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What scientists think of Netflix’s 3 Body Problem

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Zhang Yongzhen, the first scientist to publish a sequence of the COVID-19 virus, looks at a presentation on his laptop in a coffeeshop in Shanghai, China on Dec. 13, 2020.

Zhang Yongzhen, the first person to publicly release the genome sequence of the virus that causes COVID-19, was camping outside his laboratory.Credit: Dake Kang/AP via Alamy

Noted Chinese virologist Zhang Yongzhen appears to be back at work following a dispute that saw him sleeping in the street outside his own lab. According to social media posts on Zhang’s Weibo account, his group was given two days to relocate to a new lab that lacked sufficient biosafety controls. In 2020, Zhang and long-time collaborator Edward Holmes, a virologist in Australia, were first to publicly release the genome of SARS-CoV-2 — a choice credited as key to the swift development of COVID-19 vaccines. But Zhang’s research output has since dwindled, which Holmes blames on an effort to sideline Zhang for unauthorized sharing of data. “It is heartbreaking to watch,” he says. “It is unfathomable to me to have a scientist of that calibre sleeping outside his lab.”

Nature | 5 min read

Read more: In 2020, Zhang featured in Nature’s 10 — an annual list of people behind key developments in science, when he discussed why he shared the SARS-CoV-2 genome despite a Chinese government order forbidding it.

A ‘challenge trial’ early in the COVID-19 pandemic that aimed to infect 35 volunteers on purpose to study treatments ended after none of them got sick, a paper detailing the results has revealed. Fourteen of the participants then caught the Omicron strain after being released from quarantine. The strains used in challenge trials are produced under stringent conditions — a process that can take months. This can put them well out-of-date compared to emerging variants that can overcome widespread immunity. “We need a challenge strain that’s more representative of what’s circulating in the community,” says vaccine scientist Anna Durbin.

Nature | 5 min read

Reference: Lancet Microbe paper

India’s leading social-science research institute, the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), is reeling after a January decision by the government — currently being challenged in court — banned it from taking money from international funders, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. The tax authorities also levied the institution with a 10 crore rupees (US$1.2 million) bill.

In an opinion article, former CPR chief executive Yamini Aiyar, who stepped down in March, says this is part of a pattern of attacks on institutions conducting independent research. “The documented drop in academic freedom is part of a broader decline in India’s vibrant culture of public debate,” she writes. “At a juncture when critical feedback and effective consultation are required to secure the country’s long-term growth and prosperity… it has now become increasingly common for technocrats in government to seek to discredit researchers and suppress research.”

Nature news article | 6 min read & opinion article | 5 min read

Features & opinion

Scientists are racing to find out whether chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies, one of the most celebrated new cancer treatments in decades, could be causing new malignancies. The US Food and Drug Administration received 33 reports of lymphomas among some 30,000 people who had been treated. It remains unclear how many, if any, of the new cancers came from the CAR T cells or from other therapies the patients had received. “Most cancer therapies can cause cancer. This is one of the paradoxes of our business,” says paediatric oncologist Crystal Mackall.

Nature | 11 min read

CAR-T concerns: graphic that shows how CAR T cells are engineered for treatment, and how they could become cancerous themselves.

The Netflix series 3 Body Problem is a hit — but is the mind-bending tale of a group of alien-battling Oxford physicists good science? Nature asked Xavier Dumusque, a planetary scientist who has studied the three-star system Alpha Centauri, Younan Xia, a materials scientist who has worked with cutting-edge nanotechnologies and Matt Kenzie, a particle physicist and the scientific adviser for the show.

Nature | 7 min read

Like many regions, Africa faces challenges to infrastructure, institutions and ecosystems. “But the current circumstances also offer an opportunity for African nations,” argues agricultural economist Alfred Bizoza. “Despite — or perhaps because of — its challenges, Africa is already a hub for sustainable innovation.” He calls for ‘supported independence’ of science and innovation in the continent, with the aim of designing innovations that work for African researchers and African people.

Nature | 5 min read

QUOTE OF THE DAY

The mystery of consciousness and the quirks of quantum physics are signs of a blind spot at the heart of science, write astronomer Adam Frank, theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser and philosopher Evan Thompson in their new book of the same name. (Big Think | 6 min read — or read a review of the book in Science, 5 min read)

A couple of weeks ago, we told you (in a story about left- and right-handed molecules) that the drug thalidomide showed to tragic effect why it’s important to separate molecules’ mirror-image forms: one version is a sedative, the other causes congenital disabilities when taken during pregnancy.

While technically true — the different versions do have different effects — Editorial Director of the Physics & Chemistry Nature journals (and former editor of Nature Chemistry) Stuart Cantrill alerted us that the real-world implications have become something of a chemistry urban myth. “In the body, the two forms will interconvert,” notes Cantrill. “So even if you give the ‘safe’ mirror image form it will convert into the version that is not safe (well, you’ll get a 50:50 mixture) and biological studies confirm that it leads to embryonic defects just as if you gave the mixed versions in the first place.” The persistence of the tale was explored in detail in Nature Chemistry in 2010 by chemist Michelle Francl (who blew our minds in January with her revelation that the secret to a great cup of tea is a pinch of salt).

Thanks for reading,

Flora Graham, senior editor, Nature Briefing

With contributions by Sara Reardon

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The latest Windows 11 update is riddled with bugs, but Microsoft has finally addressed the problem

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If you’ve been keeping up with Windows 11 news you’ll know that there’s been a lot of turbulence with the latest optional update – Windows 11 version KB5036980 – and the introduction of ads into the start menu. Happily, Microsoft is finally doing something about it – but it might be too little, too late for some users.

The update is currently available for users running Windows 11 version 23H2 and 22H2 and can be installed manually from the Update Catalog. Besides the annoying pop-ups of ads in your start menu, it seems that users are also getting error messages when trying to change their profile photo. 

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The space-age Typhur Dome might have solved the big problem with air fryers

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Air fryers can be great for saving time and energy, but on a practical level there does appear to be a flaw with the design. Most of today’s best air fryers are tall rather than wide, so while the internal volume is generous, the usable space can be rather limited. Unless you’re cooking something that comfortably fits those dimensions, food will end up being stacked, rather than sitting in a single layer. The result is  uneven crisping and the need to shake the contents mid-cook in order to achieve consistent browning. 

Typhur aims to offers a solution with its Dome air fryer, which sports a wider, shallower design that lets you cook as much food as possible in one layer. It will fit 32 wings on a single rack, or a full 12-inch pizza, without having to cut it up. Since food isn’t stacked, the results should be better, more evenly crisped… which is what everyone wants from their air fryer, right? 

The Dome is quite the hot (no pun intended) product at the moment, doing the rounds on TikTok and being featured by Kelly Clarkson on her show. It even comes with a endorsement by Brooklyn Peltz Beckham – and if that isn’t a recommendation you can trust, I don’t know what is. 

Typhur Dome air fryer

(Image credit: Typhur)

Of course, the wider blueprint does mean you’ll need more counter space. For smaller kitchens, a model such as the new Ninja Double Stack air fryer, which has two drawers, one on top of the other, might offer a better solution. Or head to our roundup of the best small air fryers for more compact options.

It’s getting hot in here

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Your phone’s blue light won’t actually stop you sleeping, according to an expert – but your phone is still the problem

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We all have days when we use our phones right before going to bed, even though we know we shouldn’t. Admit it. We know our phones keep us awake. Some people try to mitigate the negative effects on sleep with blue-light glasses, which claim to block out rhythm-affecting blue tones in screen light, but if you’re using a fitness tracker (and if you are, it’s probably one of the best sleep trackers or best fitness trackers from our lists) you’ve likely had at least one morning when you’ve woken up, checked your stats and seen exactly how little sleep you had the night before. 

It turns out, it’s not the blue-light effect from your phone that’s keeping you awake at night, according to sleep scientist Dr Sophie Bostock. I met Dr Bostock at an event to celebrate the launch of the OnePlus Watch 2 Nordic Blue in Helsinki, and she was able to answer a few burning questions about late-night phone use. 

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Tesla Cybertruck suffers new recall for a very scary problem

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Forget the finger-biting frunk, Tesla’s Cybertruck has a new and potentially more dangerous problem: a stuck accelerator pedal.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Tesla issued a voluntary recall on April 17 of “certain” Tesla Cybertruck models for “Unintended Acceleration from Trapped Pedal“.



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Galaxy users claim they’re running into infamous green line problem after update

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Galaxy users are seeing green – literally. Several reports have recently cropped up online from people complaining about a vertical green line appearing on their smartphone. It’s unknown if this is a widespread issue or just a localized problem. What is known is it is affecting multiple models. News site Android Authority in their report says they found social media posts of the line appearing on the screens of the Galaxy S21 FE and the S21 Ultra. SamMobile, in their coverage, calls out even more devices including the Galaxy A73, M21, and the entire S22 series. 

Luckily, the phones still function as normal. The device isn’t dead, but a big green line is cutting down the middle of the screen, which is annoying. No one really knows what’s causing the error in the first place, but the finger is being pointed at a recent Samsung patch: either the “One UI 6.0 or the April 2024 security update.” It could be some sort of glitch, although pinning it on the software is a little dubious. 

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No Galaxy AI? No problem. Here are a few solid alternatives

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Galaxy AI is now rolling out to more devices through the One UI 6.1 firmware update, but Samsung’s Advanced Intelligence suite won’t be available across the board.

As you likely know, if you don’t own a Galaxy S24 or one of the few 2023 high-end phones that got Galaxy AI through the One UI update this week, Samsung’s AI systems will stay out of your reach.

Samsung won’t update devices older than 2023 with Galaxy AI. And if you own a Galaxy A phone, you can forget all about Samsung’s AI suite.

However, the good news is that there are alternatives to some of the tools Samsung offers through Galaxy AI. These alternatives are not developed by Samsung but by Google and Microsoft. And most importantly, you can use them with virtually any Galaxy phone. Even if it doesn’t run One UI 6.1.

Alternatives to Galaxy AI tools

You won’t find substitutes for every Galaxy AI feature, but there are a few. Starting with Google Lens.

We previously talked about this in greater detail, but in short, Samsung’s Circle to Search is more or less based on the technology underlying Google Lens.

As a result, you could use Google Lens on pretty much any Galaxy phone to get similar results to Circle to Search. Now, granted, Lens is not quite as fast or convenient as Circle to Search, but if you’re looking for this kind of search tool, Lens certainly is better than nothing.

You can access Google Lens by tapping the photo icon in the Chrome browser search bar or the Google Search widget on your phone’s home screen.

Interpreter is built into Google Assistant

If you regret not having access to the Galaxy AI Interpreter feature, you might be happy to learn that your phone probably already has an interpreter tool ready to be used.

You can try it out by opening the Google Assistant on your Galaxy phone and asking the digital assistant to “interpret for me in [language].”

Get Generative Wallpapers without Galaxy AI

Galaxy AI’s Generative Wallpapers are a fun way to customize your phone and give it a unique look. But, once again, this tool is very limited in reach, as far as Galaxy phones go.

Fortunately, there is an alternative you can install on your Galaxy phone right now. It’s called ‘Wallpapers’ by Google, and it is available via the Galaxy Store.

Using Google’s Wallpapers app, you can generate AI wallpapers for your phone using keywords. It works very much like Galaxy AI’s Generative Wallpaper tool does.

Here’s one unexpected reason you might like Microsoft Edge

Chances are that your mobile browser of choice is Samsung Internet, Google Chrome, or even Firefox. However, Samsung limiting the Galaxy AI’s summarize tool to select devices and its Internet app may have backfired and given people one extra reason to look elsewhere for similar AI tools.

Surprisingly, that’s where Microsoft Edge: AI browser, for Android, comes in. You might have never considered using Edge on your Galaxy phone, but the Copilot AI could change your mind. The Edge browser is available via the Galaxy Store and Play Store.

The Copilot AI in Microsoft Edge is powered by ChatGPT4 and it is capable of summarizing articles you find online. In fact, since it is powered by ChatGPT4, it can do much more.

Using Microsoft Edge on Android and its Copilot feature, you can identify objects (similar to Google Lens and Circle to Search) and even create digital art using DALL-E 3. All without Galaxy AI.

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Can AI’s bias problem be fixed?

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Illustration of antibodies (pale pink) attacking influenza viruses.

Credit: Juan Gaertner/Science Photo Library

For the first time, an AI system has helped researchers to design completely new antibodies. An algorithm similar to those of the image-generating tools Midjourney and DALL·E has churned out thousands of new antibodies that recognize certain bacterial, viral or cancer-related targets. Although in laboratory tests only about one in 100 designs worked as hoped, biochemist and study co-author Joseph Watson says that “it feels like quite a landmark moment”.

Nature | 4 min read

Reference: bioRxiv preprint (not peer reviewed)

US computer-chip giant Nvidia says that a ‘superchip’ made up of two of its new ‘Blackwell’ graphics processing units and its central processing unit (CPU), offers 30 times better performance for running chatbots such as ChatGPT than its previous ‘Hopper’ chips — while using 25 times less energy. The chip is likely to be so expensive that it “will only be accessible to a select few organisations and countries”, says Sasha Luccioni from the AI company Hugging Face.

New Scientist | 3 min read

A machine-learning tool shows promise for detecting COVID-19 and tuberculosis from a person’s cough. While previous tools used medically annotated data, this model was trained on more than 300 million clips of coughing, breathing and throat clearing from YouTube videos. Although it’s too early to tell whether this will become a commercial product, “there’s an immense potential not only for diagnosis, but also for screening” and monitoring, says laryngologist Yael Bensoussan.

Nature | 5 min read

Reference: arXiv preprint (not peer reviewed)

In blind tests, five football experts favoured an AI coach’s corner-kick tactics over existing ones 90% of the time. ‘TacticAI’ was trained on more than 7,000 examples of corner kicks provided by the UK’s Liverpool Football Club. These are major opportunities for goals and strategies are determined ahead of matches. “What’s exciting about it from an AI perspective is that football is a very dynamic game with lots of unobserved factors that influence outcomes,” says computer scientist and study co-author Petar Veličković.

Financial Times | 4 min read

Reference: Nature Communications paper

Features & opinion

AI image generators can amplify biased stereotypes in their output. There have been attempts to quash the problem by manual fine-tuning (which can have unintended consequences, for example generating diverse but historically inaccurate images) and by increasing the amount of training data. “People often claim that scale cancels out noise,” says cognitive scientist Abeba Birhane. “In fact, the good and the bad don’t balance out.” The most important step to understanding how these biases arise and how to avoid them is transparency, researchers say. “If a lot of the data sets are not open source, we don’t even know what problems exist,” says Birhane.

Nature | 12 min read

Amplified stereotypes. Chart showing the difference between self-identification of people working in different professions and AI model output.

Source: Ref. 1

AI regulation

The European Union’s sweeping new AI law has cleared one of its last bureaucratic hurdles and will come into force in May.

Some ‘high-risk’ uses of AI, such as in healthcare, education and policing, will be banned by the end of 2024.Companies will need to label AI-generated content and will need to notify people when they are interacting with AI systems.Citizens can complain when they suspect an AI system has harmed them.Some companies, such as those developing general-purpose large language models, will need to become more transparent about their algorithms’ training data.

MIT Technology Review | 6 min read

India has made a U-turn with its AI governance by scrapping an advisory that asked developers to obtain permission before launching certain untested AI models. The government now recommends that AI companies label “the possible inherent fallibility or unreliability of the output generated”.

The Indian Express | 3 min read

The African Union has drafted an ambitious AI policy for its 55 member nations, including the establishment of national councils to monitor responsible deployment of the technology. Some African researchers are concerned that this could stifle innovation and leave economies behind. Others say it’s important to think early about protecting people from harm, including exploitation by AI companies. “We must contribute our perspectives and own our regulatory frameworks,” says policy specialist Melody Musoni. “We want to be standard makers, not standard takers.”

MIT Technology Review | 5 min read

In 2017, eight Google researchers created transformers, the neural-network architecture that would become the basis of most AI tools, from ChatGPT to DALL·E. Transformers give AI systems the ‘attention span’ to parse long chunks of text and extract meaning from context. “It was pretty evident to us that transformers could do really magical things,” recalls computer scientist Jakob Uszkoreit who was one of the Google group. Although the work was creating a buzz in the AI community, Google was slow to adopt transformers. “Realistically, we could have had GPT-3 or even 3.5 probably in 2019, maybe 2020,” Uszkoreit says.

Wired | 24 min read

Quote of the day

Professional Go player Lee Sae Dol remembers being amazed by the AI system AlphaGo’s creative moves when he played against it — and lost — eight years ago. He explains that AlphaGo is now used to uncover new moves and strategies in the ancient strategy game. (Google blog | 3 min read)

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Melting ice solves leap-second problem — for now

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THE TOPIC IN BRIEF

• Timekeeping is determined by ultraprecise devices called atomic clocks, but it is also aligned with Earth’s rotation, mainly for historical reasons.

• Because the planet’s rate of rotation fluctuates, this alignment is maintained with the occasional addition of ‘leap seconds’ to the official time standard.

• Now, Earth’s rotation seems to have accelerated, outpacing the time standard, and raising the possibility that an unprecedented ‘negative’ leap second might soon be required — a daunting prospect in a world reliant on consistent timekeeping.

• Agnew1 reports that human-induced melting of polar ice exerts a slowing effect on Earth’s rotation, effectively delaying a decision on the need for a negative leap second.

PATRIZIA TAVELLA: International timekeeping

In 1967, the internationally accepted definition of the second changed. The time measurement standard had been linked to Earth’s rotation, but instead became determined by a quantum transition between two states of a caesium atom. The change was motivated by accuracy: caesium atomic clocks keep time on the basis of the ultrastable frequency of the photons exchanged in the quantum transition. This seemed like a safer bet than Earth’s movements, which weren’t as regular as was first assumed.

But sailors still relied on the Sun and stars to navigate, and they wanted a time standard that remained tied in some way to Earth’s rotation. It was therefore decided that the new international reference, known as coordinated universal time (utc), would be set by atomic clocks, but kept apace with the rotational angle of Earth, which is known as universal time (ut1). Since 1972, utc has been adjusted to meet this goal by adding a leap second whenever the discrepancy between the two standards approaches one second.

Atomic clocks have enabled the development of great technologies, such as satellite navigation and, in an age of the global navigation satellite system (GNSS), celestial navigation is much less relevant than it was in 1972. GNSS satellites themselves have onboard atomic clocks that regulate their timekeeping, and the insertion of a leap second generates risk of failures. Perhaps more importantly, the addition of leap seconds can have drastic effects on computer infrastructure in the increasingly connected modern world (see go.nature.com/44y88yp).

For these reasons, after more than 20 years of discussion, metrologists proposed that utc be kept in line with Earth’s rotation, but that the tolerance for adding an adjustment be increased to a value larger than one second2. This proposal, which delays the need to make any adjustment for at least another century, was adopted by the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) in 2022.

The CGPM resolution stipulates that the maximum difference between the two times (denoted ut1 − utc) will be increased in or before 2035, and that the details of the new maximum and how it is to be implemented will be decided at the next CGPM meeting in 2026 (see go.nature.com/3vqddy2). Most delegates urge a quick implementation of the new rules, although others ask for more time to adapt their systems. The radiocommunication sector of the International Telecommunication Union — the organization that regulates the transmission of time signals — endorsed the CGPM decisions at the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2023.

utc is currently computed using data from about 450 atomic clocks, which are maintained in more than 80 institutions around the world. It is disseminated in real time by these time laboratories, by means such as radio or telephone signals, the Internet or optical fibre protocols, and also through GNSS signals. Since 1972, irregularities in Earth’s movement have called for 27 leap seconds to be added — at irregular intervals and with a maximum of only 6 months’ notice each time. The irony is that metrologists now face the challenge of removing a leap second from utc for the first time, because Earth’s rotation is gradually getting faster than the time standard set by atomic clocks (Fig. 1).

figure 1

Figure 1 | Synchronizing the international time with Earth’s rotation. Agnew1 calculated the difference between international atomic time (tai), which is measured using ultraprecise quantum devices known as atomic clocks, and universal time (ut1), which is determined by Earth’s rotation. tai, with the addition of occasional ‘leap seconds’, defines coordinated universal time (utc), which is kept in alignment with ut1. Earth’s current rate of rotation suggests that the first negative leap seconds might soon be necessary owing to a combination of geophysical effects. Agnew’s calculation shows that accelerated melting of the polar ice caps has delayed the need for these adjustments. (Adapted from Fig. 2d of ref. 1.)

A negative leap second has never been added or tested, so the problems it could create are without precedent. Metrologists around the world are following the unfolding discussion attentively, with the view to avoiding any unnecessary risks. What would be necessary, as in good metrological practice, is to calculate the uncertainty associated with predictions of Earth’s rotation. This information would allow researchers to evaluate the probability that a negative leap second will be required — and assess the related risks — so that they can anticipate any such change before 2035. Unfortunately, this task remains formidable (ref. 3 and go.nature.com/4armrvz), so Agnew’s suggestion that the change could be delayed is welcome news indeed.

JERRY X. MITROVICA: In search of lost time

Earth’s rotation is an imperfect timekeeper. This imperfection is imperceptible to humans, but the exquisite accuracy of atomic clocks makes it clear that the time taken for the planet to make one full turn varies from day to day.

On a millennial timescale, changes in Earth’s rotation reflect the combined effect of three geophysical processes4. First, friction between ocean water and the sea floor — both in shallow seas and in the deep ocean — has progressively slowed Earth’s rotation. This effect is known as tidal dissipation. Second, since the last ice age ended, Earth has undergone shape adjustments that have increased its rotation rate. These ongoing changes have brought the planet back to a shape that is more spherical than the flattened form it took when massive ice sheets existed in its polar regions. Finally, the coupling between Earth’s iron core and its outer rocky mantle and crust means that any change in the angular momentum of the core must be balanced by a change of equal magnitude and opposite sign in the mantle and crust.

Although the individual contribution of each process is somewhat uncertain, their sum is known precisely: it has led to an increase in Earth’s rotation period of 6 millionths of a second per year4. This slowing might seem trivially small, but its effect is responsible for a phenomenon known as clock error. This error describes a discrepancy in the timing of eclipses: events recorded by ancient astronomers seem to have occurred at times that differ from those predicted by assuming that Earth’s rotation rate has remained unchanged since ancient times. Clock error increases with the age of the eclipse and reaches around 4 hours for eclipses that were observed 2,500 years ago5.

The effects of tidal dissipation and shape adjustments have not changed appreciably since the advent of modern atomic timekeeping, but the impact of core–mantle coupling on Earth’s rotation varies on multiple timescales as a result of the fluid nature of the outer core. And herein lies the probable cause of timekeeping’s most recent dilemma: leap seconds have been required with much lower frequency since 2000 than in the previous 30 years, which indicates that Earth’s rotation rate is accelerating. Given the stability of tidal dissipation and shape-adjustment effects over this period, the main culprit must be core–mantle coupling. However, Agnew’s findings suggest that there is another factor at play.

Agnew analysed changes in Earth’s rotation and in its gravity field — changes in the latter arising through the redistribution of mass on Earth’s surface. His analysis demonstrates persuasively that core–mantle coupling has led to accelerated rotation, but that there has also been a pronounced deceleration owing to the onset of major melting of polar ice sheets that began near the end of the twentieth century. This human-induced process is slowing rotation by moving melted ice mass from the poles to lower latitudes.

Core–mantle coupling alone could have necessitated a negative leap second in about two years’ time. According to Agnew’s calculations, changes in polar ice mass have delayed this eventuality by another three years, to 2029. But no realistic projection of future ice-mass changes will thwart the need for a negative leap second beyond the next decade. Unless international timekeeping guidelines change soon, the myriad technological foundations of human society must be updated in preparation for this unprecedented event, and for the disappearance of 23:59:59 on a single day in the not-too-distant future.

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Netflix’s 3 Body Problem isn’t a universal success, but its creators are already working on season 2

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3 Body Problem, the new Netflix series from the creators of Game of Thrones, is getting mixed reviews from viewers – but its creators are reportedly already preparing for a second season.

As we said in our review of the sci-fi series, Netflix is taking a big gamble with the show. The books by Liu Cixin that it’s based on are famously brain-melting, it takes some time to hit its stride, and it’s quite a hard sell to people who aren’t familiar with the source material. But it’s a show worth sticking with, and its creators say that things get better still in the as yet unconfirmed season two.

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