The asteroid Bennu continues to provide new clues to scientists’ biggest questions about the formation of the early solar system and the origins of life...

When large language models (LLMs) make decisions about networking and friendship, the models tend to act like people, across both synthetic simulations and real-world network contexts.

Marios Papachristou and Yuan Yuan developed a framework to study network formation behaviors of multiple LLM agents and compared these behaviors against human behaviors. The paper is published in the journal PNAS Nexus.

How LLMs form network connections
The authors conducted simulations using several large language models placed in a network, which were asked to choose which other nodes to connect with, given their number of connections, common neighbors, and shared attributes, like arbitrarily assigned “hobbies” or “location.”

The authors varied the network context, including simulations of fri...

Since humanity’s first steps on the moon, the aspiration to extend human civilization beyond Earth has been a central objective of international space agencies, targeting long-term extraterrestrial habitation. Among the celestial bodies within reach, Mars is considered our next home.

The red planet, with its stark landscapes and tantalizing similarities to Earth, beckons as the frontier of human exploration and settlement. But establishing a permanent foothold on Mars remains one of humanity’s boldest dreams and the most formidable scientific and engineering challenge.

The red planet, once draped in a thick atmosphere, has undergone dramatic transformation over billions of years...

Researchers in China report that global incidence rates of psoriasis rose slightly from 1990 to 2021 and are projected to continue rising for both men and women through 2050.

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that continues to impose a growing global burden. Understanding the rate of increase is critical for informing public health strategies, improving health care access, and supporting early diagnosis worldwide.

In the study, “Global Psoriasis Burden and Forecasts to 2050,” published as a Research Letter in JAMA Dermatology, researchers used a time-series forecasting analysis to project global psoriasis incidence through 2050 and to address age, sex, and regional differences in burden.

Analyses included age-standardized incide...