Japan is trialing a drug that regrows human teeth by blocking USAG-1—a protein that keeps dormant tooth buds switched off. Phase I is done. Phase IIa in children with congenital tooth loss is next. If it works, dentures and implants could become obsolete.

More in Science

• Open-sourcing AstaBrief, the fast report-generation model in Asta

  ### Briefing Open-sourcing AstaBrief, the fast report-generation model in Asta, aims to help researchers generate cited reports more efficiently. The model, trained specifically for scientific report generation, reduces generation time by nearly an order of magnitude compared to proprietary models. The open-sourced version is available in Asta’s Generate a report feature today as Fast mode alongside Claude-powered Thinking mode.

  13 min read
• Research paper overload: submissions capped at two a month

  The arXiv, a repository of research papers, has been capped at two submissions per person per month to address the significant increase in submissions, from 20,000 in 2024 to over 40,000 in September 2026. This growth rate is unsustainable, and the moderation of the repository relies on volunteers. Google discontinued its bug reporting program due to the influx of reports, indicating a trend towards complexity and difficulty for humans to manage.

  1 min read
• Computational tools for society’s most complex challenges

  ### Briefing Cathy Wu, Associate Professor in MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, discusses her journey from designing safe, efficient transportation systems to applying artificial intelligence to solve complex challenges.** Cathy Wu, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, has dedicated her career to using machine learning and reinforcement learning (RL) to…

  6 min read