In a 1960 paper in Science, physicist Heinz von Foerster calculated that human population would grow without limit and reach a singularity on Friday, 13 November 2026. The date is today. World population is roughly 8.2 billion, not infinite, and the prediction failed for a reason that still matters: it treated birth and death rates as fixed. Fertility has fallen below replacement level in most of the world, and demographers now expect the global population to peak and then decline. Researchers in Vienna are marking the anniversary with a conference on why end-of-the-world forecasts go wrong.
A study published in Nature on 11 November describes how loss of the protein TDP-43 leaves neurons structurally intact while their synaptic communication collapses, and shows that correcting a single splicing error in the gene UNC13A restores signalling. The team designed splice-switching antisense oligonucleotides that blocked a cryptic exon and tested them in human cortical and spinal motor neurons and in a humanised mouse model. Treated cells regained spontaneous and evoked vesicle release, release probability at individual synapses and network synchrony. TDP-43 clumps appear in the great majority of ALS cases and in about half of frontotemporal dementia cases, which makes the pathway a leading drug target.
Physicists with the LHCb collaboration at CERN reported evidence for a particle decay that occurs roughly once in 10 billion decays, ending a search that began more than four decades ago. The result involves a beauty particle and agrees with predictions from the Standard Model, the framework that describes known particles and forces. Because such rare processes are sensitive to unknown particles, the measurement places new constraints on theories that go beyond the Standard Model. The collaboration said the finding does not point to new physics, but it sharpens the limits on what kinds of new physics can exist. More data from coming upgrades will be needed to confirm the observation and tighten the limits further.
NASA has set out a revised path to the lunar surface: Artemis III will fly in 2027 as a test mission without landing, and Artemis IV will put astronauts down in 2028. The agency is funding two upper-stage options for its SLS rocket and is working with SpaceX and Blue Origin, both of which have redesigned their landers and are targeting a crewed landing in the same year. The plan adds a mission but buys schedule margin, and it is openly framed as a race with China's crewed lunar programme. It also keeps two upper-stage options alive so that a single failure cannot stop the schedule.
A study in Nature pooled 40 datasets covering up to 2,175 people and found that activity in the prefrontal cortex does not reliably predict how well someone regulates their emotions. The result challenges a widely used assumption in neuroscience and in brain-training marketing. Researchers say observing a brain region switch on is not the same as measuring whether a person actually feels better.
A single dose of psilocybin reorganised mouse brain circuits within hours, according to a study led by the University of California, Santa Cruz, and published in Nature Neuroscience. Imaging showed faster formation and maturation of new synapses, plus pruning of some existing connections, and the compound helped restore circuits damaged by chronic stress. The authors report that the cellular mechanisms behind the rewiring run through different pathways from those that produce the hallucinogenic response, suggesting the structural benefits might be separated from the psychedelic experience. Rodent findings often fail to translate to people, and human trials remain small.
The LHCb experiment at CERN has found the first evidence of the B0 to two muon decay, predicted to occur about once in every 10 billion B0 mesons. The 3.2 sigma result ends a search that began with the CLEO experiment in 1984. The measured rate agrees with the Standard Model, which rules out some models that predicted a larger effect. A five sigma result, the threshold for a discovery, needs more data.
NASA's Voyager 1 will reach a distance of one light-day from Earth on 18 November at 5:16 a.m. Eastern time, about 16 billion miles or 26 billion kilometres out. No other human-made object has gone that far. A radio signal will need a full 24 hours to arrive, and a reply another 24. The probe, launched in 1977, crossed into interstellar space in 2012 and still returns data at 160 bits per second. Its team expects to switch off more instruments before the mission's 50th anniversary in 2027.
Physicists at CERN's LHCb experiment have reported the first evidence of a decay that theory says occurs about once in every 10 billion beauty particles, after a search spanning more than four decades. The process, in which a neutral particle containing a beauty quark decays into two muons, reached a statistical significance of 3.2 sigma, short of the five sigma needed to claim a discovery. The measured rate agrees with the Standard Model. Researchers say rarer decays are more sensitive to unknown heavy particles, opening a route to probing distances of a zeptometre.
Astronomers using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile have identified a large, bright object beyond Pluto that may be a new dwarf planet. Designated 2026 ED138, the body is estimated at 600 to 1,500 kilometres across, large enough that its own gravity may have made it round. It was found in data collected between March and July 2026 by Matthew Holman of the Center for Astrophysics, and the discovery was announced by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center. If confirmed, it would be among the largest trans-Neptunian objects known. Only Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake are currently recognised as dwarf planets.