Daily briefing: Fresh evidence for hidden chambers at Tutankhamun’s tomb

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Researchers say they have new found evidence for the tantalizing, but controversial, idea that there are as-yet-unexplored chambers in Tutankhamun’s tomb that might hold the remains of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti. The team conducted a range of geophysical surveys, including the first use of gravitational techniques to probe the density of ground around the site, and say they strongly support the existence of a “hidden complex” of corridors and rooms predating the entombment of Tutankhamun.

Nature | 9 min read

Reference: Occasional Papers of the Amarna Royal Tombs Project paper

Controversy around OpenAI’s claim to have solved the Navier–Stokes problem — a major puzzle in fluid dynamics — highlights how researchers could be inadvertently sharing their work through chatbots. Mathematician Tristan Buckmaster raised the concern that the company might have had access to work that he and his collaborator had been chatting about with its AI tools for a year. An OpenAI spokesperson said that “no user inputs past July 3rd could have influenced this system in any way”. “I think academics may have been a little naive,” says Michael Jacobides, who studies digital ecosystems.

Nature | 9 min read

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted a ‘once-in-a-century’ event — a crater bigger than the Roman Colosseum, which formed when a rock, possibly this size of a three- to six‑story building, crashed into the Moon between 11 April and 22 May, 2024. Such a large-scale event is estimated to occur only once every 132 years.

Associated Press | 5 min read

Reference: Science Advances paper

In the most extensive integration of human brain cells into an animal so far, lab-grown organoids have been wired into mice to take the place of a missing part of their brains. The hybrid animals offer an unprecedented way to test drugs and study diseases that involve abnormal brain development such as cerebral palsy, says neuroscientist and study co-author Sergiu Pașca. For those who might be worried, scientists say that human neurons could never function in a mouse as they would in a person, nor did this study present any risk of creating a super-intelligent mouse.

Nature | 8 min read

Reference: Nature paper

Features & opinion

Ctenophores, also called comb jellies, seem to play a starring role in the evolution of the tree of life. They’re also extremely beautiful, when seen in the right light. Explore our growing understanding of these bizarre creatures, what they tell us about life on Earth and how awesome they look in this lushly illustrated feature.

Quanta | 10 min read

A proposed body called the International Panel on Inequality (IPI) has the backing of the United Nations, the African Union, several national governments and more than 700 economists and other scholars of inequality. Nature is on side too, says the journal in an editorial. “So much is known about the causes and damaging consequences of severe inequality, but that this knowledge has failed to prompt meaningful action from politicians,” it says. “The proposed IPI is the best chance so far for inequality research to inform policy action that can change lives for the better.”

Nature | 7 min read

Read more on why we need an International Panel on Inequality by authors who include Nobel-prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Winnie Byanyima, the head of the United Nations’ agency to combat AIDS. (Nature | 14 min read)

Today I’m enjoying an immersive journey through Earth’s “hidden infrastructure”: the mycorrhizal fungal networks that underpin much of plant life. Data from thousands of soil cores fed a model that estimates global topsoils contain around 1.10 × 10¹⁷ kilometres of living hyphae, weighing around 300 megatonnes — 4-6 times as much as all of humanity.

While this Flora takes a moment to say thank you to the funga, why not send me your feedback on this newsletter? Your e-mails are always welcome at [email protected].

Thanks for reading,

Flora Graham, chief editor, Nature Briefing

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