August 2026
All columns and Brief analyses.
10 results
Blood C3 fell by 90 per cent and PD-1 therapy still worked; the tumour's own C3 was the one that mattered
The Nagoya team separated two sources of the same protein and found that only one of them changed how checkpoint therapy performed. The mouse half of that finding is causal; the human half is an association in tissue, and no one has yet raised local C3 in a patient.
Does the label on a Time ad written for machines reach the reader?
The pages Time publishes for machines to read now carry question-and-answer ads marked as sponsored content. A study reported the same day shows that knowing the source really does change how a reader judges a text. Together the two make one question concrete: where does the label actually sit?
The only commitment with a date on it lands in Vucic's accession file
Serbia and Ukraine gave themselves until the end of the year to finish a free trade agreement that Kyiv has blocked since 2005. No sanctions decision was taken, military cooperation was left off the agenda, and the file that acquired a deadline is the one Belgrade needs for the World Trade Organization and the European Union.
The six-month fall in cash at Berkshire came almost entirely out of Treasury bills
The quarterly report shows that the liquid reserve at Berkshire Hathaway is mostly a claim on the US Treasury. Over six months that claim shrank by about 10.9 billion dollars while the non-bill cash inside it grew by about 3.1 billion dollars.
A tanker strike raises pressure as Hormuz transit talks near their final stage
Oman and Iran are discussing a safe-transit scheme as the UAE reports an Iranian missile strike on an ADNOC tanker. Negotiation and violence are pressing on the same waterway.
AI enters the institutions of mathematics
OpenAI's mathematics claims, a Fields Medalist's safety role and a student Olympiad show how AI is being tested in mathematics and who is joining that process.
Biological effects change with location and context
Tumour-local C3, polyethylene's interaction with diet and strategy switching in mice show how the same substance or circuit can produce different outcomes across locations and conditions.
China's consumer and producer prices point in different directions
Consumer inflation slowed in July while producer prices rose from a year earlier. Two official releases show the divergence between the household basket and factory-gate prices.
Colombia's first day: 1 billion dollars for security and a highway car bomb
As Colombia's new president took office on a security platform, Washington pledged 1 billion dollars; the next day, a car bomb exploded at a Pan-American Highway toll plaza.