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The week in Science
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The week connected the breach of the 1.5-degree threshold with a potentially record-strength El Niño and climate-linked Himalayan flooding. The focus shifted from long-term warnings toward immediate disaster attribution, adaptation, and regional preparedness.
A lawsuit first challenged NIH’s use of keyword screening and then expanded into allegations that politically disfavored research was being filtered out. The case now threatens to constrain agency discretion and make grant decisions more legally uncertain.
Studies mapped coordinated brain changes in midlife, identified an immune pathway linked to rapid aging, and reported a possible reversal of aging signs in mice. The research increasingly points toward intervention windows rather than treating aging as an undifferentiated decline.
Evidence about Earth’s building materials, a very young giant planet, and Phobos’s origin each put pressure on standard accounts of how planetary bodies form. The week broadened the revision from one planet’s history to competing models across the Solar System and beyond.
Ancient DNA first pushed plague’s origins back before cities and later showed repeated European returns for more than four centuries. Together, the findings recast plague as a much older and more persistent disease than conventional histories suggested.
New World screwworm reentered U.S. territory after decades of eradication, extending the week’s focus on biological threats with a direct risk to livestock, wildlife, pets, and potentially people. Officials began rebuilding eradication efforts while researchers worked on spread-tracking tools.
Day’s Recap