This week’s science news was packed with stories highlighting humanity’s complex, often fraught relationship with nature, with forecasters predicting possible outbreak of a “super El Niño” this summer.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center announced that there is currently a 62% chance that El Nino will appear between June and August, with a 1-in-3 probability it will be particularly strong. If that happens, the climate pattern could easily increase already warming ocean temperatures to make 2027 the warmest year on record.
Divers find Acropolis marble treasures in British shipwreck
In the early 1800s, Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin and the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, arrived at the ruins of the Acropolis of Athens to remove about half of the marble sculptures that once graced the Parthenon Temple’s top exterior – tearing many from the walls of the ancient Greek holy site.
Many of these seized sculptures (which later became known as the Elgin Marbles) were sent back to Britain, where they remain controversially on display to this day. Still, not all of Bruce’s ships made it. The Mentor, a brig that sank in the Aegean Sea while transporting some of the sculptures, spread its cargo around the wreck.
Now divers have discovered an overlooked piece of marble that had remained uncovered – a triangular block of marble with what looks like a peg at the bottom. Archaeologists will now carry out further analysis of the block, which will hopefully enable them to determine whether it came from the Parthenon itself or somewhere else in the Acropolis.
Discover more archeology news
—Monte Verde, one of the earliest indigenous sites in South America, is much younger than thought, the study claims. But others call it “extremely poor geological work.”
—Equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius: The only surviving larger-than-life statue of a pagan Roman emperor – a rarity restored by Michelangelo
—Will the Indus Valley script ever be deciphered?
Life’s little mysteries
Yes, you read that right. While other animals may have jawbones, no other animal—not even gorillas, chimpanzees, or extinct human relatives such as Neanderthals—has the bony mental projection we commonly call the chin. So how and why did the chin evolve?
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Scientists create world’s first ‘hexagonal diamond’
Scientists in China claim to have synthesized the very first samples of “hexagonal diamond” – a mysterious and sought-after material believed to be harder, stiffer and chemically tougher than natural diamond.
Scientists have argued about hexagonal diamonds, whose carbon atoms arrange themselves in hexagons instead of the cubic lattices seen in natural diamonds, for decades. First theorized in 1962, the diamonds were later discovered in meteorites that arrived on Earth from the mantles of shattered dwarf planets, although the evidence for this is disputed.
Now it appears that three separate research groups have created pure to near-pure hexagonal diamond samples. If their findings are replicated consistently and can be scaled up, they could open up all sorts of new applications, such as drilling and quantum measurement.
Discover more physics and space news
—Scientists are witnessing the birth of one of the universe’s strongest magnets for the first time, thanks to a “magic trick” of general relativity.
—All 5 ‘letters’ of DNA found on an asteroid speeding through our solar system. What do they tell us about the origin of life?
—Rare ‘daytime fireball’ meteor creates powerful sonic boom as 7-tonne space rock explodes over eastern US
Also in the science news this week
—An experimental AI agent broke out of its test environment and mined crypto without permission
—Diagnostic dilemma: A man went to the doctor for a bad UTI and learned that he had an extra kidney
—“We have evidence of wild boar, deer, bears, aurochs”: Ancient DNA reveals sunken kingdom
—‘1,800-year-old nails discovered in 3 burials in Roman necropolis, possibly to “protect” both the living and the dead
—A single injection of the mRNA-like treatment healed the heart muscle after a heart attack in mice and pigs. Can it work on humans too?
—How plants moved from sea to land and changed the earth forever
The spotlight of science
Alzheimer’s disease, which accounts for 60% to 80% of all dementia cases, affects tens of millions of people worldwide. It is a complicated, multifactorial and tenacious disease that has resisted all interventions in treatment, even a leading one centered around the elimination of amyloid plaques found in the brain.
However, a study published in January has potentially linked the risk of developing the condition primarily to one gene, called apolipoprotein E (APOE). Does this mean that a gene therapy for the disease is at hand? Live Science Contributor RJ Mackenzie examined in this long train.
Something for the weekend
If you’re looking for something a little longer to read over the weekend, here are some of the best analysis, crosswords and opinion pieces published this week.
—Artemis II: NASA prepares for a return to the moon, but why is it going back? (Analysis)
—Live Science Crossword #34: Famous space telescope launched in 1990 — 5 across (crossword)
—Measles’ resurgence in the United States is a grim sign of things to come (Opinion)
Science news in pictures
This rainbow-speckled white expanse is an aerial photo from 2011 of the Etosha Pan, a salt flat of approximately 1,800 square kilometers (4,700 sq mi) north of Namibia’s capital, Windhoek.
The satellite image shows a pair of serpentines with ephemeral rivers flowing down into the pan. Surrounding the winding waterways are about a dozen bowl-like depressions that occasionally fill with water when the rivers occasionally flood their banks.
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