Evidence from a 2,000-foot-long ice core reveals that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet shrank suddenly and dramatically around 8,000 years ago, according to new research — providing an alarming insight into how quickly Antarctic ice could melt and send sea levels soaring.

Part of the ice sheet thinned by 450 meters (1,476 feet) — a height greater than the Empire State Building — over a period of just 200 years at the end of the last Ice Age, according to the study published Wednesday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

It’s the first direct evidence that shows such a rapid loss of ice anywhere in Antarctica, according to the study’s authors.

While scientists knew the ice sheet was bigger at the end of the last Ice Age than today, much less was known about when exactly that shrinking happened, said Eric Wolff, a glaciologist at the University of Cambridge in the UK and a study author.

Now it’s clear the ice sheet retreated and thinned very rapidly in the past, Wolff said, the danger is that it could begin again. “If it does start to retreat, it really will do it very fast,” he added.

That could have catastrophic consequences for global sea level rise. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet holds enough water to raise sea levels by about 5 meters – more than 16 feet — which would cause devastating flooding in coastal towns and cities around the world.

The study is “an excellent piece of detective work” about a major part of the Antarctic ice sheet, said Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Ice cores are historical archives of the Earth’s atmosphere. Made up of layers of ice that formed as snow fell and compacted over thousands of years, they contain bubbles of ancient air as well as contaminants that provide a record of environmental changes over millennia.

The ice core analyzed in the study was drilled from Skytrain Ice Rise located at the edge of the ice sheet, near the point where the ice starts to float and become part of the Ronne Ice Shelf.

Scientists extracted it in 2019, in a painstaking process that involved drilling constantly for 40 days, pulling up a thin cylinder of ice a few feet at a time. They then cut the core into sections, packed them in insulated boxes kept at minus 20 degrees Celsius, and sent them to the UK via plane then ship.

Once in the UK, the scientists measured the ice core’s water isotopes, which provide information on temperature in the past. Warmer temperatures indicate lower-lying ice — think of it like a mountain, Wolff said, the higher up you go the colder it gets.

They also measured the pressure of trapped air bubbles in the ice. Lower-lying and thinner ice contains higher pressure air bubbles.

It was a surprise when the data revealed just how quickly the ice had thinned at the end of the last Ice Age, Wolff said. “We actually spent a lot of time checking that we hadn’t made a mistake with the analysis.”

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is particularly vulnerable to climate change, because the land under it is below sea level and slopes downward. When warm water gets underneath, it can melt very fast. “It can have a runaway process, and that’s evidently what happened 8,000 years ago,” Wolff said.

The crucial thing “is not to test it too far,” Wolff said, and that means tackling climate change. “We can avoid these tipping points still,” he said.

The new data will help improve the accuracy of the models scientists use to predict how the ice sheet will respond to future global heating, the report says.

David Thornalley, an ocean and climate scientist at University College London, said the study’s data was “striking.” He cautioned that as the study looked at a period 8,000 years ago, when climate conditions were different, the results aren’t a direct example of what could happen today. But, he added, they are still able to offer an “insight into the way that ice sheets can collapse.”

The study comes as scientists continue to sound the alarm about what is happening to the Earth’s most isolated continent.

For example, the Thwaites Glacier, also in West Antarctica, is melting rapidly. A 2022 study said the Thwaites — dubbed the Doomsday Glacier for the catastrophic impact its collapse would have on sea level rise — was hanging on “by its fingernails” as the planet warms.

This new study adds to these concerns, Scambos said. “(It) shows that the very same processes we are seeing, just beginning now in areas like Thwaites Glacier, have played out before in similar areas of Antarctica and indeed, the pace of ice loss was equal to our worst fears about a runaway ice loss.”

Global warming surpassed 1.5 degrees Celsius over the past 12 months for the first time on record, new data shows, breaching a critical threshold that, if it continues, will push the limits of life on Earth to adapt.

The past year was 1.52 degrees hotter on average than temperatures before industrialization, according to data from Copernicus, the European Union’s climate and weather monitoring service. That 12-month average was boosted by the hottest January on record, which was 1.66 degrees warmer than the average January temperature in pre-industrial times.

Keeping global warming below 2 degrees, but preferably 1.5, was the centerpiece goal of the Paris Agreement, which most of the world’s nations signed onto in 2015.

Scientists are more concerned with multi-year warming above these thresholds, but the 12-month record shows the world is fast approaching the Paris Agreement’s limits.

Matt Patterson, a postdoctoral research assistant in atmospheric physics at the University of Oxford, said the record was a “significant milestone,” but didn’t mean the Paris Agreement had failed.

“However, exceeding 1.5C in one year underlines the rapidly shrinking window of time humanity has to make deep emissions cuts and avoid dangerous climate change.”

Heat records on land and sea have tumbled over the past year. The last eight months in a row have been the hottest such months on record, Copernicus said, while 2023 was the hottest calendar year.

The average global sea surface temperature for January was also the hottest on record for that month by a large margin: 0.26 degrees warmer than the previous record, set in 2016.

“2024 starts with another record-breaking month – not only is it the warmest January on record but we have also just experienced a 12-month period of more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial reference period,” Copernicus Deputy Director Samantha Burgess said in a statement. “Rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are the only way to stop global temperatures increasing.”

The climate crisis is driven primarily from humans burning coal, oil and gas for energy. El Niño, a natural climate pattern that originates in the Pacific Ocean, has also boosted temperatures in much of the world in recent months.

Extreme weather events already made more frequent and severe by long-term global warming are now being supercharged by El Niño, scientists say. The combination of the two has proved particularly destructive.

More than 160 wildfires that spread over an area of Chile this week have killed more than 120 people and reduced entire neighborhoods to ashes, making them the deadliest blazes in the country’s recent history.

The twin threat also supercharged the California storms this week, scientists said, enhancing rainfall and boosting the storm’s destructive power.

Anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin has been barred from standing in Russia’s presidential election next month, in a move that further clears the country’s political landscape of opponents to Vladimir Putin.

The decision was made during a ruling on Thursday by the Central Election Committee (CEC) of Russia, the body tasked with registering and verifying potential candidates.

According to the CEC, Nadezhdin only collected 95,587 legitimate signatures, 5,000 short of 100,000 benchmark.

Nadezhdin has disputed the CEC claims regarding the signatures and said he will appeal the refusal of his registration to the Supreme Court. He also said he would dispute the committee’s regulations.

“No one has any doubt that hundreds of thousands of people really signed for me. There is no doubt about it,” Nadezhdin said following the ruling. “We will appeal the regulations and the collection procedure itself.”

But the move indicates that he will join a number of anti-war activists to be isolated from Russia’s political scene, as Moscow prepares for a presidential election that international observers consider a mere formality.

Nadezhdin, a former State Duma MP who intended to run as an independent candidate from the Civic Initiative party, has a staunch anti-war stance and openly challenges Putin’s policies, positioning himself as the sole presidential hopeful willing to openly oppose the invasion of Ukraine.

Thousands had lined up in cities across Russia and elsewhere in Europe since early January to give their signatures in support of Nadezhdin, with volunteers collecting expats’ signatures in cities from London and Paris to Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.

But his campaign struck difficulties when the CEC working group claimed to have identified over 15% invalid signatures in the paperwork required to run for president, exceeding the permissible 5% for registration.

He then failed in an effort to have the meeting on his participation moved to Saturday. Nadezhdin argued that he needed additional time to thoroughly examine the concerns and prepare his counterarguments.

On Thursday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov reacted to the commission’s unanimous ruling, saying, “There are certain criteria that a candidate must meet. What we heard from the Central Election Commission today is that [there] was a large number of flaws in the signatures. Therefore, an important criterion has not been met.”

Fears for safety

The decision will raise further concerns about the sidelining and targeting of political opponents in Russia, a feature of Putin’s four terms as president that has intensified since he launched Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

After considering the issue, “we decided this for my family and for my children, for my grandchildren, (it) will be better if Russia will be peace(ful) and (a) free country.”

The Kremlin had sought to dismiss the relevance of Nadezhdin’s expected candidacy in recent weeks, with Peskov telling journalists last month: “We do not consider him as a rival.”

But his efforts had attracted attention. Nadezhdin announced he had delivered 105,000 signatures to the CEC last month –  the maximum allowed by law – for his official candidacy.

Speaking to independent Russian news channel RTVI last week, Nadezhdin said that should he win he would not send Putin to face a war crimes tribunal and insisted that he would get a “pension and government protection.”

The Kremlin leader is running for a fifth term as Russia’s president in next month’s election. There are four candidates set to be on the official ballot – Putin, Vladislav Davankov, Nikolai Kharitonov and Leonid Slutsky.

But Putin is expected to secure a term that will keep him in office until 2030; he is now the longest-serving ruler of Russian since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

In his 24 years as the dominant figure in Russian politics, Putin has marginalized his political opponents and muzzled the country’s press. Russia’s tightly managed democracy allows for little real political competition and presidential elections have essentially become plebiscites that showcase Putin’s popular approval.

In December, another independent candidate who openly spoke out against the war in Ukraine, Yekaterina Duntsova, was rejected by the CEC, citing alleged errors in her campaign group’s registration documents. Duntsova later called on people to support Nadezhdin’s candidacy.

In January, shortly after expressing her intent to create her own political party, Duntsova reported being briefly detained by traffic police and randomly drug-tested. Opponents of the Kremlin have often alleged the fabrication of criminal charges through the planting of drugs.

Displaced Palestinians crowded into tents in Rafah are waiting with dread for an anticipated Israeli ground assault on the city – with nowhere left to flee once troops move in.

One million people are estimated to be crammed into a tent city in the southern Gaza location, with satellite images showing that the makeshift shelter is rapidly expanding.

Others are packed into houses in the city, where rocket attacks are already commonplace.

He said conditions in Rafah are “very difficult,” describing a “large number of people, chaos, and high prices.”

Dahman, like countless others, found himself in the city after a “very arduous” journey through the besieged enclave. Rafah was the last refuge for Palestinians trekking south to avoid Israel’s air and ground campaigns, following orders from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials for Palestinians to leave Gaza City, and then Khan Younis, as their ground campaign moved further south.

Rafah has experienced aerial assaults from Israeli forces for months, but the new anticipated ground campaign brings with it heightened fears of a bloodbath.

Those trapped in the city have no remaining escape route. The city borders Egypt, and the crossing into that country has been closed for months.

“The bombing is getting closer slowly in Rafah,” he said. “We do not know where we will go after Rafah.”

‘Everyone is afraid’

Israeli leaders have set their sights on Rafah in recent days, claiming the city is the last remaining Hamas stronghold and that the militant group’s leadership, including Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, is “on the run.”

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday said the military would “soon achieve its goals” as it pushed into Rafah.

Gallant claimed in a televised briefing that Sinwar had no contact with his fighters and was forced to flee from one hideout to another with the IDF in close pursuit. “He is not leading the forces; he is busy with his own personal survival. He became, instead of the head of Hamas, a fugitive terrorist,” Gallant said.

But the top commander in charge of Israel’s military operation in southern Gaza has said that there is no plan in place yet for how to minimize civilian deaths in Rafah.

Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfuss, who oversees the Israel Defense Forces’ 98th Division, said on Sunday he would work on such a “if and when” he receives the order to maneuver his forces into the area, and that as of Sunday, the order had not been issued yet.

For the more than one million Palestinians in the southern city, the expected push into Rafah is causing alarm and fear.

“Everyone is afraid of the expanding of the ground operation in Rafah,” Raed Al-Nims, Media Director of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Gaza, said on Monday.

More than half of the estimated more than 2 million people in Gaza are seeking refuge in the Rafah area, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). OCHA said Monday that refugees facing acute shortages of food, water, shelter and medicine are still pouring into Rafah as fighting worsens nearby.

“Electricity is almost non-existent,” he added, a fact which makes it difficult for Palestinians to see communications regarding the IDF’s approach. “We charge our phones using solar energy which is available at our friend’s house in Rafah,” he said. “There is no phone signal except on the Israeli and Egyptian networks.”

Dahman and his family left Gaza City in mid-October, days after Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel sparked an IDF bombardment on the city. In November, they went to Khan Younis, before again being uprooted in December and heading to Rafah.

A similar journey was made by Youssef Abu Kwaik, a 23-year-old displaced Palestinian who left Khan Younis for Rafah around three months ago.

“As for medical supplies, they are completely non-existent,” he added.

The UN’s humanitarian office has issued regular warnings about the situation on the ground, calling the city a “pressure cooker” last week.

“In recent days, thousands of Palestinians have continued to flee to the south, which is already hosting over half the Gaza’s population of some 2.3 million people. Most are living in makeshift structures, tents or out in the open,” a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Jens Laerke, told a media briefing.

“Rafah is a pressure cooker of despair, and we fear for what comes next,” he said.

Britain’s King Charles III was seen on Tuesday for the first time since the bombshell announcement of his cancer diagnosis, as questions swirl over the exact nature of his condition.

The unexpected disclosure from Buckingham Palace dropped on Monday evening. It revealed the monarch had already started treatment for an unspecified cancer that was identified while he was being treated separately for an enlarged prostate.

Charles, 75, is stepping away from public-facing duties during his outpatient treatment on the advice of doctors, but the palace stressed that he would continue state duties and paperwork.

“He remains wholly positive about his treatment and looks forward to returning to full public duty as soon as possible,” the palace said.

It added that the King had opted to disclose his diagnosis “to prevent speculation and in the hope it may assist public understanding for all those around the world who are affected by cancer.”

While the British monarch has been unusually forthright about his health, much more so than his predecessors, the palace statement has triggered a storm of speculation and debate about exactly how much the public has a right to know.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak Tuesday appeared to go further than the palace had while speaking to the BBC. Sunak said he was “like everyone else … shocked and sad” but that the King’s diagnosis had been “caught early.”

But when asked for clarification afterward, Sunak’s spokesman told reporters that the prime minister appeared to have been going off the palace statement, which noted “the swift intervention” of the King’s medical team.

Royal experts and commentators have said the household’s intentions were candid, noble and well-meaning but that the resulting gray space has left people concerned.

In the 48 hours since, there has been an outpouring of good wishes both at home and abroad. US President Joe Biden led messages of support from world leaders. He said on social media that the King was in his thoughts.

“Navigating a cancer diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship takes hope and absolute courage,” the president wrote. “Jill and I join the people of the United Kingdom in praying that His Majesty experiences a swift and full recovery.”

Many of the UK’s cancer care charities have also shared encouraging words, including Macmillan Cancer Support, which added that it hoped the King’s openness would encourage the public to get checked. Charles has been the patron of the organization since 1997.

According to Cancer Research UK, around 375,000 new cancer cases are diagnosed in the UK each year. Macmillan Cancer Support estimated in 2022 that there were around 3 million people living with cancer in the UK, predicting that this would rise to 3.5 million by 2025.

Health experts suggest it is not uncommon for cancer patients to be diagnosed when seeking imaging or medical care for other reasons.

“You’re going in for one thing, but then you do additional testing — either as part of a general evaluation or influenced by certain symptoms or signs or blood tests that trigger a procedure or imaging — which then leads to the diagnosis of cancer in a different organ system,” said Dr. Anil Rustgi, director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, who was not involved in Charles’ medical care.

“A lot depends on what type of cancer and what stage it’s at, but sometimes with early-stage cancer, there are no symptoms,” Rustgi said. “And it’s either detected at the time of screening or incidentally.”

While the palace may not have wanted a frenzy to erupt around the King’s diagnosis, the absence of specifics meant it was somewhat inevitable. Royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith said it is “always tricky to release a partial picture” because people can interpret or over-interpret.

She said times were “very different,” referring to the health battles fought by the King’s grandfather.

“Harking back to his grandfather, George VI, who had arteriosclerosis which was not fully explained to the public and then of course he had lung cancer, and his left lung was removed. The doctors never said it was cancer. They said they had to do it to repair some structural defects,” she said. “They didn’t tell the family; they certainly didn’t tell the public.”

With unanswered questions about what Charles is facing, the public are trying to fill in the gaps. Seeing Prince Harry appear to drop everything and fly to London to visit his father, knowing that relations between the pair have been strained over the past several years, has suggested a sense of urgency to some.

Two counselors can be appointed to act on the monarch’s behalf through what’s known as a letters patent and help keep the state ticking over. The list of royals who can step in includes Queen Camilla, Princes William, Harry, Andrew and Edward, as well as Princesses Anne and Beatrice. However, it is unlikely Andrew or Harry would be called on as they are no longer working royals.

Nash said it was “very reassuring” that the palace wasn’t looking to install any counselors at this point.

“It really speaks volumes about the King’s determination to continue carrying out his role as best as he can at the moment,” she said. “That means the privy council meetings, the audiences with the prime minister, his red boxes, signing his assent on legislature – these are all key parts of his role that are not public facing so he can continue to do these behind the scenes.”

The developments of the past few days have reignited a debate over how much the public deserves to know the health of its head of state.

Many feel the family should be more transparent and that the public is entitled to more information as the royal household is taxpayer-funded. Some assert that the public has a right to know because the royals are public figures and personal freedoms are inevitably compromised when representing crown and country. Others argue that by not disclosing the exact cancer, they are inadvertently fueling the gossip.

The public is also aware that the Princess of Wales, who recently underwent abdominal surgery, is still recovering at home in Windsor. She’s not expected to return to engagements until at least Easter. While the public knows her operation was successful, it hasn’t been revealed exactly what it was for. Kensington Palace has been fiercely protective of her, with aides aware of how popular she is while wanting to offer the 42-year-old some privacy.

“This is what the royals have been wrestling with throughout the 20th century, ever since they let cameras into the coronation of the Queen – how much information to give,” Williams said. “I think, eventually, the King will tell us what cancer it is he has been suffering.”

Historically, specific medical conditions were rarely disclosed to the public. Palace aides would say the family members are entitled to a degree of medical privacy despite their positions as public servants. However, the situation changes when their condition affects their ability to perform public duties. At that point, the palace has a duty to reveal what is going on, which is why a statement was issued on Monday evening.

Kristina Kyriacou, a former communications secretary to the King, touched on the palace’s approach during an appearance on ITV’s “Good Morning Britain” show on Tuesday. “I have to say, I wouldn’t open the door more. They’ve said a form of cancer has been found, and I personally wouldn’t have advised you go further and say what type of cancer. I think there’s plenty of time for that.

“The trouble is, the more information you give, the more people speculate. The second they know what kind of cancer it is, everyone starts looking it up, people start Googling,” she continued.

Kyriacou said she’d interpreted the palace statement positively and to mean that the condition is treatable.

“I hope I’m right. We should remember at this point, the monarchy are trying not to become the story; I know that’s being a bit laughable for certain members of the royal family in the past couple of years. But Queen Elizabeth and King Charles, they do not want to become the story, they still want to serve their public. In the fullness of time, I would like to think King Charles will talk about his treatment.”

Meanwhile, Estelle Paranque, an expert in royal studies and Associate Professor in Early Modern History for Northeastern University London, suggested the type of cancer the King is facing is somewhat irrelevant.

“I don’t think we need to know what type of cancer he has or at what stage. I think we need to know how the royal duties will be handled and by whom and they need to inform us of a plan if things get wrong for the king but apart from that he has a right to privacy. Being diagnosed with cancer is very life-changing. He should be able to handle it the way he needs to.”

The historian added that the palace’s moves on Monday show that Charles wants a more modern monarchy. “He is compromising by revealing the outcome of his medical appointment but he is not revealing everything to keep his privacy safe and that is a smart move,” she said.

Britain’s King Charles III was seen on Tuesday for the first time since the bombshell announcement of his cancer diagnosis, as questions swirl over the exact nature of his condition.

The unexpected disclosure from Buckingham Palace dropped on Monday evening. It revealed the monarch had already started treatment for an unspecified cancer that was identified while he was being treated separately for an enlarged prostate.

Charles, 75, is stepping away from public-facing duties during his outpatient treatment on the advice of doctors, but the palace stressed that he would continue state duties and paperwork.

“He remains wholly positive about his treatment and looks forward to returning to full public duty as soon as possible,” the palace said.

It added that the King had opted to disclose his diagnosis “to prevent speculation and in the hope it may assist public understanding for all those around the world who are affected by cancer.”

While the British monarch has been unusually forthright about his health, much more so than his predecessors, the palace statement has triggered a storm of speculation and debate about exactly how much the public has a right to know.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak Tuesday appeared to go further than the palace had while speaking to the BBC. Sunak said he was “like everyone else … shocked and sad” but that the King’s diagnosis had been “caught early.”

But when asked for clarification afterward, Sunak’s spokesman told reporters that the prime minister appeared to have been going off the palace statement, which noted “the swift intervention” of the King’s medical team.

Royal experts and commentators have said the household’s intentions were candid, noble and well-meaning but that the resulting gray space has left people concerned.

In the 48 hours since, there has been an outpouring of good wishes both at home and abroad. US President Joe Biden led messages of support from world leaders. He said on social media that the King was in his thoughts.

“Navigating a cancer diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship takes hope and absolute courage,” the president wrote. “Jill and I join the people of the United Kingdom in praying that His Majesty experiences a swift and full recovery.”

Many of the UK’s cancer care charities have also shared encouraging words, including Macmillan Cancer Support, which added that it hoped the King’s openness would encourage the public to get checked. Charles has been the patron of the organization since 1997.

According to Cancer Research UK, around 375,000 new cancer cases are diagnosed in the UK each year. Macmillan Cancer Support estimated in 2022 that there were around 3 million people living with cancer in the UK, predicting that this would rise to 3.5 million by 2025.

Health experts suggest it is not uncommon for cancer patients to be diagnosed when seeking imaging or medical care for other reasons.

“You’re going in for one thing, but then you do additional testing — either as part of a general evaluation or influenced by certain symptoms or signs or blood tests that trigger a procedure or imaging — which then leads to the diagnosis of cancer in a different organ system,” said Dr. Anil Rustgi, director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, who was not involved in Charles’ medical care.

“A lot depends on what type of cancer and what stage it’s at, but sometimes with early-stage cancer, there are no symptoms,” Rustgi said. “And it’s either detected at the time of screening or incidentally.”

While the palace may not have wanted a frenzy to erupt around the King’s diagnosis, the absence of specifics meant it was somewhat inevitable. Royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith said it is “always tricky to release a partial picture” because people can interpret or over-interpret.

She said times were “very different,” referring to the health battles fought by the King’s grandfather.

“Harking back to his grandfather, George VI, who had arteriosclerosis which was not fully explained to the public and then of course he had lung cancer, and his left lung was removed. The doctors never said it was cancer. They said they had to do it to repair some structural defects,” she said. “They didn’t tell the family; they certainly didn’t tell the public.”

With unanswered questions about what Charles is facing, the public are trying to fill in the gaps. Seeing Prince Harry appear to drop everything and fly to London to visit his father, knowing that relations between the pair have been strained over the past several years, has suggested a sense of urgency to some.

Two counselors can be appointed to act on the monarch’s behalf through what’s known as a letters patent and help keep the state ticking over. The list of royals who can step in includes Queen Camilla, Princes William, Harry, Andrew and Edward, as well as Princesses Anne and Beatrice. However, it is unlikely Andrew or Harry would be called on as they are no longer working royals.

Nash said it was “very reassuring” that the palace wasn’t looking to install any counselors at this point.

“It really speaks volumes about the King’s determination to continue carrying out his role as best as he can at the moment,” she said. “That means the privy council meetings, the audiences with the prime minister, his red boxes, signing his assent on legislature – these are all key parts of his role that are not public facing so he can continue to do these behind the scenes.”

The developments of the past few days have reignited a debate over how much the public deserves to know the health of its head of state.

Many feel the family should be more transparent and that the public is entitled to more information as the royal household is taxpayer-funded. Some assert that the public has a right to know because the royals are public figures and personal freedoms are inevitably compromised when representing crown and country. Others argue that by not disclosing the exact cancer, they are inadvertently fueling the gossip.

The public is also aware that the Princess of Wales, who recently underwent abdominal surgery, is still recovering at home in Windsor. She’s not expected to return to engagements until at least Easter. While the public knows her operation was successful, it hasn’t been revealed exactly what it was for. Kensington Palace has been fiercely protective of her, with aides aware of how popular she is while wanting to offer the 42-year-old some privacy.

“This is what the royals have been wrestling with throughout the 20th century, ever since they let cameras into the coronation of the Queen – how much information to give,” Williams said. “I think, eventually, the King will tell us what cancer it is he has been suffering.”

Historically, specific medical conditions were rarely disclosed to the public. Palace aides would say the family members are entitled to a degree of medical privacy despite their positions as public servants. However, the situation changes when their condition affects their ability to perform public duties. At that point, the palace has a duty to reveal what is going on, which is why a statement was issued on Monday evening.

Kristina Kyriacou, a former communications secretary to the King, touched on the palace’s approach during an appearance on ITV’s “Good Morning Britain” show on Tuesday. “I have to say, I wouldn’t open the door more. They’ve said a form of cancer has been found, and I personally wouldn’t have advised you go further and say what type of cancer. I think there’s plenty of time for that.

“The trouble is, the more information you give, the more people speculate. The second they know what kind of cancer it is, everyone starts looking it up, people start Googling,” she continued.

Kyriacou said she’d interpreted the palace statement positively and to mean that the condition is treatable.

“I hope I’m right. We should remember at this point, the monarchy are trying not to become the story; I know that’s being a bit laughable for certain members of the royal family in the past couple of years. But Queen Elizabeth and King Charles, they do not want to become the story, they still want to serve their public. In the fullness of time, I would like to think King Charles will talk about his treatment.”

Meanwhile, Estelle Paranque, an expert in royal studies and Associate Professor in Early Modern History for Northeastern University London, suggested the type of cancer the King is facing is somewhat irrelevant.

“I don’t think we need to know what type of cancer he has or at what stage. I think we need to know how the royal duties will be handled and by whom and they need to inform us of a plan if things get wrong for the king but apart from that he has a right to privacy. Being diagnosed with cancer is very life-changing. He should be able to handle it the way he needs to.”

The historian added that the palace’s moves on Monday show that Charles wants a more modern monarchy. “He is compromising by revealing the outcome of his medical appointment but he is not revealing everything to keep his privacy safe and that is a smart move,” she said.

After using artificial intelligence to uncover the first word to be read from an unopened Herculaneum scroll, a team of researchers has revealed several nearly complete passages from the ancient text, giving insight into philosophy from almost 2,000 years ago.

The Herculaneum scrolls are hundreds of papyri that survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. In their charred state, the ancient documents would crumble if anyone attempted to unroll them, and any writing on surviving pieces would be nearly illegible to the human eye.

By using computer technology and advanced artificial intelligence, researchers can now analyze the Herculaneum scrolls without unrolling and risking damage to the extremely fragile documents. More than 2,000 characters — the first full passages — have been deciphered from a scroll, according to an announcement Monday by computer scientists who launched the Vesuvius Challenge, a competition designed to accelerate the discoveries made on the scrolls.

“It’s incredibly gratifying to know that these things are available, and we have now a mechanism to read them — and that reading them is going to create an entire field of study and scholarship for classicists,” said Brent Seales, a computer science professor at the University of Kentucky and a cocreator of the Vesuvius Challenge.

The first word to be read from an unopened scroll was found separately by both Luke Farritor and Youssef Nader — a computer science student at the University of Nebraska and a biorobotics graduate student at Freie University Berlin, respectively — in October. This year, joined by Julian Schilliger, a robotics student at ETH Zürich, the three have won the contest’s $700,000 grand prize for being the first team to decipher more than 85% of characters from four continuous passages within the same scroll.

What’s more, the team went above and beyond the contest requirements and read 15 partial columns of text, amounting to about 5% of the scroll.

The trio uncovered the text by applying a technique known as “virtual unwrapping” to the rolled-up scroll — one of several owned by the Institut de France — which was released on the contest’s website. The process involved using computer tomography, an X-ray procedure to scan the coiled-up, warped papyrus, allowing the researchers to virtually flatten the scrolls and detect the ink on the page with advanced AI. After Farritor, Nader and Schilliger found the Greek letters, expert papyrologists from England, France and Italy were brought in to assess the text.

“If you look at the level of the vocabulary (from the passages), there is a really nuanced, intellectual conversation going on here. … It just makes me excited to want to deliver to the scholars an absolutely pristine, complete copy of what this is, so that they can do their work, and then we can fully understand it,” said Seales, who originally created the unwrapping method and has been developing the technology for nearly 20 years.

Words from an ancient philosopher

Over 1,000 carbonized scrolls were recovered from the eruption of Vesuvius, a volcano near Naples, Italy, that covered the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic mud. The charred documents, now referred to as the Herculaneum scrolls, were recovered from a building believed to be the house of Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, according to the University of Kentucky.

The recently decoded passages were pulled from the end of a scroll and reveal words written by the philosopher Philodemus, who was believed to be the philosopher-in-residence working at the library in which the scrolls were found, the announcement said.

In the deciphered text, Philodemus writes on “pleasure,” and whether the abundance of goods available can affect the amount of pleasure they give. “As too in the case of food, we do not right away believe things that are scarce to be absolutely more pleasant than those which are abundant,” the first sentence reads.

“Philodemus was dismissed over the years because we couldn’t really read his passages extensively. Only with difficulty, we just get these little snippets. … (In these passages) he’s persuading the people who are listening to him to sort of relax, find good friendships, spend your time living in the moment and enjoying pleasures,” said Roger Macfarlane, a professor of classical studies at Brigham Young University, who has studied the Herculaneum scrolls. Macfarlane was not involved with the discovery but participated in certifying the first word that came out in October.

Seales said he hopes that almost an entire scroll will be deciphered this year — and the new grand prize contest puts forth an even more ambitious goal, offering a cash prize of $100,000 for the first team that can decipher at least 90% of all four scrolls released on the contest’s website.

“The winners of the Vesuvius Challenge are able to get a text that’s authentic but doesn’t result in the destruction of the scroll. And that’s probably the most miraculous thing about it,” Macfarlane said.

Correction: A previous version of the story misstated the grand prize amount for the Vesuvius Challenge.

Pope Francis has hit back at those criticizing his decision to allow blessings for same-sex couples, saying the critics are guilty of hypocrisy.

“No one is scandalized if I give a blessing to an entrepreneur who perhaps exploits people: and that is a most serious sin,” the Pope said in an interview in the latest edition of Italian magazine Credere, to be published on Thursday, February 8.

“Whereas they are scandalized if I give it to a homosexual… This is hypocrisy! We all have to respect each other. Everyone! The heart of the document is welcome.”

Last year, the 87-year-old Pontiff authorized priests to offer informal blessings of couples in “irregular” unions in a landmark document issued on December 18, 2023. It is the first time the Vatican has allowed for such blessings, having previously forbidden any such move.

But the decision has sparked contrasting reactions inside the church. While those in Western churches have largely welcomed the decision, a body representing bishops in Africa said they would not be offering blessings because they “do not consider it appropriate for Africa,” adding that it “would cause confusion and would be in direct contradiction to the cultural ethos of African communities.”

The Pope has described the criticism of blessings in Africa as a “special case” influenced by culture, while the African bishops, despite the disagreement, have maintained their loyalty to the Pope.

Criticism has also been voiced among a vocal section of conservatives inside the church, many of them in the United States and parts of Europe, and which Pope Francis has previously said “belong to small ideological groups.”

The Vatican has insisted that the blessings for same-sex couples are not of the “union” but for the people who request them.

“I don’t bless a ‘same-sex marriage,’ I bless two people who love each other and I also ask them to pray for me,” he told priest Don Vincenzo Vitale, who conducted the interview.

“Always in confession, when these situations come, homosexual people, remarried people, I always pray and bless. Blessing should not be denied to anyone.”

He added that he was talking about people who are eligible to be baptized and wish to be part of the church.

Francis’ authorizing of blessings for same-sex couples is part of his broader efforts to shift the church’s tone and approach to LGBTQ+ Catholics, although this has been met with resistance from some sections within Catholicism.

Addressing questions about his health and reduced mobility, Francis said the church is “governed with the head, not with the legs,” and he reiterated his desire for church leaders to be close to their people.

He said that “we clerics sometimes live in comfort” and need to understand “the work, the suffering of people.”

Astronomers have uncovered additional evidence that one of Saturn’s smallest moons, Mimas, is hiding a global ocean beneath its icy surface. Building a stronger case for the presence of water — essential to life as we know it — could help scientists gain a better understanding of where to search for habitable worlds in the vast expanse of deep space.

Scientists previously thought Mimas was just a big chunk of ice before NASA’s Cassini mission studied Saturn and some of its 146 moons by orbiting the ringed planet between 2004 and 2017.

Discovered in 1789 by English astronomer William Herschel as a tiny dot near Saturn, Mimas was first imaged from space by the Voyager probes in 1980. Craters cover the surface of Mimas, but the largest one is 80 miles (about 130 kilometers) across and causes the moon to resemble the Death Star from the “Star Wars” films.

Data collected during Cassini flybys of Mimas intrigued astronomers. The moon takes a little more than 22 hours to orbit Saturn and is only about 115,000 miles (186,000 kilometers) from the planet. The Cassini data showed that Mimas’ rotation and orbital motion experienced changes triggered by the moon’s interior.

A team of European researchers determined in 2014 that either a rigid, elongated and rocky core or a subsurface ocean caused the moon’s rotation and motion.

To follow up on the previous study, Observatoire de Paris astronomer Dr. Valéry Lainey and his colleagues analyzed the orbital motion data to see which scenario was most likely. The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The team determined that the moon’s spin and orbital motion didn’t match up with the Cassini observations if Mimas had a pancake-shaped rocky core. Instead, the evolution of Mimas’ orbit over time suggested an internal ocean has shaped its motion, Lainey said.

“This discovery adds Mimas to an exclusive club of moons with internal oceans, including Enceladus and Europa, but with a unique difference: its ocean is remarkably young, estimated to be only 5 (million) to 15 million years old,” said study coauthor Dr. Nick Cooper, honorary research fellow in the astronomy unit of the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences at Queen Mary University of London, in a statement.

Old surface, young ocean

The research team determined the origin and age of Mimas’ ocean by studying how the moon, roughly 249 miles (400 kilometers) in diameter, responded to the gravitational forces that Saturn exerted on it.

“Internal heating must come from the tides raised by Saturn on Mimas,” Lainey said. “These tidal effects have induced friction inside the satellite, providing heat.”

The team suspects the ocean is about 12.4 miles to 18.6 miles (20 kilometers to 30 kilometers) deep beneath the moon’s ice shell. With the ocean so young, astronomically speaking, there wouldn’t be any outward signs of activity on the surface to imply the presence of a subsurface ocean.

The craters across Mimas act like telltale wrinkles, suggesting it has an old surface. But Saturn’s Enceladus appears younger because active geysers have contributed to resurfacing, or depositing of new, fresh material on that moon’s surface.

The ocean is still evolving, so Mimas may offer a unique window into the processes behind how subsurface oceans have formed on other icy moons, the researchers said.

A closer look at ocean worlds

The discovery could change the way astronomers think about moons across our solar system.

“If Mimas hides a global ocean, this means that liquid water could lie almost anywhere,” Lainey said. “We already have serious candidates for global oceans (on moons such as) Callisto, Dione and Triton.”

In 2017, NASA announced that ocean worlds may be the most likely places of finding life beyond Earth, and missions such as the European Space Agency’s Juice and NASA’s Europa Clipper and Dragonfly spacecraft will investigate the potential habitability of Jupiter’s moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto and Saturn’s moon Titan.

“The existence of a recently formed liquid water ocean makes Mimas a prime candidate for study, for researchers investigating the origin of life,” Cooper said.

It may be time to observe other seemingly quiet moons across the solar system that could be hiding conditions that can support life, the study authors said.

“Lainey and colleagues’ findings will motivate a thorough examination of mid-sized icy moons throughout the Solar System,” wrote Drs. Matija Ćuk and Alyssa Rose Rhoden in an article that accompanied the study. Ćuk is a research scientist at the SETI Institute in California, and Rhoden is a principal scientist at the Southwest Research Institute’s Planetary Science Directorate in Colorado.

Neither author was involved in the study, but Rhoden has authored research about the potential for a “stealth” ocean on Mimas.

“Basically, the difference between our 2022 paper and this new paper is that we found an ocean could not be ruled out by Mimas’ geology, whereas they are actually detecting the signature of the ocean within Mimas’ orbit,” Rhoden said. “It is the strongest evidence we have, so far, that Mimas really does have an ocean today.”

Since the 2022 report, Rhoden and her research group have continued their study of Mimas, and they agree with the new study’s conclusion about the relatively young age of the moon’s ocean.

“Mimas certainly demonstrates that moons with old surfaces can be hiding young oceans, which is pretty exciting,” Rhoden said. “I do think we can speculate as to moons having developed oceans much more recently than we often assume.”

King Charles III’s shocking cancer diagnosis was “caught early,” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Tuesday.

“Thankfully, this has been caught early and now everyone will be wishing him that he gets the treatment that that he needs and makes a full recovery,” Sunak said in what appeared to be off-the-cuff remarks during a radio interview with the BBC.

Sunak said he was “like everyone else … shocked and sad” at the news.

When asked for clarification following the interview, Sunak’s spokesman told reporters that the prime minister appeared to have based his remarks on a Buckingham Palace statement that noted “the swift intervention” of the King’s medical team.

The palace did not said how early Charles’ cancer was detected.

Charles will step back from public-facing duties while he undergoes treatment, the palace said. He will continue to carry out state business and official paperwork. On Tuesday afternoon the King was seen leaving the capital by helicopter from Buckingham Palace. A short time before, Prince Harry was seen arriving at Charles’ London home.

It is also understood that he will continue to be available for state duties like Privy Council meetings. However, details of how that will occur are still being worked out.

Sunak said he is still in regular contact with the King and will continue to communicate with him as normal. Sunak declined to say whether their face-to-face meetings would continue but hinted that the diagnosis would not affect how the country is run.

“We’ll crack on with everything, but he’ll be in our thoughts and our prayers,” Sunak said.

Though all the signals coming from the palace have been positive so far, the news is disconcerting. It has been only about 17 months since Charles acceded to the throne following the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II. She reigned for more than 70 years, longer than any British monarch in history.

Prince William, Charles’ son and the heir to the throne, and Queen Camilla are expected to take on more public engagement to account for Charles’ absence.

William is in regular contact with his father, according to a source close to the Prince of Wales.

That group consists of 11 members, more than half of whom are over the age of 70. It includes King Charles, Queen Camilla, Princess Anne, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, the Waleses, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, and the Duke and Duchess of Kent.

Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex would normally be considered working royals, but they chose to step back from royal duties in 2020 and move to California. Prince Andrew was forced out in the light of his relationship with the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.