Today’s top story
A key archaeological site in Chile could be thousands of years younger than first thought, according to a controversial study that threatens to rewrite the earliest history of when humans settled South America.
Monte Verde, a Paleolithic archaeological site in the mountains of southern Chile, stands as one of the oldest human settlements in the Americas and is believed to be 14,500 years old. Its discovery in 1976 fundamentally changed the way archaeologists see the arrival of the first Americans on the continent, as the site is 1,500 years older than the arrival of Clovis people through North America.
But a new study claims the site could be more than 10,000 years younger than first thought, completely upending the accepted understanding of the site and prehistoric migration patterns. But other experts have called the new paper “egregiously poor geological work.”
The trend
A historic heatwave slamming the American West is on course to set monthly records in more than 140 cities, from California to the Plains, this week.
And it’s far from an ordinary one — with the Arizona desert community of Martinez Lake reporting a high of 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius), smashing the record for the highest March temperature ever logged in the U.S.
Some scientists are arguing that the planet’s increasingly wacky weather extremes are signs that human-driven climate change is accelerating. The debate is happening at the same time as the Iran war, which is already making American consumers reconsider their relationship with oil.
Three to read
- Scientists witness birth of one of the universe’s strongest magnets for the first time, thanks to a general relativity ‘magic trick’ [Live Science]
- Carbon dioxide levels are higher than humans have ever experienced. It could be changing our blood chemistry [CNN]
- Mathematician wins 2026 Abel prize for solving 60-year-old mystery [New Scientist]
Video of the day
Scientists in China have developed a system to teach humanoid robots movements skills based on fragmentary human data. And they’ve used it to train an android to play tennis.
While the robot is yet to be a match against professional players, it still returned a 96.5% return rate in its best performance, according to the yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study.
Say it, said it
Word of the day
Metis — Greek for “wisdom,” and the name of Zeus’ first wife and advisor, who helped him escape from his father Cronus’ stomach and whom he repaid by swallowing after learning she will bear a son mightier than him.
Metis, already pregnant with Athena, the goddess of wisdom, helped her daughter escape from Zeus through his forehead. Athena’s birth is depicted in the marble sculptures of the Acropolis, a fragment of which has been found near the remains of a shipwreck at the bottom of the Aegean Sea.
Quote of the day
“Thermodynamics tells you what’s possible and what’s not possible if the laws of the universe are what we think they are. Until now, there’s nobody in four centuries of science that has been able to show that the laws of thermodynamics [do not apply].”
Angel Cuesta Ciscar, a professor of electrochemistry and physical chemistry at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, on why it’s unlikely that a “dark oxygen” discovery on the seafloor is even possible.
Fun and games
The archaeological community is once again locked into fierce debate over the timeline of the American continent’s first settlement. But how much do you know about the first people to reach it? Test your knowledge with this quiz.
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