The signal
over the noise.

Mark Thomson, the newly appointed director general of CERN, discussed ongoing challenges in particle physics as the Large Hadron Collider undergoes major upgrades. While the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson and the standard model's precision have advanced the field significantly, major unanswered questions remain, including the nature of dark matter, why particles have specific masses, and why matter exists in the universe after the big bang. CERN is planning a £13 billion successor collider to address these fundamental questions.

Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration discovered a previously unknown line of symmetry along the 27° east and 153° west meridians that divides Earth into two halves with nearly equal reflectivity of light, persistence over 25 years of satellite data, and balanced distribution of land, oceans, and clouds. The exact position of this line shifts slightly year to year in correlation with El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycles, suggesting it may be maintained by a global climate mechanism rather than being coincidental. The discovery has implications for geoengineering proposals, as it indicates potential global feedback loops that could counteract efforts to artificially increase planetary reflectivity.

A UN University report warns that artificial intelligence's energy consumption is growing rapidly, with ChatGPT alone processing 2.5 billion daily queries. Researchers found that removing polite words like "please" and "thank you" from prompts could reduce energy use by up to 25 per cent and save 87 to 98 gigawatt-hours annually. The study projects that AI alone could consume 378 terawatt-hours yearly by 2030 and require 9.3 trillion litres of water for data centres.

Atom Computing demonstrated a neutral-atom quantum computer that successfully performed error correction repeatedly—keeping error checks running 90 times consecutively—while increasing qubit group sizes from 16 to 32 without introducing new errors. The achievement joins recent milestones by Google, Harvard University, and Chinese researchers in advancing competing quantum computing technologies. Researchers say the work demonstrates neutral-atom systems are viable competitors to superconducting approaches, though some experts note additional errors still accumulated over extended operation.

A small study found that 72 percent of women with anorexia nervosa who followed a supervised ketogenic diet for 14 weeks improved enough to no longer meet clinical diagnostic criteria for the eating disorder, with researchers suggesting the diet may restore malfunctioning energy release in brain cells. Researchers attributed the results to the diet creating a metabolic state similar to what patients crave while ensuring adequate food intake, though an independent eating disorder expert cautioned that larger trials are needed before changing standard treatment approaches.

Researchers at the University of Washington identified a plant immune receptor that detects caterpillar saliva and triggers both direct defenses and the recruitment of predatory insects. By screening bean varieties and using selective breeding to compare plants with and without the functional inceptin receptor, they found that plants unable to detect the caterpillar signal experienced 70 percent faster caterpillar growth and failed to recruit protective wasps.

Scientists analyzing microbes from Ötzi the Iceman, a 5,300-year-old mummy discovered in 1991, found both ancient bacteria from his gut and modern microorganisms, some of which may still be metabolically active despite storage at -6°C. The study identified ancient bacteria that lived inside Ötzi when alive and cold-loving yeasts colonized post-mortem, with one yeast species showing increased abundance and reduced DNA damage between 2010 and 2019. Researchers note that Ötzi's remains represent a complex ecosystem shaped by microbial succession after death, glacial infiltration over millennia, and three decades of conservation rather than a frozen biological time capsule.

University of Exeter researchers studying Australian great bowerbirds found that urbanization has significantly altered their courtship display behavior, with urban males using human-made items like glass and plastic for decorations more than 10 times as often as rural counterparts. Urban bowers contained an average of 90 items compared to 20 for rural birds, and both urban and rural males showed preference for human items when given a choice. Researchers noted the study did not determine whether these changes positively or negatively affect the birds' reproductive success or mate selection.

University of Aberdeen archaeologist Alicia Sanz-Royo and colleagues conducted experimental archaeology using white rhino teeth to test whether Neanderthals used them as tools. The researchers obtained 18 teeth from French zoos and used them to retouch stone flakes, as hammers, and as anvils, then compared the resulting marks to teeth found at Neanderthal archaeological sites in France and Spain. The experimental marks matched those on ancient teeth, supporting the conclusion that Neanderthals likely used rhino teeth as tools in their toolkits.

The Trump administration's decision to shut down the National Center for Atmospheric Research and transfer its Wyoming supercomputing center to another operator was blocked Monday by federal judge Brooke Jackson, who issued a preliminary injunction in favor of UCAR, the consortium managing NCAR. Jackson found the NSF had made a final predetermined decision in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act, noting that government officials signaled the transfer decision in February before the public comment period even closed, and the agency failed to articulate a rationale for the action. UCAR demonstrated it would suffer irreparable harm due to staff attrition caused by uncertainty about the facility's future.