Mathematicians issue warning as AI rapidly gains ground - Science | AAAS

The deep sea may seem very far away, but it's more connected to our world than you might think. In the South China Sea, for instance, nutrient-rich waters well up from the deep, sustaining coastal fisheries that support the livelihoods of about 3.7 million people each year. Mining companies also have their eyes on the deep sea, where they can see riches in polymetallic nodules, cobalt-rich rocks, and other mineral deposits. A new paper from scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences gives a preview of how deep-sea mining can rapidly disrupt the microbes central to nutrient cycling on the South China Sea floor. The results are reported in the scientific journal Total Environment Microbiology. In 2020, samples of cobalt-rich rock were collected during a mining trial in the South China Sea, at around 1,300 meters below sea level. As is typical of deep-sea mining, the rocks were crushed into small pieces first, and then transported to the surface. "A large amount of sediment and other particulate matter were stirred up duringmining, and this process had several direct and indirect effects on the insitu microbial ecosystem," the authors note.

Our planet has had its annual health check, and the prognosis is pretty grim. Despite breached planetary boundaries, however, scientists argue that Earth can still have a safe and sustainable future.

Babies who are smaller than expected at birth tend to have poorer school performances as teenagers, a study has found. More than 92,000 children were followed from infancy to adolescence, all of whom were born at full term, between 37 and 41 weeks pregnant. The researchers at the University of Warwick found that children who weighed less than most babies of the same sex, born at the same stage of pregnancy, tended to achieve lower scores in subjects like mathematics and reading. The differences were still apparent in adolescence, suggesting that the link between size at birth and academic performance persists well beyond early childhood into mid-teens. "For babies born at term, being small for their stage of pregnancy may indicate adverse effects on the brain that affect learning and last into adolescence," Prof Dieter Wolke said. However, he said the long-term effects of being born small may be altered by parenting home stimulation and school support.