your science briefing for 04.14.2025

Bad news for life on Titan, one step closer to computers that run on lasers, the most bizarre way to die from the plague, and more...

Saturn’s moon Titan is one of the most interesting places for planetary scientists who want to understand alternative chemistry for life as we know it. Studies tried to figure out if it’s possible for cryo-bacteria metabolizing hydrogen instead of oxygen to make Titan home. But new research puts a small damper in that idea. For the bacteria to get the basic nutrients they need, the complex carbons on the surface or right under it do not regularly mix into the lakes of liquid methane that would act as a solvent in critical biochemical reactions. This doesn’t mean there’s no life on Titan. But it does mean it’s going to be harder to find, and evolutionarily boxed in… (PhysOrg)

You’re probably familiar with strep, a common infection which makes you feel like you are trying to swallow razor blades while frozen in a block of ice. But a close relative of the bacteria that causes it, Streptococcus pyogenes, can cause the scariest disease a doctor can think of: necrotizing fasciitis. It’s exactly what it sounds like, a bacteria that eats you alive. Infections with this strain of strep have doubled as of late, and became more resistant to antibiotics. The risks are still low and the primary victims are elderly and those with compromised immune systems, but scientists are watching the germs for signs of more aggressive mutations… (New Atlas)

At a very fundamental level, our most advanced technology is made of rocks through which we zap electricity at agreed upon intervals to go through microscopic locks and gates. The problem is that we can only make those gates and locks so small until we can’t just shoot more electricity through them, which is why lately, we’re struggling to make our computers faster without melting their CPUs. This is why engineers want to use light pulses instead. It takes less energy and the lasers won’t interfere with each other if the chip is set up correctly. And it looks like we’re finally starting to figure out how to make photonic computing a real world product… (Science News)

AI has actually been a boon for medicine. It’s good at double-checking scans, finding new medications, and parsing voluminous notes for missed patterns. But this applies only to specially trained models given high quality information vetted by experts, then trained and tested in direct collaboration with medical professionals. But if Dr. Oz, the surgeon turned amoral daytime snake oil shill, turned failed politician, has his way in a new position to control Medicaid, wants you to talk to a chatbot instead of a doctor to get a diagnosis. Obviously, doctors and patients aren’t thrilled… (Wired)

Imagine working with the plague as a scientist. The plague is defanged. It lacks some crucial proteins to spawn and attack a host. Through a tear in a glove, or just a simple mistake, you infect yourself with this bacteria. No problem. It can’t make you sick. But you have hemochromatosis, a disorder in which your body absorbs excessive iron as you eat. And wouldn’t you know it, that extra iron is the exact boost which Plague Lite now swimming through your body needs to activate and mount a deadly assault. This is the bizarre case of a lab worker in Chicago being investigated by the CDC after one day, he suddenly fell ill and quickly died… (LiveScience)