Sunday, August 16, 2026
ArchiveSaturn-mass planet spotted in Alpha Centauri A's habitable zone, then vanished
Four light-years away, Webb caught a flash of something planet-sized — then lost it. Millions of simulated orbits later, astronomers think they know where it's hiding.
The end of an era for China's economy
Zhu Rongji privatized, restructured, and muscled China into the WTO. Noah Smith's obituary-as-analysis shows why Xi can't just rerun the playbook.
Semaglutide linked to lower predicted dementia risk
The GLP-1 drugs keep surprising researchers. A new study links semaglutide to meaningfully lower predicted dementia risk — another organ system, another signal.
The Soybean That Built Northeast China
Abandoned film reels in a ruined cinema revealed a tiny border town that once had two orchestras. The money behind all of it? Soybeans. A riveting deep history of Manchuria.
You bet your life insurance
Wall Street firms are waiting for thousands of strangers to die. The market is legal, worth billions, and born from the AIDS epidemic. Planet Money traces the money.