J. Meng

In May 2022, sea surface temperatures off the coast of Peru were a degree below normal. Nothing hinted at trouble, but two independent "seismographs" had already picked up a rumble from below: El Niño was coming in a year.

The Pacific Ocean is a giant network of nerve endings that warns of an impending attack a year in advance. In 2023–2024, El Niño, the warm phase of the Pacific climate oscillation, pushed global temperatures to record highs. Now, two independent methods, like two doctors examining the same symptoms, agree: no new attack in 2025.

A heavy atomic nucleus of californium-252 can spontaneously split into two large fragments — much like a water droplet bursting apart. But inside such a droplet, quantum laws are at play, and each fragment acquires its own rotation — a spin.