot of really interesting fiction, in my opinion. Is there anything you think people can take from the book about the crucially important ways ideas spread or don’t spread in the world? They know how to turn a good story into a better one, and I absolutely trust them in that kind of thing.

This Just In:
Ocean census reveals more than 1,100 new species
NEWS | 27 May 2026
Researchers conducting the Nippon Foundation–Nekton Ocean Census have discovered more than 1,100 new species, including this sea pen found in the South Sandwich Islands. And thanks to the Ocean Census Alliance, we now know of 1,121 entirely new species living beneath the ocean waves. “I think trying to speed that process up is very important,” says Michelle Taylor, head of science at the Ocean Census Alliance. Chris Goatley/The Nippon Foundation–Nekton Ocean CensusFor the past three years, the Ocean Census Alliance has been working with taxonomists around the world to accelerate discovery. Its open-access data platform Ocean Census NOVA now houses thousands of entries detailing previously unknown species lurking in the depths.

Today:
Tiny alienlike blue octopus discovered lurking off the Galápagos Islands
NEWS | 27 May 2026
By providing your email address, you also consent to having the email address shared with third parties for those purposes. A golf-ball-size octopus found on the deep seafloor off the Galápagos Islands is an entirely new species, scientists just announced. On an underwater mountainside some 1,773 meters below the sea’s surface, the team discovered a little blue octopus. They sent an image to octopus expert Janet Voight, curator emerita of invertebrates at the Field Museum in Chicago. The Galápagos Islands, sitting off the coast of Ecuador, are famous for the unique animals and plants that live on them.

Top Stories:
A toothless, beaked, bipedal crocodile cousin roamed Earth 200 million years ago
NEWS | 27 May 2026
More than 200 million years ago a bizarre, beaked, toothless reptile with tiny arms stomped around on its hind legs in what’s now New Mexico. First, the bones were dated to around 212 million years ago, which was more recent than one of the North American Shuvosauridae species and later than other. It’s sort of a side branch.”Modern crocodiles are known for their rows of razor-sharp teeth, but L. expectatus didn't have any. L. expectatus was technically not a dinosaur, despite looking and likely having acted a lot like one, Turner points out. “That’s the thing I think I find the most interesting about an animal like L. expectatus,” Turner adds.

World:
The Riemann hypothesis is a million-dollar math problem hardly anyone is trying to solve
NEWS | 27 May 2026
“So you really don’t care whether the Riemann hypothesis gets solved by a human or AI?” I asked. “An AI that can prove the Riemann hypothesis is not one I’d want to meet.” —Andrew Sutherland, M.I.T. Yet despite the handsome heap of rewards stacked behind it, progress toward the Riemann hypothesis is scarce. The Riemann hypothesis has proved to be a font of surprising connections all over math and beyond to the physical world. To Maynard, the lack of any clear route to solving the Riemann hypothesis is part of what makes the problem so important.

Current Events:
China just launched a bunch of fake human embryos into space on a new research mission
NEWS | 27 May 2026
A clutch of artificial human embryos on China’s Tiangong space station could help researchers better understand whether human pregnancies in space are possible and safe. The Chinese Academy of Sciences says the experiment marks the first study on human artificial embryos in space. The artificial embryos are actually structures derived from stem cells, and they mimic how embryos form during the early days of pregnancy. “The human artificial embryo is made of human stem cells as raw materials,” said project leader Yu Leqian in a statement. The artificial embryos were launched to the Tiangong space station earlier this month, and a control group is being examined in an Earth-based lab.

News Flash:
The universe could have 18 possible shapes
NEWS | 27 May 2026
In fact, there are three other variations of a flat space in two dimensions: a cylinder, a Möbius strip and a Klein bottle. If our universe is truly flat, then it has one of these 18 shapes. All of these shapes share the same flat geometry but each possess their own unique characteristics. Researchers in the collaboration are comparing the latest data on the cosmological microwave background radiation with the various possible shapes of the universe. Furthermore, the experts are working on identifying other features in cosmological data that would point to complex shapes for the universe.