Science & Technology — October 19, 2026

Timekeepers abolish the leap second. Governments voted to immediately replace the 54-year-old practice with a leap hour, ending adjustments that increasingly threatened computing systems.

According to Nature, a key driver behind the change was the prospect of a so-called negative second, a never-before-used subtraction of time that timekeepers feared could prove catastrophic for computer systems. Shifting to a leap hour pushes any such adjustment far into the future, removing the recurring disruptions that the current system imposed on technology since the practice began more than five decades ago.

Nature · Read more →

Japan launches Mars moon sample mission. The MMX spacecraft launches today toward Phobos, aiming for the first round-trip to the Martian system and samples that could unlock the moons' origins.

Space.com · Read more →

Disney to hire most Character.AI employees. In a bankruptcy stalking-horse bid, Disney agreed to acquire the chatbot startup's talent and intellectual property. Character.AI faces dozens of state lawsuits.

TechCrunch · Read more →

Altermagnetism discoverers win major physics prize. Physicists who found a third form of magnetism took the award -- a discovery that challenges a century of established physics and could transform computing.

Science Daily · Read more →