Week in Science: Adorable new wildcat species found in Bolivia

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September 18—This week, reporter Joe Howlett asks: what if we never find dark matter? Plus, an adorable new cat species found in the Bolivian cloud forest (the first new wildcat species to be identified in more than a century!) and how apple detectives solved the mystery of an ancient tree. For more, check out our whole October issue, with a special focus on impossible questions in science here. Ready to test your science knowledge? Take our Friday quiz. —Emma Gometz, Newsletter Editor Have thoughts or feedback on our coverage? Email newsletters@sciam.com anytime.

Top Stories

See the first new species of cat discovered in more than a century—it’s adorable The cat is smaller than a house cat but has the spots of a leopard Mary Randolph

What if we never find dark matter? Could the hunt for the universe’s missing matter be the biggest wild goose chase in scientific history? Joseph Howlett

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What if ‘consciousness’ isn’t real? Our understanding of consciousness could be fundamentally wrong Tim Bayne

Why doing nothing is good for your brain The case for not filling up every minute of your day Michael Craig, The Conversation

Japan just hit a new longevity milestone More than 100,000 people in the country are over 100 years old Mary Randolph

How apple detectives solved the mystery of an ancient tree—and rewrote the history of fruit And how they might have helped save the future of American apples Maryn McKenna

AI insiders fear extinction. Security experts see a familiar fight An Anthropic researcher quit over fears of runaway AI. His colleague who still works there agreed. Security experts argue that the incidents that are already on record call for tighter oversight, not panic Peter Hall

Unique, mathematical 60-sided dice go on display Researchers devised the dice to solve a tricky math problem: When playing a game, who goes first? Peter Hall

AI steals mathematicians’ record for most complicated curve A search for the most complex elliptic curves has taken mathematicians years. Claude beat the record in days Manon Bischoff

Parasitic worms aren’t just a gut problem—they can infest the brain, too After months of headaches and visual hallucinations, a woman was finally revealed to have brain cysts filled with tapeworm larvae Rachel Melegrito

25 winners of math’s ‘Nobel Prize’ decry the AI invasion of their discipline A new declaration from winners of the Fields Medal reflects many mathematicians’ growing alarm over a “severe misalignment” between the tech industry and their field a week after AI toppled one of math’s biggest open problems Joseph Howlett

How our sense of beauty takes shape in the brain A new study tries to map why humans can experience beauty collectively Deniz Vantansever, Emmanuel A. Stamatakis, Xinyu Liang, The Conversation

It’s official: The U.S. has weapons in space A high-ranking official announced yesterday that the U.S. military has deployed weapons into orbit to counter threats from Russia and China Mary Randolph

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