This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through August 15) Every week, we scour the web for important, insightful, and fascinating stories in science and technology. Image Credit Shubham Dhage on Unsplash Share Artificial Intelligence These Startups Are Chasing the Next Big Thing in LLMsWill Douglas Heaven | MIT Technology Review ($) "Transformers are starting to show their age. Many of the recent advances in LLMs, such as the development of so-called reasoning models and their ability to handle large amounts of input at once, are not neat extensions of that core technology but workarounds that patch over some of its fundamental flaws. A growing number of scientists and engineers are now asking what’s coming next." SPACE Astronomers Discover a New Kind of Cosmic Object—a Black Hole ‘Star’Ian Sample | The Guardian "Astronomers claim to have discovered a new kind of cosmic object, a black hole 'star,' which is the size of the entire solar system and glows with a brilliant red light. ...Measurements of the exotic body found that while it resembles an immense star, it releases 100bn times more energy than any known star can produce. The energy output is far closer to that observed from black holes than stars." Biotechnology Why Aging May Be a Program, Not a BreakdownIngrid Wickelgren | Quanta Magazine "Far from a random but linear process of wear and tear, [cell biologist Junyue Cao] argues, aging is a stepwise, programmed, orderly affair. ...Using technology that offers a systemwide view of the aging process in mice, Cao has outlined discrete stages of aging, akin to those of embryonic development, that are defined by changes in molecular signals and specific cell populations. In humans, the process likely begins before age 30." TECH Why Wall Street and Nvidia Are Building an Exotic Money Pipeline