Science & Technology — July 17, 2026

SpaceX scrubs Starship Flight 13. SpaceX aborted the launch at the last second after several engines failed to ignite; the company hopes to try again within days as its newly public stock slid.

Ars Technica · Read more →

Chinese AI model narrows gap with U.S. labs. Kimi K3, a 2.8-trillion-parameter open-weight model from Chinese startup Moonshot AI, delivers near-frontier performance at a fraction of the cost of rivals from OpenAI and Anthropic, the company says.

CNBC Top News · Read more →

First atmosphere found on a rocky, temperate exoplanet. Astronomers detected helium escaping from LHS 1140 b, the first atmosphere identified on a rocky planet in the habitable zone—a milestone in the search for habitable worlds.

Space.com · Read more →

FDA approves potent new cholesterol pill. Merck's Lipfendra, a first-of-its-kind oral drug that blocks the PCSK9 protein, can cut LDL cholesterol to roughly half the levels most statins achieve.

Scientific American · Read more →

Taco Bell pulls lettuce over parasite outbreak. Officials traced a five-state cyclospora outbreak to iceberg lettuce from one Taco Bell supplier; the chain removed lettuce indefinitely in affected states "out of an abundance of caution."

The connection took weeks of investigation to establish, according to the BBC, with officials searching for the outbreak's source before pinpointing iceberg lettuce from a single supplier. The BBC reported the illness has been linked to severe diarrhea among those affected. No timeline was given for when lettuce might return to menus in the states involved.

BBC World · Read more →