Some squirrels are left-handed. Others are right-handed. Pinecones have left- and right-spiraling patterns, too. So here's a question I can't stop thinking about: Do left-handed squirrels prefer left-handed pinecones? I need a research grant.

Nature Synthesis is looking at self-driving labs for industry. I love the idea. Now give the AI a bad batch, a late supplier and a customer who wants exactly the same material by Friday. That's when the fun starts. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

The road to self-driving laboratories in industry - Nature Synthesis

In this issue, we focus on the development of self-driving laboratories for the autonomous synthesis of molecules and materials, with a particular focus on industrial considerations and applications.

nature.com

Banned Books Week made me think about a much smaller problem: how fast we judge a book before opening it. A title can become a filter all by itself. I may have learned that the hard way with mine. dvedenidov.com

Freedom to Read Project@freedomreadproject.bsky.social · 2w ago

Banned Books Week is coming! Oct. 4–10, we’re celebrating the freedom to read and shining a light on censorship in schools and libraries. Follow along for challenged books, resources, and ways to turn awareness into action. #BannedBooksWeek #FreedomToRead #ReadFreely

Funny how “AI is too dangerous for small players” can end up sounding a lot like “leave it to the biggest companies.”

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌@chanda.blacksky.app · 2w ago

thebulletin.org/2026/09/how-...

Everyone talks about how much power AI will need. I’m more interested in who gets the bill. Data centers don’t appear in empty space. Someone has to pay for the grid around them. www.reuters.com/business/ene...

FERC asks grid operator PJM to revise plan to shield homes from data center costs

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission directed the largest US grid operator, PJM Interconnection, to postpone and revise its "backstop" procurement proposal to ensure ​that large energy users like ...

reuters.com

Some breakthroughs don’t make the medicine more powerful. They remove the refrigerator. Researchers report mRNA vaccine formulations that retained full bioactivity after two months at 37°C. Technology becomes transformative when logistics stop being the bottleneck. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Accelerated discovery of thermostable mRNA–lipid nanoparticle vaccines using data-efficient AI - Nature Biotechnology

The thermostability of RNA vaccines is improved with AI.

nature.com

Gene therapy is becoming less about sending a payload somewhere - and more about controlling exactly when and where it becomes active. Precision may turn out to be a question of timing, not just targeting. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Controllable gene delivery via masked adeno-associated viral vectors - Nature Materials

Masked adeno-associated viruses are developed that remain inactive until they are unmasked by disease-related signals or near-infrared light, enabling localized gene delivery to the liver, muscle, bra...

nature.com

AI is usually discussed as software. But its limits are becoming physical. Data centers need power, land, water - and communities willing to host them. The next bottleneck in intelligence may not be the model. It may be infrastructure. www.reuters.com/business/sil...

In Silicon Valley, AI data center boom meets local resistance

A clash with residents and environmental groups highlights a challenge confronting policymakers nationwide.

reuters.com

“Rogue activity” makes this sound like rebellion. The real shift is simpler: agents now act, not just answer. Once software can touch the world, permissions become part of intelligence. A bad answer is annoying. A bad action has a blast radius.

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 3w ago

OpenAI says agents leaked 53 images from ChatGPT users in latest example of rogue activity

Graphene can separate two liquids completely - and still let an electrical signal cross between them. This is why I’m still interested in graphene after all the hype. The useful discoveries are getting quieter, not smaller. www.nature.com/subjects/gra...

Everyone is arguing about whether you should bring iced coffee to a job interview. The coffee isn’t interesting. The fact that it can matter is. When jobs become scarce, competence stops being the only filter. Ritual returns. #FutureOfWork www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-iced-...

What the Great Iced Coffee Debate says about job hunting in 2026

Can bringing an iced coffee to an interview doom your chances? A viral TikTok debate has job seekers wondering which details could make a difference.

businessinsider.com

Meta says Muse in its AI glasses should become personal and proactive. That’s the real story. A phone waits for a command. An agent lives in your context. The product may not be glasses. It may be permission. engineering.fb.com/2026/09/23/s...

Bringing Private Processing to Meta AI Glasses

We believe glasses are the best form factor for having AI help throughout your day. They can understand your personal context better than other kinds of devices and keep you present without picking…

engineering.fb.com

Claude found a previously unknown enzyme system in phage data. What matters isn’t “AI did science.” It saw what we missed. Maybe discovery is becoming less about finding answers - and more about asking the right questions. www.anthropic.com/news/claude-...

Claude discovers a novel enzyme system

In early results from our new life sciences research lab, Claude agents found an enzyme system whose function is still unknown.

anthropic.com

Claude now leads 26% of Anthropic’s AI R&D. The interesting part isn’t “AI building AI.” It’s the human role moving from doing the work to supervising it. We may be automating not just tasks, but the making of the next machine. www.anthropic.com/institute/me...

Measurements for understanding the pace of AI development inside frontier labs

Today, the world can’t see what’s going on inside AI labs. Anthropic is proposing new metrics that would give the public visibility into frontier AI development.

anthropic.com

The danger may not be that AI makes us less intelligent. It may be that thinking becomes optional. And once something becomes optional, people eventually stop practicing it. The machine does not have to take our ability to think. Convenience may do that for it.

Helen Pearson@helenpearson.bsky.social · 3w ago

NEW: There are widespread concerns that AI will reduce our critical-thinking skills. My story for @nature.com today looks at how to maintain those skills — and teach them to students. I found some fascinating science on critical thinking + useful tips for us all 🧠 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

We like to think value lives inside things. It doesn’t. Ice is worthless in winter and precious in the desert. A boat can be an asset one year and a burden the next. Value is not a property. It is an address and a date.

AI may not create mass unemployment all at once. It may create something quieter: millions of people who are not starving, not working, not protesting — just waiting for the old world to come back. What happens when they realize it won’t?

A film about George Washington made me think about the unwritten rules of power. What happens when those rules weaken and AI makes spectacle easier? Who is steering — and who is only pretending to? pyrohgen.substack.com/p/the-leash-...

The Leash Is Off

A few days ago I watched a film about the young George Washington, and one scene has stayed with me longer than the rest of it.

pyrohgen.substack.com

Five great powers. Five spiders in one closed jar, fighting over finite air. What if AI could change the game — not by dividing scarcity, but by creating abundance? Who will dare to offer a future worth choosing? pyrohgen.substack.com/p/five-spide...

Five Spiders in a Jar, or Why No One Is Offering a Future

Artificial intelligence did not arrive at a random moment.

pyrohgen.substack.com

Here's a business idea: use AI to rewrite great books for any reader. Adapting books across cultures builds bridges. Making them endlessly shorter and simpler may destroy the very act of reading. The money is there. I won't take it. pyrohgen.substack.com/p/a-business...

A Business Idea I'm Giving Away

Here is a business idea, and it is free, and I am serious about both parts.

pyrohgen.substack.com

I could build a talking stone that answers questions once brought to ancient gods. AI makes that possible. But if divine counsel can be manufactured and copied endlessly, what were people really kneeling to — the answers, or something else? pyrohgen.substack.com/p/the-god-th...

The God That Can Be Built

I want to talk about God, and I want to do it carefully, so let me begin with where I stand — honestly, since honesty is the only excuse for touching this subject at all.

pyrohgen.substack.com

I went to an auction to buy back my own boat. A forwarder kept my money. The carrier held the cargo. Storage fees piled up. Everyone had a reason — except the thief. What is ownership worth when you can't reach what you own? pyrohgen.substack.com/p/the-auctio...

The Auction of Unclaimed Things

Today I sat in an auction hall in Dubai, sweating over a boat I already paid for once.

pyrohgen.substack.com

In four days, one hour a day, I built a program I couldn't code— or even read. I clicked Yes roughly 600 times without checking what I approved. The program worked. But what had I agreed to? pyrohgen.substack.com/p/six-hundre...

Six Hundred Yeses: How I Built a Program I Cannot Read

The code worked. I had no idea what I'd approved.

pyrohgen.substack.com

I mixed silicone oil with 0.1% carbon nano-onions (CNO) using an ordinary drill. With plain oil, my treadmill’s power draw rose 18% in an hour. With CNO, it stayed stable for 150 minutes. A home experiment, not a certified lab test. pyrohgen.substack.com/p/i-tested-c...

I Tested Carbon Nano-Onions on My Treadmill with a Drill and a $15 Smart Plug

I lead the R&D company that industrialized this material — but I don't work in the lab myself.

pyrohgen.substack.com

At 5 a.m., I learned a day laborer costs $100 — twice what some young professionals earn in my city. AI can replace desk work, but it still can't carry planks. Those pushed aside don't always protest. They wait. What for? Full essay: pyrohgen.substack.com/p/the-man-in...

The Man In Between

I couldn’t sleep, and at five in the morning I was doing arithmetic.

pyrohgen.substack.com