Ice core is the longest-ever continuous record of Earth’s climate

Hello Nature readers,
Today we go back in time with a record-breaking ice core, ponder the cost of using AI tools in the lab and learn that the greatest mysteries in physics are still up in the air.

Ice core is longest unbroken climate record

A 2.8-kilometre-deep ice core has yielded the longest continuous record of Earth’s climate and atmospheric conditions, stretching back 1.2 million years. Data from the core show how the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere tracked changes in global temperatures across multiple cycles of climate change. The core covers a period in Earth’s history during which ice ages became less frequent but more brutal. Researchers are hoping the oxygen isotopes and carbon dioxide in the core can provide some hints as to what caused the switch.

Physicists divided about nature of Universe

The largest-ever survey of physicists found that experts (and physics fans) remain divided about some of the field’s biggest questions. A poll of more than 1,500 readers of Physics Magazine and members of the American Physical Society revealed some surprising areas of disagreement. For example, there was “considerable skepticism over the standard model of cosmology” — called Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM), in which cosmic history is largely the result of a struggle between the pull of dark matter and the push of dark energy.

What to worry about instead of hantavirus

People in the United States are unlikely to catch the ‘Andes’ variant of hantavirus linked to a recent outbreak on a cruise ship, writes epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves. “The real story is the collapse of pandemic preparedness in this country,” he argues, noting cuts to related research, the abandonment of the World Health Organization and a proliferation of unqualified appointees in top public-health roles. “Hantavirus is not the coming plague, but one is surely coming for us in the future. We’ve never been as exposed and vulnerable as we are now for when that moment arrives.”

Trust isn’t enough to keep gene data safe

In April, data from the influential UK Biobank system was found listed for sale on a Chinese e-commerce site owned by Alibaba. And in January, fringe researchers misused data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study to promote white supremacist views. The breaches challenged a data-sharing model that relies on trust between participants, institutions, researchers and countries. Simply locking down such data will hamper science, argues human population geneticist Shuhua Xu. Instead, a move from “from trust-based openness to enforceable openness” will require support from institutions and international collaboration, he writes.