Science news this week: Super El Niño looms, an Acropolis marble fragment resurfaces, and a pure hexagonal diamond is born
This week’s science news was full of stories highlighting humanity’s complex and often tense relationship with nature, with forecasters predicting the possible appearance 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 Niño will appear between June and August, with a probability of 1 in 3 that it will be particularly strong. If that happens, the climate model could easily increase already warming ocean temperatures and make 2027 the hottest year on record.
Divers discover Acropolis marble treasure in British shipwreck
In the early 19th century, Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin and 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 adorned the exterior of the Parthenon temple, tearing out many of the walls of the ancient Greek holy site.
Many of these seized sculptures (which later became known as the Elgin Marbles) were returned to the United Kingdom, where they remain on controversial display to the present day. Yet not all of Bruce’s ships made it. The Mentor, a brig that sank in the Aegean Sea while carrying some sculptures, scattered its cargo around its wreckage.
Today, divers discovered a neglected piece of marble that wasn’t being salvaged – a triangular block of marble with what looks like a peg at the bottom. Archaeologists will now carry out further analyzes of the block, which will hopefully allow them to determine whether it comes from the Parthenon itself or another location on the Acropolis.
Discover more news on archeology
—Monte Verde, one of South America’s earliest indigenous sites, is much younger than previously thought, a study suggests. But others call it “extremely poor geological work.”
—Equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius: the only larger-than-life statue of a pagan Roman emperor – a rarity that Michelangelo renovated
—Will the Indus Valley script ever be deciphered?
The little mysteries of life
Yes, you read that correctly. While other animals may have jaws, no other animal – not even gorillas, chimpanzees or extinct humans like Neanderthals – sports the bony and mental protrusion that we commonly call the chin. So how and why did the chin evolve?
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Scientists create world’s first ‘hexagonal diamond’
Chinese researchers claim to have synthesized the first ever samples of “hexagonal diamond” – a mysterious and coveted material believed to be harder, stiffer and chemically more resistant than natural diamond.
Scientists have debated for decades about hexagonal diamonds, whose carbon atoms are arranged in hexagons instead of the cubic arrays seen in natural diamonds. First theorized in 1962, diamonds were later discovered in meteorites that arrived on Earth from the mantle of shattered dwarf planets, although the evidence for this hypothesis is disputed.
Today, three separate research groups appear to have produced samples of pure or near-pure hexagonal diamonds. If their findings are consistently reproduced and can be scaled up, they could pave the way for all kinds of new applications, such as quantum drilling and sensing.
Discover more news about physics and space
—Scientists witness for the first time the birth of one of the most powerful magnets in the universe, thanks to a ‘magic trick’ of general relativity
—The 5 “letters” of DNA found on an asteroid speeding through our solar system. What do they tell us about the origins of life?
—Rare meteor, ‘daytime fireball,’ creates powerful sonic boom as 7-ton space rock explodes over eastern US
Also in science news this week
—Experimental AI Agent Went Out of Its Test Environment and Mined Crypto Without Authorization
—Diagnostic Dilemma: Man Went to the Doctor for a Bad UTI and Learned He Has an Extra Kidney
—‘We have evidence of wild boars, deer, bears and aurochs’: Ancient DNA reveals sunken kingdom
—‘1,800-year-old nails discovered in 3 burials in Roman necropolis, perhaps to ‘protect’ the living and the dead
—A single injection of an mRNA treatment healed the heart muscle after a heart attack in mice and pigs. Could this also work in humans?
—How plants moved from sea to land and changed the Earth forever
Spotlight on science
Alzheimer’s disease, which accounts for 60 to 80 percent of all cases of dementia, affects tens of millions of people worldwide. It is a complex, multifactorial and stubborn disease that has resisted all therapeutic advances, even those focused on the elimination of amyloid plaques present in the brain.
However, a study published in January potentially linked the risk of developing the disease primarily to a gene, called apolipoprotein E (APOE). Does this mean that gene therapy for the disease is underway? Live Science Contributor RJ Mackenzie investigated in this long read.
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 is preparing a return to the Moon, but why is it going back? [Analysis]
—Live Science crossword n°34: Famous space telescope launched in 1990 – 5 in diameter [Crossword]
—Measles resurgence in the United States is a grim sign of things to come [Opinion]
Scientific news in pictures
This white expanse speckled with rainbows is an aerial photo from 2011 of the Etosha Pan, a salt plain of approximately 4,700 square kilometers north of the Namibian capital, Windhoek.
The satellite photo shows a pair of ephemeral serpentine rivers flowing into the basin. Surrounding the winding waterways are a dozen bowl-shaped depressions that occasionally fill with water when rivers sporadically flood their banks.
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