1 . Antarctica has not always been a land of ice and snow. Earth’s southernmost continent once was home to rivers and forests full of life. Researchers are using satellites to look deep under the ice in Antarctica, finding a large ancient landscape buried under the continent’s ice sheet. The landscape is located in East Antarctica’s Wilkes Land area bordering the Indian Ocean, covering an area about the size of Belgium. The researchers said the landscape is estimated to have been buried beneath the ice shelf for between 14 million to 34 million years, when Antarctica entered its deep freeze.

“The landscape is like a snapshot of the past,” said Stewart Jamieson, a professor of glaciology at Durham University in England and co-leader of the study published in the journal Nature Communications, “It is difficult to know what this lost world might have looked like before the ice came along, but it was certainly warmer back then. Ancient palm tree pollen has been discovered from Antarctica, not far from our study site.”

Some earlier studies have uncovered ancient landscapes beneath Antarctica’s ice including mountains. But the landscape discovered in the new study was the first of its kind. It is estimated that such an environment would likely have been populated by wildlife. But the area’s fossil record is too incomplete to know which animals may have lived there. The ice above the ancient landscape measures about 2.2 kilometers to 3 kilometers thick.

The researchers said one way to learn more would be to drill through the ice and take a piece of the earth below. This could uncover evidence showing ancient life, as was done with samples taken in Greenland dating back two million years ago.

Right before 34 million years ago, Antarctica’s landscape and wildlife was likely similar to today’s cold temperate rainforests. That includes places like Tasmania, New Zealand and South America’s Patagonia area. When the climate cooled even more, an ice sheet grew which covered the whole continent.

2 . The United Kingdom is hosting the AI Safety Summit, bringing politicians, computer scientists and big AI company leaders to a site chosen for its symbolism: Bletchley Park, the birthplace of computing and code-breaking (密码破译).

During World War II, a group of mathematicians, chess masters and other experts gathered at the Victorian country house 72 kilometers northwest of London to start a secret war against Nazi Germany. Their goal was to break a set of constantly changing codes produced by Nazi Germany’s Enigma machine. To do it, Bletchley Park’s wartime scientists — building on work done by Polish code-breakers — developed Colossus, the first programmable digital computer. Some historians say cracking the code helped shorten the war by up to two years.

“It has oversimplified its true contribution by describing Bletchley Park as a playground for Turing and other scientists.” said historian Chris Smith, author of The Hidden History of Bletchley Park. “Although it fits into the romantic idea that a group of smart men with a bit of wool and some yards of wire can win the war. In fact, almost 10,000 people worked at Bletchley Park during the war. Three quarters of them were women. It’s basically a factory... Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. When peace came, the code-breakers returned to civilian life and promised to keep secret about their wartime work. It was not until the 1970s that the work at Bletchley Park became widely known in Britain.”

In 1994, the site opened as a museum, after local historians banded together to prevent it from being pulled down to build a supermarket. It was restored to its 1940s appearance, complete with old typewriters, phones and cups—including the one tied to a heater in Hut 8, where Turing led the Enigma team.

3 . Several cultural relics unearthed from the Haihunhou tomb in Nanchang have been confirmed to be official documents presented to the imperial court. The three pieces already released were all written with ink, according to the Nanchang Evening News.

Based on the analysis by Zhang Yuzheng, an expert at Beijing Union University, the relics may be the oldest original copies of senior official documents in the Han Dynasty (BC 206-AD 220), which have great value for the study of ancient official documents.

Among the three publicly released relics, two of them remain fairly intact with exact date information, though the handwriting is partly damaged. Chinese characters meaning “concubine (妾)” and “Haihunhou He” can be seen on the relics, which show that they were written by the Marquis of Haihun Liu He and his concubine.

Zhang Yuzheng suggested that according to Haushu, the documents presented to the imperial court should be in two copies, with the original copy submitted to the emperor and the copy to the minister. The minister would first review the contents and then decide whether it was appropriate to be submitted to the emperor. The system was ended during the reign of Emperor Hanxuan in the Han Dynasty. The unearthed relics from Haihunhou tomb are believed to have been written on the fourth year of Yuankang during the reign of Emperor Hanxun when the system was already ended.

Therefore, Zhang holds that the unearthed relics written with date information “fourth year of Yuankang” were very likely the original copies of official documents, instead of copies.

The whole structure and content are also complete, the handwriting is quite neat, and the format (格式) is strict, consistent with the features of an original copy, according to Zhang.

5 . Archaeologists in Egypt have unearthed a Sphinx statue (狮身人面像) with a smiley face near the Hathor Temple, one of the country’s best preserved ancient sites. The smiling Sphinx is much smaller than the famous Sphinx in Giza, which is 20 metres high. The stone work of art, believed to be a stylized representation of an ancient Roman emperor, was found inside a two-level tomb near the temple in southern Egypt.

Next to the beautifully and accurately carved Sphinx, researchers had found a Roman stone written in hieroglyph (象形文字). Once fully translated, the stone may unveil the identity of the sculpted ruler, who could be Emperor Claudius.

The smiling Sphinx is among a series of discoveries announced over the past few months. The country has uncovered major archaeological discoveries in recent months, primarily in the Saqqara cemetery (墓地) south of Cairo as well as in Giza, home to the only surviving structure of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Recently, Egypt announced the discovery of a hidden nine-metre passage inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, which may lead to the actual burial room of pharaoh (法老) Khufu, or Cheops. Further south, in Luxor, archaeologists had discovered a 1,800-year-old complete residential city from the Roman times.

Hathor Temple, about 500 kilometres south of the capital Cairo, was home to the Dendera Zodiac, a heavenly map which has been displayed at the Louvre in Paris for more than a century. Since Frenchman Sebastien Louis Saulnier took it out of the temple in 1922, Egypt has been attempting to get it back.

Some experts see such announcements as having more political and economic weight than scientific, as Egypt is counting on tourism to revive its vital tourism industry in a severe economic crisis. The government aims to draw in 30 million tourists a year by 2028.

8 . Roughly 2,000 years ago, Mount Vesuvius erupted, destroying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Now some scientists are working to decode (解码) one of the great mysteries of that time — the scrolls (卷轴) of Herculaneum.

In 1752, workers were digging in Herculaneum when they uncovered a home that had belonged to a rich person. Inside, under a layer of volcanic mud, they discovered over 600 scrolls — the largest library of the ancient world. Most of the scrolls were made from papyrus—a paper like material. The heat from the volcano had burned the scrolls so much that they looked like blocks of charcoal (木炭).

The scrolls were so fragile that just touching them could make them fall apart. So scientists have been looking for ways to read the scrolls without opening them. Dr. Seales developed a method of using a CT (computed tomography) scanner to take 3D X-ray images of a papyrus scroll. Then he used a computer program to “unroll” the scroll, and get pictures of what it looked like on the inside. In 2016, his team used this method to read a burned scroll found near the Dead Sea.

But the scrolls from Herculaneum are much harder. The ink is made from charcoal and water, and doesn’t show up well in CT scans. He trained an AI program to figure out the writing. Though Dr. Seales was making progress, it was slow going. Then Dr. Seales met with two businessmen, who had the idea of creating a contest.

About 1,500 people have taken part in the contest. These people are sharing information as they make progress, so everyone can build on those ideas. In August, Luke Farritor, a 21-year-old student at the University of Nebraska, created an AI program that found a whole word: “πορψúραc”, or “porphyras” which means “purple”.

“This is the first word ever read from these ancient scrolls. For me, reading words from within the Herculaneum scrolls is like stepping onto the moon,” Dr. Seales says. “Now I can’t wait to explore.”