1. Popular weight-loss drugs may do more than help people shed pounds. They might also melt away the years. Drug giants Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk say patients taking their drugs age less quickly, according to readouts from molecular “aging clocks.” Such clocks assess a person’s biological age by looking at changes to DNA that accumulate with time, or, in newer versions, by tracking levels of key proteins. Both companies found that overweight or diabetic patients taking the drugs, called GLP-1s, had reduced biological age compared to those taking a placebo, although the difference varied widely, depending on which type of clock was used, and what organ was tested. Overall, the difference was around “two to three years,” according to Nikolaj Roed, a global project leader at Novo, who says the company has been seeing “improved biological age in our patients across trials and across different tissues.” (Source: technologyreview.com)
2. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:
China has established a commanding lead as the largest originating source of elite AI talent globally. Compared to 2022, the share of Chinese-origin AI talent, defined as those who received undergraduate degrees in China, increased 11 percentage points to 57 percent in 2025, while the U.S. share fell to 13 percent.
The United States remains a magnet for global AI talent, particularly Chinese talent. Despite U.S.-China tensions, among AI researchers working in the United States, the 2025 share of those holding undergraduate degrees from China rose by 4 percentage points. When it comes to brain gain vs. brain drain, the United States saw a net gain of +2,145 researchers in 2025 while China registered a net loss of -1,729 researchers.
Asia ex-China, namely South Korea and Singapore, made notable gains on AI talent. Not only does South Korea have the second-highest talent retention rate of 77 percent, its key institution KAIST leapt twelve places since 2022 to now rank as the third-highest institution in terms of producing top AI talent. Likewise, Singapore’s NUS and NTU both made it into the top twenty institutions ranking, which was not the case in 2022. (Sources: carnegieendowment.org, nytimes.com)
3. Mathematicians have been stunned by the accelerating capabilities of artificial intelligence, which in recent months have unraveled some of the toughest open math problems that had eluded humans. Yesterday, OpenAI deluged mathematicians with hundreds of new findings that span a wide swath of topics including algebra, number theory, theoretical computer science, mathematical logic and topology. The 377 results follow OpenAI’s announcement last month that it had succeeded in cracking the Navier-Stokes equation — one of the so-called Millennium Problems, which were considered so challenging that a $1 million reward was offered for each solution. The achievement showcased what the most advanced artificial intelligence models are capable of, but it also raised questions over whether OpenAI’s artificial intelligence systems were employing creative thinking or simply completing the final steps of a proof after borrowing ideas from human mathematicians’ work. (Source: nytimes.com)
