Tuesday, July 21, 2026

Andy Burnham became the United Kingdom's 59th prime minister on Monday, succeeding Keir Starmer and becoming the country's seventh leader in a decade.^[1]

Spain won the 2026 FIFA World Cup, defeating Argentina 1-0 with a Ferran Torres goal in extra time to claim their second title since 2010.^[2]

Scientists led by Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna used artificial intelligence to design functional CRISPR gene-editing enzymes not found in nature, with some synthetic variants outperforming natural enzymes in human cell editing.^[3]

Physicists created the first room-temperature quantum material, a plasmonic metacrystal made from gold meta-atoms that distinguishes and routes different quantum states of light without requiring cryogenic cooling.^[4]

Researchers discovered that a protein called SORLA may help protect the brain from Alzheimer's damage by reducing the harmful effects of tau tangles, potentially offering a new therapeutic target.^[5]

Scientists drilled off the Oregon coast and found evidence that a major Cascadia earthquake could trigger a second quake on the San Andreas Fault, based on unusual sediment layers formed by underwater landslides over thousands of years.^[6]

Archaeological excavations at Üçağızlı II Cave in Turkey revealed that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals may have shared a common culture spanning more than 20,000 years, with both species using identical stone-tool technologies and collecting non-food marine shells.^[7]

Scientists using quantum control techniques demonstrated the ability to reshape a system's arrow of time, making it appear to run backward and even harvesting energy from the measurement process.^[8]

UC Berkeley physicists adapted the phase-contrast technique to electron microscopy, enabling cryoelectron microscopes to produce clearer images of small proteins that were previously too faint to study effectively.^[9]