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The week in Science
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El Niño strengthened to an exceptional level for this stage, and scientists linked a possible severe event to disproportionate deaths and disruption in poorer countries. The threat expanded from a developing ocean pattern into a broad risk to climate, health, food, water, and infrastructure.
Climate change is rapidly melting Papua’s rare tropical snowfields, threatening both a valuable climate record and a culturally significant landscape. Their loss would remove an irreplaceable research environment and landmark.
One study challenged a chemical marker used to date global oxygenation, while another found that oxygen-rich settings supported more complex life than oxygen-free ones. Together, the findings make early oxygenation both harder to date and more important to explaining biological expansion.
LHC data ruled out another range of models involving quantum black holes, then CERN began a rebuild designed to produce more collision data. The collider is simultaneously shrinking some theoretical possibilities and improving its capacity to find rare signals.
Anthropic said Claude identified a CRISPR-like enzyme system and that the finding was tested in a wet lab. The result offers an early example of AI-assisted biological discovery, but it still needs independent replication and clearer attribution.
Observations showed sustained weakening in a major part of the Atlantic circulation across a broad region for nearly two decades. The finding raises long-term risks for rainfall, storms, winter conditions, and coastal sea levels without showing an imminent collapse.
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