theSIGNAL SCIENCE
10 September 2026
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool."
NEWSBUSINESSTECHNOLOGYWORLDSCIENCECULTUREENVIRONMENTSPORT
Science

Alien Life "Hints" Excite Headlines, Not Scientists

When two big astrobiology announcements shook the world in 2025, most scientists quietly disagreed with the headlines.

In April 2025, a press release changed dinner-table conversations around the world. Researchers had detected possible traces of dimethyl sulfide in the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18b — a molecule that, on Earth, is made by living things. NASA Administrator Sean Duffy called the Martian rock sample "Cheyava Falls" the "closest we have ever come" to finding life on Mars. The headlines were electric.

But here is the strange part: almost nobody asked the scientists. That is exactly the gap a new survey set out to close. Within days of each announcement, a team of researchers polled hundreds of astrobiologists from across the global research community. The question was blunt: do you think extraterrestrial life has probably been found?

For K2-18b, only 6.6% of experts agreed that it probably had. Nearly two-thirds actively disagreed. For the Mars case, confidence was a little higher — 15.

1% agreed — yet fewer than half the field was convinced. The broader scientific community, it turns out, was far more cautious than the press releases ever suggested.

Photo: Stephan Widua / Unsplash
A radio telescope scans the night sky, searching for signals from distant worlds.
Discuss
  • Why might press officers and journalists focus on the most excited scientists rather than the most cautious ones?
  • Only 6.6% of astrobiologists agreed life was probably found on K2-18b — does that number surprise you, and why?
  • Should news organisations be required to report how many scientists were surveyed before using the phrase 'scientists believe'?
Science

Weight-Loss Drug Quietly Calms Asthma Too

Nearly 40%. That is how much semaglutide — the drug behind Ozempic and Wegovy — appeared to reduce asthma attacks in a striking new study presented at the European Respiratory Society Congress in Barcelona. Professor Chloe Bloom of Imperial College London analysed electronic health records from over 20,000 UK patients. People already taking semaglutide for diabetes or obesity experienced far fewer asthma attacks than those on other diabetes medications. Semaglutide also cut COPD flare-ups by around 20%. Researchers believe the drug's known anti-inflammatory effects may be quietly protecting the lungs too. Still, Professor Bloom is careful: this is real-world data, not a clinical trial, and nobody should request semaglutide purely for their breathing just yet.…
  • Should weight-loss drugs be tested in trials specifically targeting asthma patients?
∞
The public is often told a story about scientific consensus that has not yet been checked against the scientists themselves.
Survey researchers, astrobiology opinion study 2025
Science

AI Cracks a 100-Year-Old Maths Mystery

Ten thousand AI agents. Eighty-eight hours. One problem that has defeated every human mathematician for nearly a century. OpenAI claims its internal system — more powerful than its own GPT-6 Astra model — has cracked the Navier-Stokes equations, one of seven legendary Millennium Prize Problems set by the Clay Mathematics Institute. But the celebration did not last long. NYU professor Tristan Buckmaster pointed out an uncomfortable coincidence: OpenAI accelerated its effort after learning that he and an Anthropic researcher were already close to the same breakthrough. Their work-in-progress had been stored inside OpenAI's own Codex model. OpenAI denied using their data — yet admitted it could not fully rule it out. Google DeepMind has also been quietly racking up mathematical achievements.…
  • If AI solves a problem, should a human mathematician still receive the prize?
OCEANIA · Science
Grooming-related messages reach almost two-thirds of children
GLOBAL · Science
The trail of clues that suggest our planet might be heating faster than we realised
EUROPE · Science
Crime is falling—but the public doesn't feel safer, UK study finds
ASIA · Science
The volunteers risking their lives to defuse Indonesia's wildfire 'carbon bombs'
theSIGNAL IN THE LAB
1VOCABULARY
astrobiologistsextraterrestrial
consensusanti-inflammatoryflare-ups
coincidenceexoplanet
2GRAMMAR FOCUS
Reported speech — statements, questions, commands with tense shift
When reporting what someone said, the verb tense typically shifts back one step (e.g. 'is' becomes 'was', 'has found' becomes 'had found'). Reporting verbs such as said, claimed, admitted, and pointed out introduce the reported clause.
had detected · was · could not · had been stored · were · had defeated · pointed out
  1. Researchers announced that they possible traces of dimethyl sulfide in the atmosphere of K2-18b.
  2. The survey found that nearly two-thirds of astrobiologists actively disagreed that extraterrestrial life probably been found.
  3. Professor Bloom stated that her study used real-world data and a clinical trial.
  4. OpenAI admitted that it fully rule out whether the researchers' work-in-progress had influenced its system.
  5. NYU professor Tristan Buckmaster that OpenAI had accelerated its effort after learning of the rival team's progress.
  6. OpenAI claimed that their internal system more powerful than GPT-6 Astra.
3COLLOCATIONS
Match the verb on the left with the noun phrase it best collocates with on the right.
  1. detect
  2. measure
  3. analyse
  4. rule out
  5. rack up
4CRITICAL THINKING
The Navier-Stokes story raises the question of whether AI systems trained on vast human-generated data can ever produce a discovery that is truly independent of human intellectual labour. If the boundary between 'learning from' and 'copying' is genuinely blurry, what does this mean for how research institutions should govern the data they feed to AI models?
5CREATIVE · HEADLINES
Write a headline for the top story in each of the following styles. One line each, no explanation:
  • TABLOID NEWSPAPER
  • LUXURY MAGAZINE
  • ACTIVIST BLOG
6WRITING
Drawing on at least two of the three articles, argue whether science itself has a communication problem or whether the problem lies entirely with the media industry that reports on it. Use specific evidence from the articles to support your position.
7DEGREES OF EXTREMITY
Complete each ladder from mild to strong.
  • interested→→
  • careful→→
  • unusual→→
  • reduce→→
  • uncomfortable→→
  • suggest→→
8SPEAKING
  1. How should scientists themselves respond when headlines misrepresent their findings?
  2. Could real-world health data ever fully replace formal clinical trials?
  3. What responsibilities do universities have when issuing research press releases?
  4. Does AI solving century-old problems change how you value human intelligence?