A definitive diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., can only happen posthumously through a weeks-long process of removing, processing and studying brain tissue.
NASA
The agency’s scientists are still not saying they found fossils of Martian microbes, but analysis of the specimen collected by the Perseverance rover raises that possibility.
By Kenneth Chang
America’s cancer research system, which has helped save millions of lives, is under threat in one of its most productive moments.
By Jonathan Mahler
Scott McIntyre for The New York Times
News analysis
The health secretary has begun a full-on assault against vaccines but has taken a more restrained approach to pesticides and unhealthy foods, also MAHA priorities.
By Benjamin Mueller and Dani Blum
Let us know how we’re doing at sciencenewsletter@nytimes.com.
LIGO/Caltech/MIT/Sonoma State (Aurore Simonnet), via Science Source
Out There
Ten years ago, astronomers made an epic discovery with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. Cosmology hasn’t been the same since, and it might not stay that way much longer.
By Dennis Overbye
Juvé et al., Nature 2025
Trilobites
Researchers discovered that Mediterranean ants are having babies that belong to a different species.
By Cara Giaimo
Cristobal Olivares for The New York Times
Global Profile
A Chilean astronomer has become dedicated to battling light pollution in the Atacama Desert and preserve what is considered the best place on Earth to study space.
By John Bartlett and Cristóbal Olivares
Chelsea Bennice
Scientists set out to understand all the ways the animals use their eight appendages. It wasn’t easy.
By Kate Golembiewski
Democrats are calling for the creation of a state equivalent of the National Institutes of Health, but first state lawmakers and then voters would need to approve it.
By Shawn Hubler and Alan Blinder
An archaeologist, he discovered and analyzed the residue of beverages imbibed by long-vanished civilizations and then figured out how to recreate them.
By Michael S. Rosenwald
His expeditions, including many to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, yielded rare findings and led to exhibitions at the American Museum of Natural History.
By Richard Sandomir
Tailyr Irvine for The New York Times
They claim Trump’s executive orders are unconstitutional. The government says their lawsuit should be thrown out. The two sides are set to clash this week in Montana.
By Karen Zraick
Oyvind Martinsen, via Alamy
The cold water upwell, which is vital to marine life, did not materialize for the first time on record. Researchers are trying to figure out why.
By Sachi Kitajima Mulkey
Grant Hindsley for The New York Times
The data, from thousands of coal-burning power plants, oil refineries, steel mills and other industrial facilities, is the country’s most comprehensive way to track greenhouse gases.
By Maxine Joselow
We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times.
Melissa Golden for The New York Times
The committee, whose members were appointed by the health secretary and include vaccine skeptics, will meet on Thursday to review recommendations for several shots.
By Apoorva Mandavilli
The New York Times
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has hired longtime vaccine safety skeptics and scientists who are critical of Covid shots and mandates to make immunization policy decisions for Americans.
By Amy Schoenfeld Walker and Lazaro Gamio
Kristian Thacker for The New York Times
Committee members, some of whom are vaccine skeptics, are likely to recommend restricting the use of the shots at birth or delaying them until later in childhood.
Dave Sanders for The New York Times
The agency plans to highlight possible links between the shots and accounts of deaths involving children and birth defects to an influential C.D.C. panel meeting next week.
By Christina Jewett and Apoorva Mandavilli
Carolyn Fong for The New York Times
Acute necrotizing encephalopathy, or A.N.E., can result from influenza or other infections, including Covid-19.
By Apoorva Mandavilli and Carolyn Fong
