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Daily briefing: Fresh evidence for hidden chambers at Tutankhamun’s tomb
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Howard Carter (right) and his team explored Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. If Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities approves, careful drilling to deploy miniature tractors equipped with cameras could start in November, study co-author George Ballard told Nature. (David Cole/Alamy)
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.
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.
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Transplanted human brain tissue extends nerve fibres (green and red) into a mouse brain (blue) that lacks a cerebral cortex.Credit: S. Pașca lab, Stanford Univ.
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.