An analysis by the journal Nature of arrival figures published by the National Travel and Tourism Office of the United States finds that arrivals of international students in August were 28 per cent lower than two years earlier, the lowest level since 2020. Student-visa arrivals fell from 387,000 in August 2024 to 277,000 in August 2026. The decline was driven mainly by students from India, down by about 50,000, and from China, down by about 23,000. August is the month when the bulk of students arrive for the start of the academic year, which makes it the clearest single month to compare. Researchers quoted in the analysis warn about the effect on laboratories and graduate programmes that depend on international enrolment. The National Travel and Tourism Office is the United States government office that compiles travel and tourism statistics.
Fall in August arrivals:28%Student-visa arrivals in August 2026:277,000
Why it matters for exams: The National Travel and Tourism Office as the source of United States arrival data is the durable fact here.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, speaking at Dublin, said there is no common position yet on when the next summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will be held, and that it will certainly not be in 2027. He added that if a summit is held in 2028 it will be at Tirana. An alliance official said the next summit will be held in Albania, but that no date has been set. Albania joined the alliance in 2009 together with Croatia, and Tirana is its capital. The alliance's summits bring together heads of state and government of the member countries and are the occasion at which its main political decisions are taken. Its headquarters are at Brussels.
Capital of Albania:Tirana
Why it matters for exams: Albania's accession year, its capital and the alliance's headquarters are standard International Relations facts.
A study of Danish health records, published in Lancet Regional Health Europe, found that hospital admissions of infants for respiratory syncytial virus fell sharply after Denmark began vaccinating pregnant people nationwide. Antibodies raised by the maternal vaccine cross the placenta and protect babies for roughly their first six months. Take-up of maternal vaccination among eligible people in Denmark was 72 per cent. High-risk newborns whose mothers were not vaccinated, including premature infants, were given nirsevimab, a monoclonal antibody approved in Europe in 2022. Respiratory syncytial virus usually causes mild illness but can be severe or fatal in infants and older adults; the World Health Organization counts about 3.6 million hospitalisations and 100,000 deaths of children under five each year, 97 per cent of those deaths in low- and middle-income countries. Dozens of countries across Europe, Asia and the Americas have since launched immunisation programmes.
Maternal vaccination take-up in Denmark:72%Child deaths each year, WHO estimate:100,000
Why it matters for exams: What RSV is, what a monoclonal antibody does and the World Health Organization's burden estimate are durable Health questions.
Intellia Therapeutics, based at Cambridge in Massachusetts, has applied to the United States Food and Drug Administration for approval of lonvoguran ziclumeran, a CRISPR therapy for hereditary angioedema, a genetic disorder that causes episodes of swelling. The therapy edits the gene that produces prekallikrein, a liver-made protein that promotes leakage from blood vessels. It is given in vivo, meaning the editing happens inside the patient's body: fatty particles carrying messenger RNA for the CRISPR-Cas9 components are infused into the blood and taken up by the liver, in a procedure that takes one day. Earlier approved CRISPR treatments work ex vivo, with a patient's cells removed, edited outside the body and returned. The regulator has a decision date of 10 March. The Food and Drug Administration is the agency of the United States government that approves medicines there.
Why it matters for exams: The difference between in vivo and ex vivo gene editing, and what CRISPR-Cas9 is, are frequent Science and Technology questions.
Epidemiologists have used anonymised mobile phone data together with test records to reconstruct how the Bundibugyo strain Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo spread in its first weeks, in a study published in the journal Science. Movement of people out of Mongbwalu, Bunia and Rwampara between 24 April and 24 May predicted which health zones would report infections by 1 June. The first case is reported to have had symptoms as early as 25 April, weeks before the outbreak was declared on 15 May, and the first confirmed case was in Ituri province in the north-east, with suspected cases also in North Kivu. A co-author of the study is Pierre Akilimali of the National Institute of Public Health at Kinshasa. The outbreak is the largest of the Bundibugyo strain so far, and there are no licensed vaccines or approved treatments specific to it.
Journal:ScienceProvince of the first confirmed case:Ituri
Why it matters for exams: The Ebola strains, the provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its capital are durable Geography and Health facts.
A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, led by co-author Rikiya Takehi, has reported that an artificial intelligence model can read the raw internal values of other neural networks and predict what different parts of those systems do, and can then edit them to improve their performance, including their mathematical ability. The work uses GPT-6 Astra, a model developed by OpenAI at San Francisco, and was posted as a preprint on the alphaXiv service, which means it has not yet been through peer review. The field this belongs to is interpretability, the study of what is happening inside a trained model rather than only what it outputs. Researchers quoted in the report caution that the system does not necessarily understand how a given network works, and Fazl Barez, an artificial intelligence safety researcher at Oxford, said he would be surprised if it could interpret models beyond existing human abilities.
Institution:Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyWhere the work was posted:a preprint on alphaXiv
Why it matters for exams: What a preprint is and what interpretability means in artificial intelligence are the durable Science and Technology facts here.
The Very Large Telescope, or VLT, is run by the European Southern Observatory at Cerro Paranal in Chile.
It has four Unit Telescopes whose main mirrors are 8.2m across, together with four movable Auxiliary Telescopes of 1.8m.
The four large telescopes carry the names Antu, Kueyen, Melipal and Yepun.
When they are linked together they work as the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer, which picks out far finer detail than the separate telescopes can.
The four big telescopes are mostly used on their own, and only a limited number of nights every year go to interferometric observations, while the four smaller ones are dedicated to that work.
A single one of the big telescopes can record objects as faint as magnitude 30 in a one-hour exposure.
The site stands at 2635 m, and the first Unit Telescope, Antu, went into routine science work in 1999.
Today all four Unit Telescopes and the four Auxiliary Telescopes are operational.
Unit Telescope mirror:8.2mAuxiliary Telescope mirror:1.8mSite elevation:2635 mFaintest object in a one-hour exposure:magnitude 30
Why it matters for exams: Observatory names, mirror sizes and the body that runs them are common science and technology questions.
The European Medicines Agency, or EMA, is an agency of the European Union, with its address at Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
The Agency's work is the scientific evaluation and supervision of medicines for human and veterinary use.
EMA's scientific committees give independent recommendations after a full scientific look at the data submitted.
The centralised procedure means the Agency's assessment of an application forms the basis on which a medicine is authorised in Europe.
The European Commission alone can grant, suspend or later revoke a marketing authorisation for a centrally authorised product.
For nationally authorised products that decision belongs to the national competent authorities of the EU Member States.
EMA does not develop medicines and does not write the law: EU legislation on medicines comes from the European Commission, and it is adopted by the European Parliament along with the Council of the European Union.
Headquarters city:AmsterdamWho grants a centrally authorised marketing authorisation:European CommissionProcedure EMA assesses under:centralised procedureWho adopts EU medicines legislation:European Parliament
Why it matters for exams: Who evaluates a medicine and who actually authorises it is a distinction examiners like to test.
The International System of Units, written SI, is the measurement system used in research, industry and trade.
NIST explains that the SI stands on a foundation of seven (7) defining constants.
The constants include the speed of light in vacuum, the Planck constant, the Boltzmann constant and the Avogadro constant, along with the cesium hyperfine splitting frequency, the elementary charge and the luminous efficacy of a specified monochromatic source.
The seven base units are the meter for length, the second for time, the mole for amount of substance, the ampere for electric current, the kelvin for temperature, the candela for luminous intensity and the kilogram for mass.
The definitions are written in an explicit-constant form and realized in practice by a specific technique.
The base units define 22 derived units with special names and symbols, and the two sets together make a core set of twenty-nine units.
The world's measurement experts voted for the revision in November 2018, and it took effect on World Metrology Day, May 20, 2019.
Defining constants:seven (7)Base units:7 base unitsDerived units with special names:22 derived units with special namesDate the revised SI took effect:May 20, 2019
Why it matters for exams: The seven SI base units and the constants behind them are asked in every general science paper.
COMESA stands for the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.
The history of COMESA began in December 1994, when it replaced the former Preferential Trade Area, or PTA, which had existed from the earlier days of 1981.
The Treaty describes it as an organisation of free independent sovereign states that agreed to co-operate in developing their natural and human resources.
Its objectives are wide and include the promotion of peace and security in the region, but its main focus is the formation of a large economic and trading unit.
The strategy is summed up in the phrase economic prosperity through regional integration.
The bloc covers 21 Member States, a population of over 520 million and a geographical area of 12 Million (sq km).
The FTA was achieved on 31st October, 2000, and Burundi and Rwanda joined the FTA on 1st January 2004.
Formed:December 1994Body it replaced:Preferential Trade AreaMember States:21Free Trade Area achieved:31st October, 2000
Why it matters for exams: Regional blocs in Africa, their founding years and what they replaced are routinely asked in international relations questions.