Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, who together identified a slight chemical change to messenger RNA,were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine this year.

Dr. Karikó, the 13th woman to win the prize, had come to the United States from Hungary two decades earlier when her research program there ran out of money. She was preoccupied by mRNA, which provides instructions to cells to make proteins. Defying the decades old belief that mRNA was clinically unusable, she hold the view that it would stimulate medical innovations.

She and Dr. Weissman had their first chance meeting over a copy machine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1998. At the time, Dr. Weissman was desperate for new approaches to a vaccine (疫苗) against HLV, which bad long proved impossible to defend against. A physician who had tried and failed for years to develop a treatment for AIDS, he wondered if he and Dr. Karikó could team up to make an HIV. vaccine.

For years, they were at a loss. Mice vaccinated with mRNA became inactive. Countless experiments failed. They wandered down one dead end after another, But eventually, the scientists discovered that cells protect their own mRNA with a specific chemical modification (修饰). So they tried making the same change to mRNA manufactured in the lab before vaccinating it into cells It worked.

At first, other scientists were largely uninterested in taking up that new approach to vaccination. But two biotech companies soon took notice: Moderna, in the United States, and BioNTech, in Germany. Then the coronavirus emerged. Almost instantly, Drs. Karikó and Weissman’s work came together with several factors of different research to put vaccine makers ahead of the game in developing shot.

Brian Ferguson, an immunologist at the University of Cambridge, said. “The work of Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman in the years prior to 2020 prevented tens of millions of deaths and helped the world recover from the worst pandemic in a century. They richly deserve this recognition.”

When Peng Liyuan stepped off the plane in Moscow, the whole world wanted to know who dressed the elegant first lady. The reporter released the secret—Ma Ke.

Peng Liyuan has been wearing Ma Ke's designs for more than a decade, a fact that was only highlighted recently when she was on her first state visit, accompanying her husband President Xi Jinping. The elegant and attractive Peng, formerly a popular singer, has been compared with the US’ first lady Michelle Obama and France’s Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, since stepping off the airplane in Moscow on March 22. Suddenly, everyone was curious to know more about the first lady’s wardrobe.

Even so, Ma prefers a low-key approach. “If you eat a tasty egg why would you want to see the hen?” she says of all the media attention.

Ma’s relationship with Peng began 10 years ago after a concert in Guangzhou when a reporter told Peng she knew the designer behind the label Exception de Mixmind. Peng asked for an introduction because she was a fan of Ma’s designs and had been wearing them for years.

The two naturally became friends. Ma says: “The painting reflects the painter, and clothes reflect both the designer and the wearer. Someone desires fame and wealth, or love and sympathy; what you have in your heart is reflected in the design. Those who don’t share my philosophy won’t buy my clothes. Peng is a caring person, devoted to charity and environmental protection, which is exactly what I’m doing now.”

However, regardless of the brand, Peng’s support of Chinese labels has surprised millions of Chinese who favor foreign fashion brands.

“Instead she presented a vision of Chinese fashion, desiring to bring Chinese designers to the world stage,” says a western designer.

The first lady’s double-breasted coat and her black leather handbag aren’t available at any of Exception’s shops, though Exception’s physical stores do have seen a rising number of visitors.

OpenAI on Monday announced its latest AI large language model, GPT-4o, an update from GPT-4. GPT-4o will be available to unpaid customers, meaning anyone can access OpenAI’s most advanced technology through ChatGPT. GPT-4o will turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact using text and “vision,” allowing it to view and discuss screenshots, photos, documents, or charts uploaded by users.

OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati said the updated version of ChatGPT will now also have memory capabilities, meaning it can learn from previous conversations with users, and can do real-time translation. “This is the first time that we are really making a huge step forward when it comes to the ease of use,” Murati said during the live demo from the company’s San Francisco headquarters. “This interaction becomes much more natural and far, far easier.”

This OpenAI event came one day ahead of Google’s annual I/O developer conference, at which it’s expected to announce updates to its Gemini AI model. Like the new GPT-4o, Google’s Gemini is also multimodal, meaning it can interpret and generate text, images and audio. OpenAI’s update also comes ahead of expected AI announcements from Apple at its Worldwide Developers Conference next month, which could include new ways of incorporating AI into the next iPhone or iOS releases.

OpenAI said more than 100 million people already are using ChatGPT. But an updated ChatGPT experience — and the ability to interact with it on desktop and through improved voice conversations — could give even more people reason to use its technology. The moves come at a time when integrations of AI into more widely used consumer products by Google and Meta, like Instagram and Google Assistant, may make those companies’ technology more widely and easily accessible.