Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi has been handed further prison sentences of seven-and-a-half years by an Iranian court, her lawyer has said. The human rights activist was sentenced to six years for gathering and collusion, and one-and-a-half years for propaganda activities by a court in the north-eastern city of Mashhad, Mostafa Nili announced on social media on Sunday. Mohammadi was arrested in December for making provocative remarks at a memorial ceremony, Iranian authorities said at the time. Her family said she was taken to hospital after being beaten during the arrest . The 53-year-old was made a Nobel laureate in 2023 for her activism against female oppression in Iran.

Feedback is New Scientist's popular sideways look at the latest science and technology news. You can submit items you believe may amuse readers to Feedback by emailing feedback@newscientist.com Now and then, Feedback sees ads for courses promising to teach us how to become an excellent creative writer. It sounds like fun, but why learn to be a good writer when we can just do this stuff instead? One brand that recently caught Feedback's eye is BBC Maestro.

To hear Silicon Valley tell it, the end of disease is well on its way. Demis Hassabis, a Nobel laureate for his AI research and the CEO of Google DeepMind, said on Sunday that he hopes that AI will be able to solve important scientific problems and help "cure all disease" within five to 10 years. Earlier this month, OpenAI released new models and touted their ability to "generate and critically evaluate novel hypotheses" in biology, among other disciplines. These are all executives marketing their products, obviously, but is there even a kernel of possibility in these predictions? If generative AI could contribute in the slightest to such discoveries--as has been promised since the start of the AI boom--where would the technology and scientists using it even begin?

Not long before his death in 2007, my father told me that he "thought he might have" coined the term information technology. It turns out he was right. In an article titled "Management in the 1980's," published in the November, 1958, issue of the Harvard Business Review, Harold J. Leavitt and his co-author, Thomas L. Whisler, identify a "new technology" that "has begun to take hold in American business, one so new that its significance is still difficult to evaluate." Since this technology "does not yet have a single established name," the article notes, "we shall call it information technology. It is composed of several related parts": "techniques for processing large amounts of information rapidly"; "the application of statistical and mathematical methods to decision-making problems"; and "in the offing, though its applications have not yet emerged very clearly . . . the simulation of higher-order thinking through computer programs." By the end of his life, my father had adopted a far more skeptical attitude toward the organizations he earned his living trying to understand and improve.

Artificial intelligence research has a lot to learn from nature. My work links biology with computation every day, but recently the rest of the world was reminded of the connection: The 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to Frances Arnold together with George Smith and Gregory Winter for developing major breakthroughs that are collectively called "directed evolution." One of its uses is to improve protein functions, making them better catalysts in biofuel production. Another use is entirely outside chemistry – outside even the traditional life sciences. That might sound surprising, but many research findings have very broad implications.

The latest book by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein has yet to be released, but the talk about Noise is well underway. Interviews, reviews, and essays have been making the rounds. A lot of ground has been covered. The reports go well beyond discussing the concept of noise, how it differs from bias, why this difference matter -- and how it all ties in with decision-making. Noise, defined as random errors caused by inconsistent decision-making, is said to cost organizations a lot of money. And, if accurate, the dollar amounts tossed around do sound quite alarming.

A survey of 50 Nobel laureates asked about the greatest threats to mankind has revealed that environmental issues such as over-population and climate change are the biggest threat. Meanwhile, the threat of nuclear warfare and infectious diseases and drug resistance follows in second and third place. Distortion or the truth and ignorant political leaders also ranked highly, with President Donald Trump called out by name in this category. The survey drew responses from almost a quarter of the living Nobel prize winners for chemistry, physics, physiology, medicine and economics. A survey of 50 Nobel laureates posed the question: 'What is the biggest threat to humankind, in your view?

Among the innovations pioneered by John White during his years as CEO of ACM was a new relationship with the Klaus Tschira Foundation that sponsors the Heidelberg Laureate Foruma [HLF] in the third quarter of each year. The attendees include about 200 math or computer science students and recipients of the mathematics Fields Medal, the Nevanlinna Prize, the Abel Prize, and ACM's A.M. Turing award for computer science. I have had the pleasure of attending the first three meetings of the HLF. Since 1951, however, there has been an annual meeting of Nobel laureatesb with support from several organizations including the aforementioned Klaus Tschira Foundation. The HLF is patterned after the Nobel meeting: students meet with a collection of participating laureates. It was decided last year to link these two events by having a Nobel laureate address the participants of the HLF and to have an HLF laureate address the participants of the Nobel annual meeting.