Whoops! Preprints are chock-full of authors’ private info

Hello Nature readers,
Today we discover two huge planets that are lighter than candy floss, hear that arXiv preprints are chock-a-block with authors’ private info and explore which ‘AI scientist’ might suit your lab.

‘Super-puff’ planets lighter than candy floss

Data from NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission has revealed two super-rare, ‘super-puff’ planets. Though as big as Jupiter, TOI-791 b and TOI-791 c “have densities comparable to a nice blob of shaving foam, fresh from the can,” says astrophysicist George Dransfield.

Most preprints contain private info

Nearly all papers posted on the arXiv preprint server contain details the authors never meant to share, according to a study of almost three million articles available on the repository. Some 88% of submissions that contained LaTeX source files included some form of hidden information, including passwords, to-do lists and derogatory comments such as “WTF does this mean?” The findings are “really just the tip of the iceberg,” says security and privacy researcher Jan Pennekamp, who co-authored the study.

Which ‘AI scientist’ suits your lab?

'AI scientists' such as Claude Science, a tool unveiled by artificial-intelligence firm Anthropic, can help with tasks such as literature reviews and data analysis. But not all tools are the same, and some might suit certain labs better than others. To work out which might work best for you, the first step is to get stuck in, says Ashu Singhal, president of cloud platform Benchling. But start with small tasks, the output of which is easily verifiable, says Gabriele Corso, chief executive of the AI firm Boltz. “Worst case, you have to do them over,” he says.

Meet the ‘practical PhD’ graduates

In 2024, China introduced PhD programmes that could be passed with a practical achievement instead of a written thesis. Since then, around 60 students have graduated with ‘practical PhDs’, three of whom spoke to Nature about their experience. “What matters more to me as an engineer is whether innovations will work well in the real world,” says Wu Xiangyang, who completed his PhD in railway engineering. “I will never forget the moment that the production line moved for the first time under the command of my system.”

Futures: Those who forget

A trio of students begin to lose themselves in the latest short story for Nature’s Futures series.

Podcast: satellite could detect space nukes

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty bans countries from putting nuclear weapons into orbit, but there isn’t a way to make sure that no country has snuck one onto a satellite. Now, nuclear physicist Areg Danagoulian has proposed a method to investigate: a shoebox-sized ‘inspector’ satellite that could detect the neutrons emitted when high-energy protons in Earth’s magnetic field strike the uranium in nuclear weapons. Danagoulian’s idea is theoretical, but he’s published a modelling study “to show that the physics is scientifically feasible”, he tells the Nature Podcast.