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A human T cell under a scanning electron microscope. (credit: NIAID/NIH)

The human immune system—the powerful, complex network of cells that watches over and defends the body—just got a new weapon: autocorrect.

According to a report in Science, researchers were able to reverse an autoimmune disorder in mice by engineering certain healthy immune cells to weed out faulty ones. The method behind the treatment involves chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells and is identical the method used in an experimental therapy for certain types of leukemias and lymphomas which has so far proven successful in some small human trials. While researchers will need to do much more work to prove that the strategy holds up against autoimmune disorders in humans, the authors argue that its track record of beating cancers is reason to be optimistic.

"Our study effectively opens up the application of this anti-cancer technology to the treatment of a much wider range of diseases, including autoimmunity and transplant rejection," coauthor Michael C. Milone, of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, said in a news release.

John Holdren, President Obama's science advisor, sits in the commander's chair of space shuttle Discovery in 2011. (credit: NASA)

Juno's insertion into orbit around Jupiter on July 4th made the US proud of its space agency, and NASA's planetary exploration program has certainly had a nice run during the last year. New Horizons revealed Pluto, and now a spacecraft will soon deliver new insights about the Solar System's largest planet.

But the party is just about over. NASA, and more particularly the Obama administration, have failed to invest in future planetary science missions. Earlier this year, I had a chance to catch up with Casey Dreier, director of space policy for The Planetary Society, which as its name implies advocates for increased exploration of the Solar System. Although generally an ally to the science-minded Obama administration—the society's chief executive Bill Nye often hobnobs with the president—Dreier did not mince words about the The Planetary Society's views.

"I think with President Obama you have a legacy of a missed opportunity to really build on the foundation that he inherited, which was a fleet of spacecraft from Mercury going out to Pluto," Dreier told me. "He had an opportunity to build political bridges. There’s a very high level of bipartisan support for that, and a huge amount of public engagement."

Enlarge / The first Sierra developer beta. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Both the iOS 10 and macOS Sierra public betas are being released today for testing by the brave and foolish souls who choose to live their lives on the bleeding edge. You'll be able to download the beta from here when it posts in a couple of hours. Sierra drops support for a handful of Macs for the first time in a few years, so here's the hardware support list again if you need it:

• MacBook (late 2009 and later)
• iMac (late 2009 and later)
• MacBook Air (2010 and later)
• MacBook Pro (2010 and later)
• Mac Mini (2010 and later)
• Mac Pro (2010 and later)

The first public beta build of Sierra should be identical or near-identical to the second developer build that was released earlier this week, so if you already have access to that, you won't need to install the public beta. You should be able to continuously upgrade any public beta install with new beta builds all the way up until the Golden Master build is released in the fall, though of course the standard warnings about running beta software on your primary Mac (and backing up your data before installing beta software on anything) all apply.

This build of Sierra should be broadly similar to the one we previewed last month except with a few more bug fixes and some other tweaks. The Siri keyboard shortcut, for example, has been changed from function-space to "hold down command-space," and people with access to the developer beta of WatchOS 3 should be able to use the Apple Watch unlocking feature as long as they have a compatible Mac. We'll continue to track the betas as they're released, and we'll do another comprehensive check-in with Sierra when the final version is released in the fall.

Enlarge / A measure of the number of collisions already obtained at the LHC's CMS detector. (credit: CMS/CERN)

We tend to only pay attention to particle physics when scientists announce that they've found something new. But those discoveries would never get to the announcement stage without the years of grunt work needed to control particles at extremely high energies and record the debris that spews into detectors when those particles collide. This work doesn't get talked about much because it simply sets the stage for discovery rather than containing obvious "eureka!" moments.

The people behind CERN's Large Hadron Collider are in the process of setting a phenomenal stage.

Last year's run was all about taking the LHC to higher energies, which would enable the discovery of heavier particles and make it easier to spot light ones. This year's run was about taking the experience gained last year and using it to produce lots more collisions. So far, everything is going according to plan.

Enlarge / The iOS 10 beta on a 9.7-inch iPad Pro and an iPhone 6S. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

I’ve spent most of the last six months buying a house, so you’ll need to forgive me if I have houses and house metaphors on the brain. I’ve found them helpful while trying to nail down iOS 10.

Imagine iOS 6 as a fundamentally solid house in need of some major remodeling. iOS 7 was largely a cosmetic update, putting on some new siding (or maybe a nice brick façade) and giving all the rooms a nice paint job. iOS 8 with its under-the-hood changes was roughly equivalent to replacing wiring and plumbing—stuff that’s harder to see but makes a big difference in everyday usage. iOS 9 gave an extensive makeover to one particular room (let’s call it “the iPad”) that had been basically fine for a while but wasn’t being used to its fullest potential.

In the context of this overextended metaphor, iOS 10 is best thought of as an effort to redo multiple other rooms in the house, knocking out some figurative walls and removing metaphorical ugly dropped ceilings. For the first time in a while, Apple is making notable changes to the way basic things like the lock screen, the notification center, and Siri look and work.

The House Oversight Committee is holding a hearing today, focused on Hillary Clinton's use of a private e-mail account during her tenure as Secretary of State. The Representatives will get to question FBI Director James Comey, State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, and Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullogh III. The hearing comes two days after Comey called the use of private e-mail by Clinton and the mishandling of classified information by her, her staff, and State Department officials "extremely careless" but declined to recommend criminal prosecution.

“The FBI’s recommendation is surprising and confusing," House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) said in a statement announcing the hearing. "The fact pattern presented by Director Comey makes clear Secretary Clinton violated the law. Individuals who intentionally skirt the law must be held accountable. Congress and the American people have a right to understand the depth and breadth of the FBI’s investigation. I thank Director Comey for accepting the invitation to publicly answer these important questions.”

In his testimony, in response to questions about whether Clinton should have been aware that she was sending highly classified data in unclassified e-mails, Comey said, "I don’t think our investigation established she was that sophisticated about classification."