two particularly important findings:

On a dataset of questions designed to test for social biases in language models, they found cases in which LLMs provide explanations that mask their reliance on social biases. In other words, the LLMs make decisions that are influenced by social identity information, such as race, income, and gender—but then they justify their decisions based on other factors, such as an individual's behavior.
On a dataset of medical questions involving hypothetical patient scenarios, the team's method revealed cases in which LLM explanations omit pieces of evidence that have a large effect on the model's answers regarding patient treatment and care.
The research team says that, by uncovering specific patterns in misleading explanations, their method can enable a targeted response to unfaithful explanations.

Katie Matton et al. Walk the Talk? Measuring the Faithfulness of Large Language Model Explanations. ICLR 2025 Spotlight. openreview.net/forum?id=4ub9gpx9xw

Part 2

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Iron-deficient male mice can grow ovaries
Male mouse fetuses can develop female organs in utero if their mother is iron deficient during pregnancy. When pregnant mice were given a molecule that sequesters iron, or their embryos had genetic tweaks that disrupted their iron uptake, a handful of pups with XY chromosomes in their litters grew ovaries. The findings could have implications for medical advice about iron intake during pregnancy. But as most embryos developed typical sexual characteristics, there must be other key factors that influence sex.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09063-2.epdf?sharing_tok...

Breakthrough cholesterol treatment can cut levels by 69% after one dose

The future of heart attack prevention could be as easy as a single injection

A single shot of a new drug can lower cholesterol levels by up to 69 per cent, according to the initial results of a clinical trial that has not yet been peer reviewed.

The treatment, called VERVE-102, could transform the future of heart attack prevention by dramatically reducing a person's levels of LDL cholesterol – the so-called ‘bad’ cholesterol – with just one injection.

While statins can lower a person’s cholesterol levels by similar levels, these generally need to be taken daily.

Instead of managing cholesterol over time like statins, VERVE-102 aims to provide a one-time fix by ‘switching off’ a specific gene, known as PCSK9, in the liver. This gene plays a key role in regulating how much LDL cholesterol the liver can detect and remove from the bloodstream. 

Essentially, less PCSK9 leads to less LDL in the bloodstream.