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July 10, 2026

Welcome to the new Friday edition of Science Times. Today, we peer into the tiny brains that could reveal the origin of speech, examine the sensitive discussion around a communication method for nonspeaking autistic people (including responses from readers) and eye a double asteroid. Plus: the most read science article this week and a quiz!

Bird brains

Vincent Alban/The New York Times

These orange-and-gray zebra finches, raised in captivity, have neural networks strikingly similar to those of humans. Could they teach us the secrets to song? To speech? The neurobiologist Erich D. Jarvis has long hoped to genetically engineer an animal so that it can vocalize in new ways. Introducing manipulated genes into the brain of a bird or a mouse that doesn’t vocalize, for instance, could provide new clues into the origins of speech.

If we can figure it out in birds, we can figure out how to similarly repair circuits damaged in stroke and trauma in people — Dr. Jarvis, who directs the Neurogenetics of Language laboratory at Rockefeller University in New York.

Read the full story.

An autism breakthrough, or an illusion?

Kelly Berg, left, assisted Omer Hashmi, 33, who is a nonspeaker with autism, during a spelling session at the Growing Kids Therapy Center in Herndon, Va. Moriah Ratner for The New York Times

A popular communication method called assisted spelling makes a radical assertion: that nonspeaking autistic people, many of whom have been considered intellectually disabled, may have typical or even extraordinary cognitive abilities hidden beneath the surface. But there’s remarkably little evidence showing that the method works, and many researchers and clinicians caution that the communication may be an illusion.

To do this story justice, I knew I would need to observe assisted spelling in action and speak to the people using it. But at the core of the story is a persistent tension over what counts as strong evidence: rigorous studies or personal experience. Below is an excerpt from one reader’s comment on the article. Please join the discussion. — Azeen Ghorayshi

Josh Hill New London As an autistic person who was mute for the first three or four years of his life and has since then had brief periods of muteness, I can say with complete certainty that it is possible for autistic people to be both intelligent and internally verbal without being able to speak. Subjectively, the words form in my mind, but I can't get them to come out. It is a deeply frustrating, almost desperate feeling. I cannot say with certainty that this is always what is happening here, as opposed to subconscious cues of the kind that are known to occur in certain siituations. But when working with mute autistic people, it is important to keep in mind that for some of us, mutness does not mean lack of intellect, or an internal verbal voice. Azeen Ghorayshi Science reporter @Josh Hill Thank you for your note and for sharing your personal experience. I spoke with two autistic nonspeakers who did not use assisted spelling, but instead typed on devices that they had become extremely adept at using to convey complex thoughts. Both said that they had been dismissed as intellectually disabled earlier in their childhoods because they did not speak. They were both very open to the idea that some spellers also have the ability to communicate, but both also raised concern about the potential for influence with assisted techniques. For those who are interested, you can listen to one of their accounts of this experience here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_3RF_xU-6Y

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A must-see photo

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Cosmic Conjoined Twins, Caught on Camera A Japanese spacecraft flew by an asteroid and snapped a picture. It turned out to be a “contact binary”: two space rocks that somehow fused together. Read more

TRENDING Our most read story this week

Frankfurt Zoological Society, Chernobyl Radiation and Ecological Biosphere Reserve/Wild Polissia Program Russia Captured Chernobyl. The Wildlife Cameras Kept Recording. A rare camera-trap study logged the effects of armed conflict on wild animals in real time. →

One more thing

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE UNIVERSE

Today we’re introducing a game you will see in this newsletter from time to time: a Friday quiz. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.)

The earliest known evidence of handedness — the preference to use one body side or limb over the other — in the human family tree is:

A right-handed Homo habilis that picked at its teeth around 1.8 million years ago.

An Australopithecus from 3.5 million years ago that threw a ball with its right hand.

A Homo sapiens that made a left-handed farming tool 50,000 years ago.

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