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July 29, 2025—An ancient Mayan tomb discovered, Tampa breaks a heat record, and crucial weather data won't be chucked after all.
—Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Adventure_Photo/Getty Images | | - Two meteor showers, the Southern Delta Aquariids and the Alpha Capricornids, are peaking tonight. Here's how to watch the show. | 2 min read
- Tampa, Fla., hit 100 degrees F for the first time, breaking a record. A heat dome will not release its grip of the eastern U.S. | 3 min read
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- Satellite data useful for weather forecasting—and crucial to
monitoring hurricanes—will not be cut off by the Department of Defense at the end of the month as originally planned. | 2 min read
- We discuss a few recommended summer reads from Scientific American staffers. | 11 min listen
| | Caana, the central architectural complex at Caracol, Belize. Te K'ab Chaak's tomb was found under the canopy in an acropolis to the immediate right of Caana. Caracol Archaeological Project/University of Houston | | In C.E. 331, Te K'ab Chaak ascended to the throne as the first ruler of the ancient Maya city of Caracol in what is today Belize. Earlier this year, a husband-and-wife team of archaeologists from the University of Houston discovered his tomb in a deep chamber beneath another tomb they'd previously discovered; they made a small hole in the chamber wall and were able to peek inside. "We knew there was a body in there. We could see vessels; we could see red cinnabar [a red mineral powder]. It was pretty amazing, but it was covered with dirt, so we could see just the tops of this stuff poking out," says Arlen Chase, who co-discovered the tomb with his wife, Diane. | | | | |
Diane Chase investigated the tomb of Te K'ab Chaak with vessels in the foreground and jadeite mask to the left. Red cinnabar colors the wall behind her. Caracol Archaeological Project/University of Houston | | What they found: Upon entering Te K'ab's tomb, the researchers found pottery vessels, intricately carved bone tubes, jade jewelry and a rare mosaic death mask made of jadeite, indicating the tomb was of someone special. The team is currently reconstructing the death mask to its original form from 89 pieces of jade and 26 pieces of shell. They are also conducting DNA and isotope analyses on the skeletal remains. | | The rare jadeite mosaic mask, as it was discovered, resting within the tomb's dirt floor at Caracol. Large pieces of jade are visible. Caracol Archaeological Project/University of Houston | | What the experts say: "This is quite a significant discovery, considering that after 40 years of research, this is the first time a jadeite death mask has been recovered in the context of a royal tomb," says Melissa Badillo, director of the Institute of Archaeology in Belize who was not involved in the discovery. | | | Unscramble a Piece of History | Can you solve this puzzle of our cover from February 1919? The illustration shows the exploration of the Earth's poles with the help of an airplane. To celebrate Scientific American's upcoming 180th anniversary, we're publishing a jigsaw puzzle every weekday on our website to show off some of our favorite magazine covers over the years. Click here for more puzzles. | | - Since the first detection of the collision of two black holes in 2015, gravitational wave detectors have recorded more than 300 events, led to advancements in the understanding of general relativity and the birth of stars, and earned founders of the LIGO experiment the 2017 Nobel Prize. Now, the Trump administration has proposed slashing the total National Science Foundation budget by more than half: a move so severe that one of the two LIGO detectors would be forced to shut down, writes Lieke van Son, an astrophysicist at Princeton University. "The detection of gravitational waves is a breakthrough on par with the first detections of x-rays or radio waves, but even more profound," she says. "Choosing to stop listening now would be foolish." | 5 min read
| | Surprisingly, with the right lineup of equipment, taking a good photo of a meteor shower is possible. The American Meteor Society has a fantastic guide for getting the best results with a DSLR camera. If you get any good snaps of the double meteor shower tonight, please send them to me! I'd love to share them in a future Today in Science. | | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | | |
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