A suspected shark attack at Sorrento Beach in Perth, Western Australia, killed 63-year-old father and grandfather-to-be Greg O'Neill while he was swimming Friday.

A shark attack at Sorrento Beach in Perth, Western Australia, killed 63-year-old father and grandfather-to-be Greg O'Neill while he was swimming Friday.

The economist Lord Jim O'Neill, who has been advising the prime minister, has said he will not be taking a job in Andy Burnham's government. Lord O'Neill, a crossbench peer, was once a treasury minister under the Conservatives. As first reported by, external the Financial Times, he said he did not want the constraints involved in taking on a formal role. The former chief economist at Goldman Sachs had been tipped to become Burnham's chief economic adviser. He said he was enjoying what he was currently doing too much and did not want to have to give up control of his business interests to comply with official rules.

The actor, who died at age 78 on Monday, embodied a passionate approach to research and positive masculinity in his role as paleontologist Alan Grant in the 1993 blockbuster . Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor who died at age 78 in Sydney, Australia, on Monday, had a long and varied résumé. He played everyone from an international spy () and a detective chief inspector () to a legendary wizard (). He even played the literal spawn of the devil (). But throughout his career, Neill was also known for scientist roles in films like and, with none more celebrated than Dr. Alan Grant, the rugged paleontologist and undisputed hero of .

Trump's mass firing just dealt another blow to American science Ambitious research is on the chopping block following yet more cuts at the National Science Foundation. This past week delivered another gut punch for science in the US. This time, the target was the National Science Foundation--a federal agency that funds major research projects to the tune of around $9 billion. The foundation's efforts were overseen by a board of 22 prominent scientists. On Friday last week, they were all fired . The NSF has been without a director since April 2025, when former director Sethuraman Panchanathan stepped down in the wake of DOGE-led funding cuts and mass firings.

The Download: an exclusive chat with Jim O'Neill, and the surprising truth about heists Over the past year, Jim O'Neill has become one of the most powerful people in public health. As the US deputy health secretary, he holds two roles at the top of the country's federal health and science agencies. He oversees a department with a budget of over a trillion dollars. And he signed the decision memorandum on the US's deeply controversial new vaccine schedule. In an exclusive interview with earlier this month, O'Neill described his plans to increase human healthspan through longevity-focused research supported by ARPA-H, a federal agency dedicated to biomedical breakthroughs. Fellow longevity enthusiasts said they hope he will bring attention and funding to their cause.

June Squibb sparkles opposite Cynthia Nixon in a futuristic drama, and Michelle Williams loses her way in Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer Prize winner. Appropriately enough, Jordan Harrison's déjà-vu-inducing "Marjorie Prime" has been here before. The Off Broadway theatre Playwrights Horizons produced the poignant sci-fi play about hyperrealistic re-creations of the dead--so-called Primes, which are used as a supportive technology for the bereaved--in Anne Kauffman's spirited, delicately comic production, back in 2015. Lois Smith, then eighty-five years old, played Marjorie, a woman struggling with dementia. It's the early twenty-sixties, and so Marjorie is attended by a holographic Prime of her husband, Walter, who tells her stories from her own life.

When Jim O'Neill was nominated to be the second in command at the US Department of Health and Human Services, longevity enthusiasts were excited. As Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s new right-hand man, O'Neill is expected to wield authority at health agencies that fund biomedical research and oversee the regulation of new drugs. And while O'Neill doesn't subscribe to Kennedy's most contentious beliefs--and supports existing vaccine schedules--he may still steer the agencies in controversial new directions. O'Neill is well-known in the increasingly well-funded and tight-knit longevity community. In speaking with more than 20 people who work in the longevity field and are familiar with O'Neill, it's clear that they share a genuine optimism about his leadership.

Seven people, including three children, were killed in a Russian drone attack on a gas station in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Saturday. Russia has lost more than 3,000 tanks in Ukraine - the equivalent of its entire pre-war active inventory - but has enough lower-quality armored vehicles in storage for years of replacements, a leading research center said on Tuesday. Ukraine has also suffered heavy losses since Russia invaded in February 2022, but Western military replenishments have allowed it to maintain inventories while upgrading quality, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said. Even after the loss of so many tanks - including an estimated 1,120 in the past year - Russia still has about twice as many available for combat as Ukraine, according to the IISS's annual Military Balance, a key research tool for defense analysts. Henry Boyd, the institute's senior fellow for military capability, said Russia had been roughly "breaking even" in terms of replacements.

An international team of researchers is applying artificial intelligence techniques to design energy-efficient district heat pump systems that better serve human needs and behaviors while reducing the carbon footprint of buildings. The $1.5-million project is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) program and led by Zheng O'Neill of the J. Mike Walker '66 Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University. The PIRE program funds only an estimated 10-15 projects nationwide at a time, according to NSF. The research is also supported by the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station's Energy Systems Laboratory, of which O'Neill is an associate director. The project focuses on the technology of district heat pump systems, which distribute energy to buildings through a system of heat pumps and insulated networked pipes.