Kelly Servick

Home Jennie Erin Smith Back To Home Jennie Erin Smith News 2 Jun 2026By Jennie Erin Smith Brain-mapping effort searches for roots of Parkinson’s and other diseases Allen Institute initiative aims to capture earliest cellular changes and identify new drug targets News 12 May 2026By Jennie Erin Smith Most dementia patients have multiple brain diseases. How should they be treated?

In the past 20 years, mice with glowing cables sprouting from their heads have become a staple of neuroscience. They reflect the rise of optogenetics, in which neurons are engineered to contain light-sensitive proteins called opsins, allowing pulses of light to turn them on or off. The method has powered thousands of basic experiments into the brain circuits that drive behavior and underlie disease. As this research tool matured, hopes arose for using it as a treatment, too.

ASTRONOMY Life on an exoplanet? Not so fast Astronomers last week reported hints that the atmosphere of a distant planet contains gases linked to life. They used NASA’s JWST observatory to detect the fingerprints of dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide in starlight that had passed through the atmosphere of K2-18b, a massive planet 120 light-years away that may have a deep global ocean.