This is the starting point for his new book, The Creativity Code, a lucid, endlessly interesting exploration of what AI may mean for maths, the arts and even our understanding of what it is to be human. In Du Sautoy’s field of maths, it held out the prospect of AI moving beyond dull, if complex, number crunching, into the kind of quintessentially human activities that define how the subject works: strategising, discriminating and “making choices about the interesting pathways to take”. Du Sautoy also looks at AI-generated art, and programs that have come up with superficially convincing works based on the techniques of such old masters as Rembrandt (“a horrible, tasteless, insensitive and soulless travesty of all that is creative in human nature”, reckoned Guardian art critic, Jonathan Jones).

Over the past few years, Olson watched as the formerly notorious anesthetic cum party drug was rebranded as an experimental miracle for treatment-resistant depression. Ketamine has the ability to rebuild fraying connections between brain cells integral to networks that regulate emotions and mood, thanks to an effect known as neural plasticity. Olson suspected that the process by which ketamine promotes this type of plasticity could be activated by other substances as well, and in June his team published a paper showing that in rats, psychedelics such as LSD, ecstasy, and dimethyltryptamin, or DMT, mirror ketamine’s effects.

It’s generally assumed that living for a very long time is a widely held desire. To help you in your quest for a long lifespan, data visualizer extraordinaire David McCandless made a clever chart showing the extent to which a number of habits and traits can extend your life expectancy, according to science:

As the “ultimate recipe” cheekily suggests, many of the things that either extend or reduce your life expectancy are out of your control. But it’s worth noting that many of the habits associated with longevity — eating well, exercising, having pets, maintaining friendships, having orgasms, drinking in moderation — are also habits that will improve your quality of life right now.

Plomin, one of the early pioneers of the twin and adoption studies that paved the way for current research linking genetics and human behavior, is an unabashed cheerleader for genetic intelligence testing. Hundreds of studies of twins and adoptive families have shown that intelligence is roughly 50 percent heritable, meaning that about half of the differences between people in cognitive ability are due to their genetic makeup. Despite talk of a “genetic test for intelligence,” polygenic scores aren’t themselves intelligence; they’re a statistical construct weakly associated with it.Nevertheless, once solid research linking specific genes to intelligence was published, it didn’t take long for personal genomics companies to develop consumer products around it.

For just the second time since the global epidemic began, a patient appears to have been cured of infection with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The news comes nearly 12 years to the day after the first patient known to be cured, a feat that researchers have long tried, and failed, to duplicate. The surprise success now confirms that a cure for H.I.V. infection is possible, if difficult, researchers said.

Radioactive wastes from nuclear power generation might grip the imagination of a ‘worst waste’ since their harmful effects last thousands of years. “Radioactive wastes from nuclear power generation might grip the imagination of a ‘worst waste’ since their harmful effects last thousands of years. More than 30 years later, we have no permanent disposal repository planned or proposed for high-level nuclear waste in the U.S. (In 2010, Yucca Mountain was deemed not workable and we have no other candidate sites.)

In fact, there are patent applications still being prosecuted that claim priority back to Holmes’ 2003 submission. Holmes’ original patent application became a key part of the company’s mythology. Yet more than a decade after Holmes’ first patent application, Theranos had still not managed to build a reliable blood-testing device.

Whereas no one is quite sure what the natural role of “healthy” amyloid beta is, tau is known to maintain protein filaments called microtubules inside nerve cells, which Fox calls “the railway tracks of the neurons’ transport system”. The consequences of aberrant amyloid beta and tau – formation of plaques and tangles in brain tissue – were seen by the German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer himself when he identified and studied this form of neurodegeneration in the 1900s. Some say that amyloid beta sets up the danger but tau sets it off: amyloid plaques build up around neurons in the brains of healthy people, but that’s only a problem if tangles caused by tau are present too.

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As the head of fermentation at Noma, Zilber, 33, coaxes new flavors out of jars whose contents are bubbling, rotting and pickling away to introduce at the cult-status Danish establishment (the restaurant was named best restaurant in the world four times, and was re-awarded two Michelin stars last week). So when Noma’s chef, Rene Redzepi, and Zilber published the Noma Guide to Fermentation last fall, it quickly became a modern edible bacteria bible. Across 100 recipes and nearly 500 pages, the guide covers Noma’s best experiments with seven types of fermentation – lactic acid, kombucha, vinegar, koji, miso, shoyu and garum – all of which make appearances on every dish at the restaurant.