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Friday, October 10, 2025

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https://nordictimes.com/science/dna-breakthrough-unmasks-jack-the-ripper/

Science

DNA breakthrough unmasks Jack the Ripper

Published 14 October 2024
– By Editorial Staff
The mystery of Jack the Ripper may be coming to a close.
3 minute read
Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

After 136 years of speculation, author and researcher Russell Edwards believes he has identified notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper as Polish-Jewish immigrant Aaron Kosminski.

New DNA analysis has linked Kosminski to one of the murder scenes, which could be the decisive piece of evidence in the more than 100-year-old unsolved serial killer case.

Russell Edwards, who has studied the Ripper case for nearly 30 years, uses DNA evidence from a shawl belonging to one of the victims, Catherine Eddowes, in his latest book Naming Jack The Ripper: The Definitive Reveal.

The shawl, which was recovered at the time of the murder, was reportedly covered in blood and semen stains. By comparing these with DNA from surviving relatives of both the victim and Kosminski, Edwards has found matching results.

Edwards says the new findings are definitive proof that Aaron Kosminski was identical to Jack the Ripper, emphasizing that previous attempts to solve the mystery lacked this kind of scientific evidence.

Aaron Kosminski, who was also one of the prime suspects at the time of the 1888 Whitechapel murders, was a Polish immigrant who moved to east London to escape Jewish persecution in Eastern Europe.

Kosminski, who was considered to have a “strong dislike of women and especially prostitutes”, was identified as a possible perpetrator in the so-called Macnaghten Memorandum of 1894.

However, the absence of tangible proof and the prevailing sentiment of avoiding any implication of anti-Semitism meant that the authorities were unable to make an arrest.

Kosminski an early suspect

The DNA analysis performed on the shawl showed a positive match with an unknown descendant of Eddowes. In addition, a match was confirmed between DNA from the semen stains and a surviving relative of Kosminski’s sister.

The shawl was purchased by Edwards at an auction in Bury St Edmunds in 2007. It had been passed down through several generations in a family linked to a police officer who worked at the murder scene.

The officer, Amos Simpson, reportedly took the shawl as a “macabre gift” to his wife after Eddowe’s body was taken to the morgue.

In his book, Mr. Edwards notes that he was surprised to find such an ornate silk scarf, decorated with flowers, among the belongings of Ms. Eddowes, given her poverty and alcohol addiction. The design and dyes used appeared to be similar to those produced in St. Petersburg at the time. This led Mr. Edwards to consider the possibility that it might have belonged to Ripper suspect Kosminski, who hailed from the Russian empire.

To create an even more detailed picture of the killer, Edwards also used advanced facial reconstruction techniques based on old family photos from Kosminski’s relatives. The result shows a young man with short hair, pronounced cheekbones and an intense gaze.

It is, according to Edwards, the most accurate image yet of Jack the Ripper.

The Masonic connection

Russel Edwards also suspects that Kosminski’s brother’s Masonic connections were probably what prevented his arrest and that the political and ethnic intention that London’s Jewish diaspora needed to be protected from anti-Semitism.

More damagingly for Kosminski, the killer left another clue at Eddowes’ murder scene. Nearby was scrawled in chalk the mysterious phrase “The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing” – with the word “Juwes”, as opposed to “Jews”, spelled in Masonic fashion.

Kosminski was never arrested and in 1890, after suffering a suspected schizophrenic breakdown in which he threatened his sister with a knife, he was admitted to Colney Hatch insane asylum in north London.

He died 28 years later at Leavesden Asylum in Hertfordshire.

Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

The Jack the Ripper case

  • Crime period: August-November 1888
  • Location: Whitechapel, east London
  • Victims: At least five women, all prostitutes, were brutally murdered in what are known as the Canonical Murders. The victims were: Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly.

Characteristics of the murders

All of the victims had their throats cut and some had internal organs removed, giving rise to theories that the killer had anatomical or surgical knowledge. Three of the women - Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly - also had body parts removed.

Police investigated a total of 11 murders of women in Whitechapel between April 1888 and February 1891, but it is generally agreed that only five of them were definitely carried out by Jack the Ripper.

Jack the Ripper has remained unidentified for over a century. Many theories have been put forward, but none have yet been proven.

The Aaron Kosminski theory

Aaron Kosminski, a Polish-Jewish immigrant and early suspect, has been identified as the killer through DNA evidence from one of the victims' shawls in a new book. Kosminski was never brought to justice and died in a mental hospital in 1919.

The Jack the Ripper case remains one of the world's most famous unsolved crimes, with extensive research and speculation for over 130 years.

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https://nordictimes.com/science/professor-were-trading-source-criticism-for-speedy-ai-responses/

Science

Professor: We’re trading source criticism for speedy AI responses

The future of AI

Published yesterday 10:13
– By Editorial Staff
AI has become a natural companion in our daily lives - but what happens if we stop thinking for ourselves and take the chatbot's answers as truth?
2 minute read
Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

Professor Olof Sundin warns that generative AI undermines our fundamental ability to evaluate information.

When sources disappear and answers are based on probability calculations, we risk losing our source criticism.

— What we see is a paradigm shift in how we traditionally search, evaluate and understand information, states Sundin, professor of library and information science at Lund University in southern Sweden.

When we Google, we get links to sources that we can, if we want, examine and assess the credibility of. In language models like Chat GPT, users get a ready-made answer, but the sources often become invisible and frequently completely absent.

— The answer is based on probability calculations of the words you’re interested in, not on verifiable facts. These language models guess which words are likely to come next, explains Olof Sundin.

Without sources, transparency disappears and the responsibility for evaluating the information presented falls entirely on the user.

— It’s very difficult to evaluate knowledge without sources if you don’t know the subject, since it’s a source-critical task, he explains.

“More dependent on the systems”

Some AI systems have tried to meet the criticism through RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation), where the language model summarizes information from actual sources, but research shows a concerning pattern.

— Studies from, for example, the Pew Research Institute show that users are less inclined to follow links than before. Fewer clicks on original sources, like blogs, newspapers and Wikipedia, threaten the digital knowledge ecosystem, argues Sundin.

— It has probably always been the case that we often search for answers and not sources. But when we get only answers and no sources, we become worse at source criticism and more dependent on the systems.

Research also shows that people themselves underestimate how much trust they actually have in AI answers.

— People often say they only trust AI when it comes to simple questions. But research shows that in everyday life they actually trust AI more than they think, the professor notes.

Vulnerable to influence

How language models are trained and moderated can make them vulnerable to influence, and Sundin urges all users to consider who decides how language models are actually trained, on which texts and for what purpose.

Generative AI also has a tendency to often give incorrect answers that look “serious” and correct, which can damage trust in knowledge in society.

— When trust is eroded, there’s a risk that people start distrusting everything, and then they can reason that they might as well believe whatever they want, continues Olof Sundin.

The professor sees a great danger to two necessary prerequisites for being able to exercise democratic rights – critical thinking about sources and the ability to evaluate different voices.

— When the flow of knowledge and information becomes less transparent – that we don’t understand why we encounter what we encounter online – we risk losing that ability. This is an issue we must take seriously – before we let our ‘digital friends’ take over completely, he concludes.

Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

Language models

AI services like ChatGPT are built on language models (such as GPT-4) that are trained on enormous amounts of text. The model predicts which word is likely to come next in a sentence, based on patterns in language usage.

It doesn't "know" what is actually true – it "guesses" what is correct based on probability calculations.

RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)

RAG combines AI-generated responses with information retrieved from real sources, such as the top three links in a Google search.

The method provides better transparency than AI services that respond entirely without source references, but studies show that users nevertheless click less and less on the links to original sources.

https://nordictimes.com/science/study-divorce-harms-young-childrens-development/

Science

Study: Divorce harms young children’s development

Published 2 October 2025
– By Editorial Staff
According to a Chinese study, children of divorced parents risk falling behind in a range of different developmental areas.
2 minute read
Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

Children whose parents divorce risk falling behind in their development – particularly in social skills, reading ability and physical health. The results come from a major study that followed 62,000 preschool children and compared children from divorced and intact families.

The research, published in the journal BMJ Paediatrics Open, is one of the largest studies conducted on younger children and shows that divorce can slow young children’s development in several areas.

Divorces don’t just affect adults but also have a significant impact on children. However, previous research has often been based on small groups of voluntary participants and produced conflicting results. Additionally, studies have primarily focused on older children, which has left knowledge about how the youngest children are affected inadequate.

The new study fills this knowledge gap by examining children between 3 and 5 years old – a critical age period where development progresses particularly rapidly and where important foundations are laid for the child’s future social, emotional and cognitive abilities.

The researchers used the so-called Human Capability Index, which measures children’s development across nine areas: reading, speech, writing, learning, persistence, language comprehension, cultural knowledge, social and emotional abilities, and physical health.

Worse at almost everything

Of the more than 62,000 children in the study, 2,409 (just under 4 percent) had parents who had divorced. When researchers compared these children with children from intact families, the differences became clear: children whose parents had divorced scored lower on almost all developmental areas.

The largest differences were in social and emotional skills, physical health and reading ability, while medium-sized differences were seen for verbal communication, persistence, language comprehension and cultural knowledge. The least impact was noticed in the areas of writing and general learning ability.

Overall, the study showed that children from divorced families had a greater risk of falling behind in their development compared to peers whose parents still lived together.

The researchers emphasize that the results highlight the need for more research on how society can support this vulnerable group. Parents, relatives and friends, healthcare services and society as a whole need to find better ways to help children through divorce processes so that their development is not negatively affected.

Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

https://nordictimes.com/science/ai-created-viruses-can-kill-bacteria/

Science

AI-created viruses can kill bacteria

The future of AI

Published 28 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Bacteriophages attach to bacteria, inject their DNA and multiply until the bacteria burst. AI can now design new variants from scratch.
2 minute read
Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

Researchers in California have used artificial intelligence to design viruses that can reproduce and kill bacteria.

The breakthrough opens up new medical treatments – but also risks becoming a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands.

Researchers at Stanford University and the Arc Institute have for the first time succeeded in creating complete genomes using artificial intelligence. Their AI-designed viruses can actually reproduce and kill bacteria.

— That was pretty striking, just actually seeing, like, this AI-generated sphere, says Brian Hie, who leads the laboratory at the Arc Institute where the work was carried out.

The team used an AI called Evo, trained on genomes from around 2 million bacteriophages (viruses that attack bacteria). They chose to work with phiX174, a simple virus with just 11 genes and 5,000 DNA letters.

16 of 302 worked

The researchers let the AI design 302 different genome variants, which were then chemically manufactured as DNA strands. When they mixed these with E. coli bacteria, they achieved a breakthrough: 16 of the designs worked and created viruses that could reproduce.

— They saw viruses with new genes, with truncated genes, and even different gene orders and arrangements, says Jef Boeke, biologist at NYU Langone Health who was given advance access to the study.

Since viruses are not considered living organisms, this is not yet truly AI-designed life – but it is an important first step toward that technology.

Major medical potential

The technology has great potential in medicine. “Most gene therapy uses viruses to shuttle genes into patients’ bodies, and AI might develop more effective ones”, explains Samuel King, the student who led the project.

Doctors have previously tried so-called phage therapy to combat serious bacterial infections, something that AI-designed viruses could improve.

“Grave concerns”

But the technology’s development also raises strong concerns. The researchers have deliberately avoided training their AI on viruses that infect humans, but others could misuse the method.

— One area where I urge extreme caution is any viral enhancement research, especially when it’s random so you don’t know what you are getting. If someone did this with smallpox or anthrax, I would have grave concerns, warns J. Craig Venter, a pioneer in synthetic biology.

Venter believes that the technology is fundamentally based on the same trial-and-error principle that he himself used two decades ago, just much faster.

Future challenges

Creating larger organisms is significantly more difficult. E. coli has a thousand times more DNA than phiX174. “The complexity would rocket from staggering to way way more than the number of subatomic particles in the universe”. explains Boeke.

Jason Kelly, CEO of biotech company Ginkgo Bioworks, believes that automated laboratories where AI continuously improves its genome designs will be needed for future breakthroughs.

— This would be a nation-scale scientific milestone, as cells are the building blocks of all life. The US should make sure we get to it first, says Kelly.

Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

https://nordictimes.com/science/sweden-first-to-use-psychedelics-to-treat-anorexia/

Science

Sweden first to use psychedelics to treat anorexia

Published 22 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Psilocybin has been used successfully on patients with depression and PTSD. The hope is that it will also help patients with anorexia.
2 minute read
Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden are now starting the world’s first study testing psychedelic drugs on young patients with anorexia nervosa. The pilot study includes 40 patients between 16 and 35 years old and begins this autumn.

Anorexia nervosa is one of the psychiatric diagnoses with the highest mortality rate. Each year, approximately 8,300 young people are diagnosed with eating disorders in Sweden, where anorexia nervosa is most common among girls aged 11–17 years. The disease is characterized by restricted food intake, intense fear of weight gain, and distorted body perception.

— Anorexia has a hereditary component and also occurs more frequently in people who have autism or obsessive-compulsive disorder. There are two clear age peaks for onset. The first is at 14 years of age and the next comes around 18 years, says Pouya Movahed Rad, associate professor at Lund University and senior physician at Psychiatry Skåne.

The study is primarily a safety study where researchers will evaluate risks and side effects of psilocybin compared to conventional treatment. Participants, who are recruited from throughout Region Skåne (the southernmost region of Sweden), must have had at least one relapse in their illness and will receive psilocybin on two occasions during carefully monitored sessions.

— Anorexia is a serious disease and there is no existing pharmacological treatment for the condition. It is therefore important to try new methods that can target the disease’s core symptoms, without solely focusing on weight, says Olea Schau Rybäck, doctoral student at Lund University and resident physician in psychiatry at Skåne.

“The brain is fantastic”

Psilocybin is a psychedelic substance found in certain mushrooms. Previous research on depression and PTSD has shown that the substance can break rigid thought and behavioral patterns. The hypothesis is that psilocybin can affect brain synaptic plasticity also in anorexia patients.

— The brain is fantastic and unpredictable. Psilocybin can open up a therapeutic window to create new functional patterns. If the treatment is successful, I see no obstacle to psychedelic drugs becoming an established treatment for anorexia nervosa in the future, says Pouya Movahed Rad.

Results from the study, which is funded by Norrsken Mind (a Swedish venture capital firm), are expected to be ready by the end of 2027. If researchers find promising results, a larger study focusing on treatment effects is planned.

Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

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