Single data point offers thrilling hint of dark matter discovery

Hello Nature readers,
Today we discover exciting hints of a dark-matter discovery, explore a UN report highlighting the grim progress of climate change and consider whether AI is homogenizing culture and cognition.

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Is this the first glimpse of dark matter?

A single data point from a dark-matter detector in the United States could be the first discovery of the elusive particle we call dark matter. The LUX-ZEPLIN experiment at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota contains 10 tonnes of liquid xenon. It seeks evidence of a candidate particle called a WIMP (weakly interacting massive particle) by looking for flashes created when such a particle collides with the nucleus of just one xenon atom. If the finding can be backed up with more data, it could mean that the material that seems to make up most of the mass of the Universe has finally been discovered.

Warming will surpass 1.5 ℃, confirms UN

The United Nations Environment Programme has released a report acknowledging that the world will fail to meet the Paris climate agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 ℃ above the preindustrial average, with warming of at least 1.8 ℃ expected this century. “All of our pathways forward are overshoot pathways,” said climate scientist and co-author Debra Roberts. However, the report suggests that, with a huge expansion of CO₂ removal efforts, it might still be possible to return to below 1.5 ℃ by the end of the century. And every fraction of a degree counts. “The lower the peak warming reached, the lower the risks,” says the report.

Phage gets makeover one DNA base at a time

Researchers have created more than 44,000 variants of the well-studied bacteriophage virus ΦX174 to determine the effects of mutations at nearly every single one of its DNA letters and amino acids. Most mutations were detrimental to the virus’s survival, but a handful boosted its fitness, often for reasons that were unclear. Cutting-edge AI models trained to identify harmful mutations struggled to predict the consequences of each change, which underscores the need for more high-quality experimental data to power these models, the team says.

India moves to entice researchers home

In June, the Indian government launched the Prime Minister Research Chair (PMRC) Scheme, an initiative to entice Indian researchers who have moved abroad to return. The programme offers 120 researchers up to 50 million rupees (roughly US$520,000) in research grants, with extra stipends and allowances, for five years to work at an institution in India. The scheme could benefit theoretical physicists, but the grants aren’t sufficient to cover expensive equipment and infrastructure required for experimental research, say scientists. Nor does it lay out a path once the initial fellowship ends.

Will AI create a bland new world?

The widespread use of generative artificial intelligence across all facets of society appears to be stripping writing and imagery of individuality, say researchers who are studying the phenomenon. Evidence already suggests that this increased uniformity can influence how we make decisions and the opinions we hold, which could begin to homogenize human culture and cognition, they warn. This AI sameness might not upend society, but in a worst-case scenario, it could make people collectively less adaptable, says computer scientist Zhivar Sourati.

What we don’t know about honey

Fraudsters are messing with our honey, replacing some or even all of the sweet treat with low-cost sugar syrups: a 2023 European Commission report found that 46% of 300 lab-tested samples showed signs of being adulterated. But chemically analyzing real honey is tricky because it’s sticky, acidic and wonderfully, naturally complex. “It’s got hundreds, if not thousands, of different trace compounds in there,” says honey expert David Hoyland. To make matters worse, not everyone agrees with what should legally be called ‘honey’.

Hope for chronic post-viral conditions

The emergence of long COVID, the chronic health condition caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has prompted an uptick in interest in other post-acute infection syndromes. Over the past six years, thousands of studies have delved into the underlying mechanisms of long COVID and related conditions, backed in part by hefty investments from the US and German governments. Overall funding is still meagre, but some researchers are hopeful that the field is approaching a tipping point, one that “could be transformative for medicine more widely”, says infectious-disease clinician Michael Peluso.