June 3, 20255 min readAre We Ready for Death in Space?NASA has quietly taken steps to prepare for a death in space. We need to ask how nations will deal with this inevitability now, as more people start traveling off the planetBy Peter Cummings edited by Lee Billings SciePro/Science Photo Library/Getty ImagesIn 2012 NASA stealthily slipped a morgue into orbit.No press release. No fanfare. Just a sealed, soft-sided pouch tucked in a cargo shipment to the International Space Station (ISS) alongside freeze-dried meals and scientific gear. Officially, it was called the Human Remains Containment Unit (HRCU). To the untrained eye it looked like a shipping bag for frozen cargo. But to NASA it marked something far more sobering: a major advance in preparing for death beyond Earth.As a kid, I obsessed over how astronauts went to the bathroom in zero gravity. Now, decades later, as a forensic pathologist and a perennial applicant to NASA’s astronaut corps, I find myself fixated on a darker, more haunting question:On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.What would happen if an astronaut died out there? Would they be brought home, or would they be left behind? If they expired on some other world, would that be their final resting place? If they passed away on a spacecraft or space station, would their remains be cast off into orbit—or sent on an escape-velocity voyage to the interstellar void?NASA, it turns out, has begun working out most of these answers. And none too soon. Because the question itself is no longer if someone will die in space—but when.A Graying CorpsNo astronaut has ever died of natural causes off-world. In 1971 the three-man crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 mission asphyxiated in space when their spacecraft depressurized shortly before its automated atmospheric reentry—but their deaths were only discovered once the spacecraft landed on Earth. Similarly, every U.S. spaceflight fatality to date has occurred within Earth’s atmosphere—under gravity, oxygen and a clear national jurisdiction. That matters, because it means every spaceflight mortality has played out in familiar territory.But planned missions are getting longer, with destinations beyond low-Earth orbit. And NASA’s astronaut corps is getting older. The average age now hovers around 50—an age bracket where natural death becomes statistically relevant, even for clean-living fitness buffs. Death in space is no longer a thought experiment. It’s a probability curve—and NASA knows it.In response, the agency is making subtle but decisive moves. The most recent astronaut selection cycle was extended—not only to boost intake but also to attract younger crew members capable of handling future long-duration missions.NASA’s Space MorgueIf someone were to die aboard the ISS today, their body would be placed in the HRCU, which would then be sealed and secured in a nonpressurized area to await eventual return to Earth.The HRCU itself is a modified version of a military-grade body bag designed to store human remains in hazardous environments. It integrates with refrigeration systems already aboard the ISS to slow decomposition and includes odor-control filters and moisture-absorbent linings, as well as reversed zippers for respectful access at the head. There are straps to secure the body in a seat for return, and patches for name tags and national flags.Cadaver tests conducted in 2019 at Sam Houston State University have proved the system durable. Some versions held for over 40 days before decomposition breached the barrier. NASA even drop-tested the bag from 19 feet to simulate a hard landing.But it’s never been used in space. And since no one yet knows how a body decomposes in true microgravity (or, for that matter, on the moon), no one can really say whether the HRCU would preserve tissue well enough for a forensic autopsy.This is a troubling knowledge gap, because in space, a death isn’t just a tragic loss—it’s also a vital data point. Was an astronaut’s demise from a fluke of their physiology, or an unavoidable stroke of cosmic bad luck—or was it instead a consequence of flaws in a space habitat’s myriad systems that might be found and fixed? Future lives may depend on understanding what went wrong, via a proper postmortem investigation.But there’s no medical examiner in orbit. So NASA trains its crews in something called the In-Mission Forensic Sample Collection protocol. The space agency’s astronauts may avoid talking about it, but they all have it memorized: Document everything, ideally with real-time guidance from NASA flight surgeons. Photograph the body. Collect blood and vitreous fluid, as well as hair and tissue samples. Only then can the remains be stowed in the HRCU.NASA has also prepared for death outside the station—on spacewalks, the moon or deep space missions. If a crew member perishes in vacuum but their remains are retrieved, the body is wrapped in a specially designed space shroud.The goal isn’t just a technical matter of preventing contamination. It’s psychological, too, as a way of preserving dignity. Of all the “firsts” any space agency hopes to achieve, the first-ever human corpse drifting into frame on a satellite feed is not among them.If a burial must occur—in lunar regolith or by jettisoning into solar orbit—the body will be dutifully tracked and cataloged, treated forevermore as a hallowed artifact of space history.Such gestures are also of relevance to NASA’s plans for off-world mourning; grief and memorial protocols are now part of official crew training. If a death occurs, surviving astronauts are tasked with holding a simple ceremony to honor the fallen—then to move on with their mission.Uncharted RealmsSo far we’ve only covered the “easy” questions. NASA and others are still grappling with harder ones.Consider the issue of authority over a death and mortal remains. On the ISS, it’s simple: the deceased astronaut’s home country retains jurisdiction. But that clarity fades as destinations grow more distant and the voyages more diverse: What really happens on space-agency missions to the moon, or to Mars? How might rules change for commercial or multinational spaceflights—or, for that matter, the private space stations and interplanetary settlements that are envisioned by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and other tech multibillionaires?NASA and its partners have started drafting frameworks, like the Artemis Accords—agreements signed by more than 50 nations to govern behavior in space. But even those don’t address many intimate details of death.What happens, for instance, if foul play is suspected?The Outer Space Treaty, a legal document drafted in 1967 under the United Nations that is humanity’s foundational set of rules for orbit and beyond, doesn’t say.Of course, not everything can be planned for in advance. And NASA has done an extraordinary job of keeping astronauts in orbit alive. But as more people venture into space, and as the frontier stretches to longer voyages and farther destinations, it becomes a statistical certainty that sooner or later someone won’t come home.When that happens, it won’t just be a tragedy. It will be a test. A test of our systems, our ethics and our ability to adapt to a new dimension of mortality. To some, NASA’s preparations for astronautical death may seem merely morbid, even silly—but that couldn’t be further from the truth.Space won’t care of course, whenever it claims more lives. But we will. And rising to that grim occasion with reverence, rigor and grace will define not just policy out in the great beyond—but what it means to be human there, too.

Best of the rest Research roundup: 7 stories we almost missed Also: drumming chimpanzees, picking styles of two jazz greats, and an ancient underground city's soundscape Jennifer Ouellette – May 31, 2025 5:37 pm | 4 Time lapse photos show a new ping-pong-playing robot performing a top spin. Credit: David Nguyen, Kendrick Cancio and Sangbae Kim Time lapse photos show a new ping-pong-playing robot performing a top spin. Credit: David Nguyen, Kendrick Cancio and Sangbae Kim Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more It's a regrettable reality that there is never time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we've featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we (almost) missed. This year, we're experimenting with a monthly collection. May's list includes a nifty experiment to make a predicted effect of special relativity visible; a ping-pong playing robot that can return hits with 88 percent accuracy; and the discovery of the rare genetic mutation that makes orange cats orange, among other highlights. Special relativity made visible Credit: TU Wien Perhaps the most well-known feature of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity is time dilation and length contraction. In 1959, two physicists predicted another feature of relativistic motion: an object moving near the speed of light should also appear to be rotated. It's not been possible to demonstrate this experimentally, however—until now. Physicists at the Vienna University of Technology figured out how to reproduce this rotational effect in the lab using laser pulses and precision cameras, according to a paper published in the journal Communications Physics. They found their inspiration in art, specifically an earlier collaboration with an artist named Enar de Dios Rodriguez, who collaborated with VUT and the University of Vienna on a project involving ultra-fast photography and slow light. For this latest research, they used objects shaped like a cube and a sphere and moved them around the lab while zapping them with ultrashort laser pulses, recording the flashes with a high-speed camera. Getting the timing just right effectively yields similar results to a light speed of 2 m/s. After photographing the objects many times using this method, the team then combined the still images into a single image. The results: the cube looked twisted and the sphere's North Pole was in a different location—a demonstration of the rotational effect predicted back in 1959. DOI: Communications Physics, 2025. 10.1038/s42005-025-02003-6  (About DOIs). Drumming chimpanzees A chimpanzee feeling the rhythm. Credit: Current Biology/Eleuteri et al., 2025. Chimpanzees are known to "drum" on the roots of trees as a means of communication, often combining that action with what are known as "pant-hoot" vocalizations (see above video). Scientists have found that the chimps' drumming exhibits key elements of musical rhythm much like humans, according to  a paper published in the journal Current Biology—specifically non-random timing and isochrony. And chimps from different geographical regions have different drumming rhythms. Back in 2022, the same team observed that individual chimps had unique styles of "buttress drumming," which served as a kind of communication, letting others in the same group know their identity, location, and activity. This time around they wanted to know if this was also true of chimps living in different groups and whether their drumming was rhythmic in nature. So they collected video footage of the drumming behavior among 11 chimpanzee communities across six populations in East Africa (Uganda) and West Africa (Ivory Coast), amounting to 371 drumming bouts. Their analysis of the drum patterns confirmed their hypothesis. The western chimps drummed in regularly spaced hits, used faster tempos, and started drumming earlier during their pant-hoot vocalizations. Eastern chimps would alternate between shorter and longer spaced hits. Since this kind of rhythmic percussion is one of the earliest evolved forms of human musical expression and is ubiquitous across cultures, findings such as this could shed light on how our love of rhythm evolved. DOI: Current Biology, 2025. 10.1016/j.cub.2025.04.019  (About DOIs). Distinctive styles of two jazz greats Jazz lovers likely need no introduction to Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery, 20th century guitarists who influenced generations of jazz musicians with their innovative techniques. Montgomery, for instance, didn't use a pick, preferring to pluck the strings with his thumb—a method he developed because he practiced at night after working all day as a machinist and didn't want to wake his children or neighbors. Pass developed his own range of picking techniques, including fingerpicking, hybrid picking, and "flat picking." Chirag Gokani and Preston Wilson, both with Applied Research Laboratories and the University of Texas, Austin, greatly admired both Pass and Montgomery and decided to explore the underlying the acoustics of their distinctive playing, modeling the interactions of the thumb, fingers, and pick with a guitar string. They described their research during a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in New Orleans, LA. Among their findings: Montgomery achieved his warm tone by playing closer to the bridge and mostly plucking at the string. Pass's rich tone arose from a combination of using a pick and playing closer to the guitar neck. There were also differences in how much a thumb, finger, and pick slip off the string:  use of the thumb (Montgomery) produced more of a "pluck" compared to the pick (Pass), which produced more of a "strike." Gokani and Wilson think their model could be used to synthesize digital guitars with a more realistic sound, as well as helping guitarists better emulate Pass and Montgomery. Sounds of an ancient underground city Credit: Sezin Nas Turkey is home to the underground city Derinkuyu, originally carved out inside soft volcanic rock around the 8th century BCE. It was later expanded to include four main ventilation channels (and some 50,000 smaller shafts) serving seven levels, which could be closed off from the inside with a large rolling stone. The city could hold up to 20,000 people and it  was connected to another underground city, Kaymakli, via tunnels. Derinkuyu helped protect Arab Muslims during the Arab-Byzantine wars, served as a refuge from the Ottomans in the 14th century, and as a haven for Armenians escaping persecution in the early 20th century, among other functions. The tunnels were rediscovered in the 1960s and about half of the city has been open to visitors since 2016. The site is naturally of great archaeological interest, but there has been little to no research on the acoustics of the site, particularly the ventilation channels—one of Derinkuyu's most unique features, according to Sezin Nas, an architectural acoustician at Istanbul Galata University in Turkey.  She gave a talk at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in New Orleans, LA, about her work on the site's acoustic environment. Nas analyzed a church, a living area, and a kitchen, measuring sound sources and reverberation patterns, among other factors, to create a 3D virtual soundscape. The hope is that a better understanding of this aspect of Derinkuyu could improve the design of future underground urban spaces—as well as one day using her virtual soundscape to enable visitors to experience the sounds of the city themselves. MIT's latest ping-pong robot Robots playing ping-pong have been a thing since the 1980s, of particular interest to scientists because it requires the robot to combine the slow, precise ability to grasp and pick up objects with dynamic, adaptable locomotion. Such robots need high-speed machine vision, fast motors and actuators, precise control, and the ability to make accurate predictions in real time, not to mention being able to develop a game strategy. More recent designs use AI techniques to allow the robots to "learn" from prior data to improve their performance. MIT researchers have built their own version of a ping-pong playing robot, incorporating a lightweight design and the ability to precisely return shots. They built on prior work developing the Humanoid, a small bipedal two-armed robot—specifically, modifying the Humanoid's arm by adding an extra degree of freedom to the wrist so the robot could control a ping-pong paddle. They tested their robot by mounting it on a ping-pong table and lobbing 150 balls at it from the other side of the table, capturing the action with high-speed cameras. The new bot can execute three different swing types (loop, drive, and chip) and during the trial runs it returned the ball with impressive accuracy across all three types: 88.4 percent, 89.2 percent, and 87.5 percent, respectively. Subsequent tweaks to theirrystem brought the robot's strike speed up to 19 meters per second (about 42 MPH), close to the 12 to 25 meters per second of advanced human players. The addition of control algorithms gave the robot the ability to aim. The robot still has limited mobility and reach because it has to be fixed to the ping-pong table but the MIT researchers plan to rig it to a gantry or wheeled platform in the future to address that shortcoming. Why orange cats are orange Credit: Astropulse/CC BY-SA 3.0 Cat lovers know orange cats are special for more than their unique coloring, but that's the quality that has intrigued scientists for almost a century. Sure, lots of animals have orange, ginger, or yellow hues, like tigers, orangutans, and golden retrievers. But in domestic cats that color is specifically linked to sex. Almost all orange cats are male. Scientists have now identified the genetic mutation responsible and it appears to be unique to cats, according to a paper published in the journal Current Biology. Prior work had narrowed down the region on the X chromosome most likely to contain the relevant mutation. The scientists knew that females usually have just one copy of the mutation and in that case have tortoiseshell (partially orange) coloring, although in rare cases, a female cat will be orange if both X chromosomes have the mutation. Over the last five to ten years, there has been an explosion in genome resources (including complete sequenced genomes) for cats which greatly aided the team's research, along with taking additional DNA samples from cats at spay and neuter clinics. From an initial pool of 51 candidate variants, the scientists narrowed it down to three genes, only one of which was likely to play any role in gene regulation: Arhgap36. It wasn't known to play any role in pigment cells in humans, mice, or non-orange cats. But orange cats are special; their mutation (sex-linked orange) turns on Arhgap36 expression in pigment cells (and only pigment cells), thereby interfering with the molecular pathway that controls coat color in other orange-shaded mammals. The scientists suggest that this is an example of how genes can acquire new functions, thereby enabling species to better adapt and evolve. DOI: Current Biology, 2025. 10.1016/j.cub.2025.03.075  (About DOIs). Not a Roman "massacre" after all Credit: Martin Smith In 1936, archaeologists excavating the Iron Age hill fort Maiden Castle in the UK unearthed dozens of human skeletons, all showing signs of lethal injuries to the head and upper body—likely inflicted with weaponry. At the time, this was interpreted as evidence of a pitched battle between the Britons of the local Durotriges tribe and invading Romans. The Romans slaughtered the native inhabitants, thereby bringing a sudden violent end to the Iron Age. At least that's the popular narrative that has prevailed ever since in countless popular articles, books, and documentaries. But a paper published in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology calls that narrative into question. Archaeologists at Bournemouth University have re-analyzed those burials, incorporating radiocarbon dating into their efforts. They concluded that those individuals didn't die in a single brutal battle. Rather, it was Britons killing other Britons over multiple generations between the first century BCE and the first century CE—most likely in periodic localized outbursts of violence in the lead-up to the Roman conquest of Britain. It's possible there are still many human remains waiting to be discovered at the site, which could shed further light on what happened at Maiden Castle. DOI: Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 2025. 10.1111/ojoa.12324  (About DOIs). Jennifer Ouellette Senior Writer Jennifer Ouellette Senior Writer Jennifer is a senior writer at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban. 4 Comments

This German Town Carefully Reconstructed a 5,500-Year-Old Megalithic Monument After years of excavation and study, archaeologists have restored the Küsterberg burial site to its original layout to celebrate the annual European Day of Megalithic Culture Volunteers and archaeologists rebuilt the tomb site, lifting massive stones with modern excavation tools. Saxony-Anhalt State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology / Barbara Fritsch The Haldensleben forest in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt is home to more than 80 megalithic tombs from the Neolithic period—the largest concentration of such structures in central Europe. While some remain in fair condition, others have fallen victim to hazards ranging from ancient invasions to modern development. But instead of awaiting further decay, the town of Haldensleben has rebuilt a prominent 5,500-year-old tomb site known as Küsterberg to celebrate the European Day of Megalithic Culture, an annual holiday on the last Sunday of April. Archaeologists first excavated Küsterberg, located in a field southeast of Haldensleben, between 2010 and 2013, according to a statement from the Saxony-Anhalt State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology. Based on their findings, they were able to create a detailed plan of the site’s original layout. The semicircular site includes layers of rings around a central burial chamber, which is oriented from east to west. Saxony-Anhalt State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology / Anja Lochner-Rechta With the help of modern surveying equipment, excavators and a group of volunteers, archaeologists moved the massive granite megaliths stone by stone. In late April, the team unveiled the site, which has been transformed into an approximation of its original Neolithic layout. Like many Neolithic burial sites, Küsterberg is oriented from east to west. Some scholars speculate that this practice was meant to link the path of the sun to the course of a human life, according to Artnet’s Richard Whiddington. With an opening on the southern side, the semi-circular interior burial chamber once measured nearly 40 feet long and about 6.5 feet wide. It featured 19 orthostats—upright stone slabs—with seven capstones on top. Neolithic masons filled the gaps between individual stones with shards of greywacke, a type of sandstone that also lined the chamber floor. The reconstruction was based on years of measurements and careful study of the site's original layout. Saxony-Anhalt State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology / Barbara Fritsch The burial chamber was surrounded by 16 megaliths spaced about 6.5 feet apart. These gaps were also filled with greywacke. The complex was ringed by an earthen mound, which archaeologists suspect was built with dirt taken from a nearby hill. The reason for the abundance of burial sites in the region is the dense population that once lived in the forests, as Johannes Müller, an archaeologist at the University of Kiel, tells the German TV station MDR-Fernsehen. He adds that scholars have identified ten settlements nearby, and every family may have built their own gravesite. Barbara Fritsch, an archaeologist with the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology, tells MDR-Fernsehen that the site was built around 3600 B.C.E., when migrants from northwestern Europe settled in the area. An aerial view of the reconstructed Küsterberg site Saxony-Anhalt State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology / Barbara Fritsch However, some 3,000 years ago—around the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age—newcomers to the area disturbed the burial site by removing parts of the mound and displacing stones. Much later, agriculture and road construction caused additional damage to sites like Küsterberg throughout central Europe. Last year, archaeologists uncovered a Neolithic burial landscape, including burial mounds and cattle sacrifices, as they excavated the site of a proposed Intel semiconductor fabrication plant in Magdeburg, Germany, per Artnet. Now reconstructed and preserved, the Küsterberg site will join Megalithic Routes, a network of European archaeological sites from the Neolithic period, per a statement from the University of Kiel. Researchers hope it will “inspire visitors with enthusiasm for the region and its long history.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Cool Finds Archaeologists Unearth Two Rare African Figurines in 1,500-Year-Old Christian Burials in Israel The artifacts were buried in the graves of a young woman and child, who may have converted to Christianity in Africa before traveling to the region, researchers say This ebony figurine was found in a child's grave. Dafna Gazit / Israel Antiquities Authority Archaeologists in Israel have found two tiny African figurines buried in early Christian graves. Dating back roughly 1,500 years, the artifacts are carved from rare ebony wood that originated in India or Sri Lanka. The burials are located in a necropolis in Tel Malhata, an archaeological site in the Negev desert. Humans have occupied Tel Malhata since the Middle Bronze Age, and hundreds of graves have been found in the cemetery. According to new research published in ‘Atiqot, the journal of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), three of those graves belonged to two women and a child who died in the sixth or seventh century C.E. These burials contained a trove of grave goods—including bronze jewelry, alabaster jars and five carved figurines. The ebony figurines are quite rare, while the bone figurines are more common for the region. Dafna Gazit / Israel Antiquities Authority “It is a very special find,” Noé D. Michael, an archaeologist at the IAA and the University of Cologne in Germany, tells Haaretz’s Ruth Schuster. Three of the five figurines were made from bone, and the researchers say that bone artifacts of this kind were commonly used in domestic rituals and burials in the region. However, the two others are quite rare. They were carved from ebony, and they depict a man and woman with “typical African features,” per the study. This ebony figurine was found in a young woman's grave. Dafna Gazit / Israel Antiquities Authority “As far as we know, no such figurine had ever been identified in Israel, Jordan [or] our region,” Michael tells the Times of Israel’s Rossella Tercatin. During the sixth and seventh centuries, Tel Malhata stood at the intersection of major trading routes “where merchants from southern Arabia, India and Africa passed,” according to a statement from the IAA. The grave goods reflect this international exchange. Ebony, a kind of dark wood, was a valuable import. “Experts at Tel Aviv University tested the wood and confirmed it came from India or Sri Lanka,” Michael tells the Times of Israel. “An ebony trade between Asia and Egypt and the Horn of Africa is attested starting from the fourth century C.E.” The two ebony figurines were found in the graves of a woman who died between the ages of 20 and 30 and a child who died between the ages of 6 and 8. In the statement, the researchers explain that the artifacts could have been “intimate personal items carrying with them a story of identity, tradition and memory.” Each figurine features a small hole through which a cord might have been threaded, allowing the owner to wear it around their neck.“Since the tombs were close and presented the same kind of burial gifts, they were probably a mother and a child,” Michael tells the Times of Israel. “Unfortunately, we could not extract DNA remains from the bones to run a test.” Two of the bone figurines were also found in these burials. The third was discovered in the tomb of a woman who died between the ages of 18 and 21. The team thinks these individuals may have traveled north from Africa, where conversion to Christianity was becoming increasingly common. As the researchers say in the statement, “It is possible that the figures represent ancestors, and thus they reflect traditions passed down from generation to generation—even after the adoption of the Christian religion.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Archaeologists found a cremation burial while examining the inside of a bucket from Sutton Hoo, a 1,400-year-old boat burial site in England.

It began with a tip–an email from a San Francisco resident who had read The Secret, Byron Preiss’s 1982 book about hidden treasures. That message set off a chain of events that led to a 1974 building plan drawn by architect William Pereira, a visit to an underground pump room, and the eventual discovery, beneath six feet of concrete, of a long-lost time capsule buried deep within the Transamerica Pyramid. The capsule, a 14-by-16-inch metal cylinder, was unearthed during a recent renovation of the building. Buried in 1974, it offers a glimpse into life in San Francisco during the tower’s construction and reveals key details about the project itself. Its contents will be displayed in a new exhibit curated in partnership with Foster + Partners opening May 18 in the building’s lobby. The capsule was located based on an email tip and a 1974 building plan labeled “Time Capsule” drawn by architect William Pereira. (Courtesy SHVO) The capsule, a 14-by-16-inch metal cylinder, offers a glimpse into life in San Francisco during the tower’s construction and reveals key details about the project itself. (Courtesy SHVO) When the Transamerica Pyramid officially opened in 1972, it was hailed as a symbol of the city’s growth and ambition. Local media buzzed with anticipation. Two years later, as the Transamerica Corporation moved out of the building, the company assembled the capsule’s contents and commemorated its burial with a celebratory event. A plaque was installed above the site, instructing that the capsule remain untouched for 50 years. As decades passed and renovations altered the building’s layout, the plaque disappeared—and the capsule was (almost) forgotten. That is, until the email tip arrived. Fifty years after it was buried, just ahead of when it was intended to be opened, the capsule was located. This flyer was circulated in 1969 to stop the Transamerica Pyramid’s construction. It was among the objects inside the time capsule. (Courtesy SHVO) The timing of its burial coincided with a chaotic chapter in San Francisco’s history. In 1974, Mayor Joseph Alioto’s wife mysteriously vanished, only to reappear two weeks later claiming she’d staged her disappearance to punish him for ignoring her. Around the same time, 19-year-old heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped at gunpoint by members of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army. The Transamerica Pyramid too made headlines: The San Francisco Chronicle dismissed it as “the world’s largest architectural folly,” and the city’s own planner derided it as “an inhumane creation.” These turbulent moments, and the spirit of the era, were captured in the time capsule’s contents, along with a recipe for Pisco Punch, the famed cocktail invented at the nearby Bank Exchange Saloon. Once buried and nearly forgotten, the capsule now takes center stage in a curated exhibit in the building’s lobby, offering a vivid snapshot of a city in the midst of transformation. “Through moments of prosperity and periods of challenge, the Transamerica Pyramid has stood tall as one of the iconic silhouettes of San Francisco’s skyline. I see it now not just as a symbol of bold design, but of resilience–for this neighborhood, and for our city,” said San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie. “Fifty years from now, my hope is that we will look back on this era–this exact moment in time–as the beginning of a new chapter for San Francisco,” he added. Opening to the public on May 18, the exhibition aims to honor the legacy of the Transamerica Pyramid while highlighting the design of its recent renovation. (Nikki Richter) SHVO and Deutsche Finance America purchased the Transamerica Pyramid in 2020 for $650 million, pledging to preserve its historic legacy. In 2024, the landmark reopened following extensive renovations by Foster + Partners, marking a major step in the broader revitalization of downtown San Francisco, which had been deeply impacted by widespread office closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. “This exhibition serves as a reminder of the significance of the Transamerica Pyramid as a global icon since its inception more than a half century ago,” said Michael Shvo, chairman and CEO of SHVO. “By sharing the contents of the time capsule publicly, as a thoughtfully designed exhibition, we are honoring Transamerica Pyramid’s legacy and seamlessly complementing our meticulous remastering.” The Time Capsule Exhibition opens to the public on May 18.

Three 1,500-year-old burials in the Negev desert have pendants of bone and ebony that may depict the deceased individuals' ancestors.

Archaeologists working in the Tangier Peninsula, in northwest Morocco, have discovered ancient cemeteries, rock art and standing stones.

Researchers reviewed ocean floor samples collected during the Deep Sea Drilling Project in 1975. Credit: Deposit Photos / Oleg Dorokhin Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. There was a time long ago when the Atlantic Ocean didn’t exist. The general understanding among geologists is that the body of water originated between 83 to 113 million years ago, when South America and Africa split into their two respective continents to form the Equatorial Atlantic Gateway. However, Earth’s marine history appears to require a multimillion-year revision thanks to a recent discovery roughly half a mile beneath the ocean floor. The evidence is explored in a study published in the June edition of the journal Global and Planetary Change. According to geologists at the UK’s Heriot Watt University, gigantic waves of mud and sand sediment about 250 miles off the coast of Guinea-Bissau in West Africa indicate the Atlantic Ocean actually formed around four million years earlier than previous estimates. To understand just how intense all of this movement was, imagine waves that are about half a mile long and over 300 feet high.  “A whole field formed in one particular location to the west of the Guinea Plateau, just at the final ‘pinch-point’ of the separating continents of South America and Africa,” study co-author Uisdean Nicholson explained in a statement. Nicholson and their colleagues initially came across these layers of mud waves after comparing seismic data with core samples collected from wells during the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) of 1975. Five layers in particular were utilized to recreate the tectonic processes that broke apart the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana during the Mesozoic Era. “One layer was particularly striking: it included vast fields of sediment waves and ‘contourite drifts’—mud mounds that form under strong bottom currents,” said Nicholson. These waves initially formed as dense, salty water poured out from the newly created Equatorial Atlantic Gateway, “like a giant waterfall that formed below the ocean surface,” he added. Just before the geologic event, huge salt deposits formed at the bottom of what is now the South Atlantic. After the gateway opened, the underground mudfall occurred when dense, relatively fresh Central Atlantic water in the north combined with very salty waters in the south. The resulting sedimentary evidence examined by the study’s authors now indicates this opening seems to have started closer to 117 million years ago. “This was a really important time in Earth’s history when the climate went through some major changes,” explained study co-author Débora Duarte. “Up until 117 million years ago, the Earth had been cooling for some time, with huge amounts of carbon being stored in the emerging basins, likely lakes, of the Equatorial Atlantic. But then the climate warmed significantly from 117 to 110 million years ago.” Duarte and Nicholson believe part of that major climatic change  helped from the Atlantic Ocean, as seawater inundated the newly formed basins. “As the gateway gradually opened, this initially reduced the efficiency of carbon burial, which would have had an important warming effect,” said Duarte. “And eventually, a full Atlantic circulation system emerged as the gateway grew deeper and wider, and the climate began a period of long-term cooling during the Late Cretaceous period.” The ramifications go beyond revising Earth’s geological timeline or the gateway’s role in Mesozoic climate change. Better understanding the influence of oceanic evolutionary journeys on ancient climate patterns can help to predict what the future holds for the planet.  “Today’s ocean currents play a key role in regulating global temperatures,” explained Nicholson. “Disruptions, such as those caused by melting ice caps, could have profound consequences.”