Sep 12, 2025

To get The Prototype in your inbox, sign up here he James Webb Space Telescope has its sights set on seven planets circling a red dwarf star called Trappist-1, about 40 light-years away. One of them, Trappist-1e, may have temperatures warm enough to allow water on its surface, key to supporting life. The telescope's data suggests that if the planet has an atmosphere, it's not dominated by hydrogen or carbon dioxide and hostile to life. Starlight patterns observed near the planet are consistent with those of a nitrogen-rich atmosphere, like Earth's, though more data is needed. One of the researchers told The New York Times this week that there's a “glimmer of hope” the planet could have an atmosphere like our own. Closer to home, a Martian rock collected by NASA's Perseverance Rover in 2024 may show evidence of ancient microscopic life. Found in the Jezero Crater, once home to a lake and river delta, it contains minerals produced by microbes on Earth. This isn't definitive–the minerals can form in other ways–but it's one more piece of evidence supporting the idea that life may have once existed on the Red Planet. 2025 Lasker Awards Honor Scientists Who Made Groundbreaking Medical Discoveries his week , the Lasker Foundation honored scientists who have made groundbreaking biomedical discoveries with its annual $250,000 awards . Since 1945, these prizes–for Clinical Medical Research, Basic Medical Research and Special Achievement In Medical Science–have been handed out to scientists who have often gone on to claim other honors, such as the Nobel Prize. This year, the Basic Medical Research prize went to Dirk Görlich and Steven L. McKnight for their discoveries on “low-complexity domains” in proteins. Once thought to serve little purpose, Görlich and McKnight showed that these simple structures play key roles in facilitating the movement of certain proteins moving in and out of a cell's nucleus while excluding others. The discovery is crucial to a better understanding of diseases, such as Alzheimer's, and could pave the way for future cures. The Clinical Medical Research award was given to Michael J. Welsh, Jesús González and Paul A. Negulescu for work that led to Vertex Pharmaceutical's cystic fibrosis drug Trikafta, approved by the FDA in 2019. Before the 1980s, over half of people suffering from the disease died before reaching adulthood. With the new drug, they can expect to live to their 80s, turning a once fatal ailment “into a manageable condition,” the Foundation said. Lucy Shapiro received this year's Special Achievement in Medical Science for her lifetime of work in biology. During her 55-year career, she made key discoveries about bacterial reproduction, founded Stanford's Department of Developmental Biology and advised governments on issues like emerging diseases and biological warfare. She's also launched two companies: Anacor Pharmaceuticals, which makes drugs for dermatitis and fungal infections, and 5Metis, which makes agricultural fungicides. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK: GENE-EDITED CELLS TREAT DIABETES People with Type 1 diabetes can't produce insulin and have to rely on injections to maintain an appropriate level in their bodies. In severe cases, they may need a pancreas transplant, which means taking immunosuppressant drugs to avoid rejection, putting them at risk of other diseases for the rest of their life. But there's a new treatment on the horizon: a patient recently received a transplant of pancreas cells that were gene-edited to hide from the immune system, which successfully produced insulin without rejection, which may be used to treat more diabetes patients in the future. WHAT ELSE I WROTE THIS WEEK In my other newsletter, InnovationRx, Amy Feldman and I looked at AI-powered medical scams, a startup using machine learning to find new drugs in nature, why you can expect higher health insurance premiums next year, and more. SCIENCE AND TECH TIDBITS SpaceX is buying spectrum from Echostar for $17 billion for its satellite internet service–but it needs to get Starship up and running for the deal to be worth it. Robotaxi service Waymo is getting competition from Amazon's Zoox, which has started offering rides in Las Vegas and plans to expand to San Francisco later this year. Advanced computing startup SandboxAQ launched a large-scale dataset for AI models to speed discovery of chemical reactions for industrial applications like energy, agriculture or consumer products. Researchers in Sweden discovered two different methods to 3D-print artificial skin that includes blood vessels and might one day be used to help heal severe wounds such as burns. Astronomers have found more evidence that there may be a planet as large as Mercury–or even Earth–on the fringes of the Solar System beyond Neptune. PRO SCIENCE TIP: JUNK FOOD HAMPERS YOUR MEMORY Got a big test coming up? Put down the pizza and eat a salad instead. Researchers at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine discovered that eating foods high in saturated fats (common in junk foods) disrupt cells in the hippocampus–the part of the brain that converts short-term memories into long-term ones. That disruption happens within a few days and could increase the risk of developing dementia or other cognitive diseases over time, the research suggests. On the bright side, damage to these cells seems to reverse fairly quickly with dietary changes, which might also lower the long-term risks. WHAT'S ENTERTAINING ME THIS WEEK The Struts' anthem “Could Have Been Me” is one of the best rock songs of the 2010s, and a staple in my exercise playlists. But earlier this month, the band made it even better by recording a version with legendary Queen guitarist (and astrophysicist) Sir Brian May. It's truly epic– listen for yourself MORE FROM FORBES