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The artificial intelligence (AI) company OpenAI has unveiled GPT-6 Astra, “the world’s smartest and best-aligned model”, according to the company. The new model will use a technique known as ‘opaque recurrence’, which allows it to operate outside the sequential thinking of most reasoning models and which is causing concern amongst AI safety experts due to the possibility that the model’s thought process may be more difficult to monitor.

The peaks of European mountains such as the Pyrenees or the Sierra Nevada may be gaining plant species as the climate warms, but this apparent increase in biodiversity is masking a growing wave of local extinctions. These are the main conclusions of a study published in the journal Science, which includes Spanish participation and analyses nearly a thousand vegetation plots spread across 62 European mountain peaks. The reason is that higher-altitude mountain regions have gained plant species in recent decades as plants from lower altitudes have expanded up the slopes, but this may mask the decline or disappearance of specialised, high-altitude resident species.

Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy is a side effect of platinum-based cancer treatments that affects more than 60 per cent of patients and causes pain, a burning sensation and numbness. The psychedelic compound psilocybin could help prevent it, according to researchers behind a study using mouse models published in Science. Two doses of psilocybin administered prior to treatment prevented peripheral neuropathy for up to six cycles of chemotherapy without reducing its anti-tumour effects. The author of another perspective article on this study, also in Science, states that “the challenge now is to translate this understanding of the underlying mechanisms into carefully designed clinical trials”.

Thanks to the Voyager probe, we know that Saturn has a long-lasting hexagonal wave at its north pole, which is linked to a powerful jet of matter and energy. Now, a team led by the University of the Basque Country has discovered, for the first time, the presence of a decagonal wave at the south pole. The observations, carried out from the ground and using the Hubble Space Telescope, show that the decagon appears to have formed between 2023 and 2025 and may continue to evolve, in contrast to the more than 40 years of stability exhibited by the hexagon. The research is published in Science Advances and suggests that the ten-sided shape could be a meandering wave trapped by the curvature of a dominant atmospheric current.

A team of researchers, including Nobel Laureate in Physics Roger Penrose, has observed for the first time an effect of gravity on a falling quantum object that had long been predicted. The result demonstrates that a fundamental principle underpinning Einstein’s theory of gravity remains consistent with the behaviour of matter in the quantum world. The study, published in the journal Science Advances, does not unify quantum mechanics and gravity, nor does it prove that gravity itself is quantum.

A meta-analysis involving over a million participants has identified more than a thousand genetic variants associated with human personality. The study, published today in the journal Nature, examines the possible links between DNA variations and differences in personality. The results do not suggest that personality can be predicted from DNA, but rather that some variants may influence behavioural traits, whilst acknowledging that other environmental factors may have a greater impact. In their work, the authors focus on five traits: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience.

Various models estimate that global temperatures will rise by more than 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels in the coming years, which will increase the vulnerability of societies and economies to climate change. A new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) states that it is still possible to reduce temperatures and meet the targets of the Paris Agreement. The report identifies a trajectory of overshoot, peak and decline as the best option. The key would be to minimise the magnitude and duration of this overshoot and to try to return to below 1.5 °C as soon as possible.

A study published in the journal JAMA Network Open assessed the attitudes of Australian teenagers in the context of the implementation of minimum age restrictions on social media use in their country. The research team found that the majority of respondents expressed their intention to continue using social media after the regulations came into force, despite the fact that, in this sample, symptoms of anxiety and depression were associated with a history of social media use and with a younger age at the time of first use.

The arrival of thousands of migrants in Ceuta at the end of July has led to the emergence of messages portraying these people as a health threat. However, the scientific evidence points to exactly the opposite: those arriving in our country are, generally speaking, in good health, and it is they – not the local population – who are at greatest risk of falling ill, due to the conditions in which they are forced to live. In the face of fear and misinformation, the best defence is transparent, data-driven information.

This week, Mark Zuckerberg’s company has agreed to introduce measures to protect teenagers on Instagram and Facebook and to pay up to 18,000 million dollars to settle a lawsuit brought by dozens of US states. The response is far from unanimous among child welfare organisations, who believe that the measures are unlikely to protect young people, given that they can be overridden by parents, will only be monitored for five years and are, to a large extent, conditional on behaviour. With these measures, responsibility is shifted onto families: if children and teenagers remain hooked, it will be their fault.