Reuters Science News Summary

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Otter-like critter swam lakes and rivers in the age of dinosaurs

About 165 million ​years ago, a furry critter that swam like a platypus, hunted like an otter ​and had a tail similar to a beaver's frolicked in the ‌lakes ​and rivers of what is now China pursuing fish and salamanders, the oldest-known example of a semiaquatic lifestyle in mammalian evolutionary history. Researchers are describing a fossil unearthed in the Inner Mongolia region of a mammalian species named Megacauda sungei that lived during the Jurassic Period in the ‌age of dinosaurs.

A 194-year-old tortoise, world's oldest land animal, may hold clues to longer life

The world's oldest-known terrestrial animal, an Aldabra giant tortoise named Jonathan and estimated to be about 194 years old, may owe his extraordinary longevity to a combination of genetic traits and an ability to keep key cellular systems functioning in a more youthful way, according to scientists. Members of this species are known to ‌live more than 100 years, but Jonathan has far exceeded that. Brought to the remote South Atlantic island of St Helena as a fully grown animal in 1882, likely from the ‌Aldabra Atoll or the Granitic Seychelles, the tortoise now resides in a paddock at Plantation House, the governor's residence.

Inside the deadlock at the world's top climate science body

The decision was expected to take minutes. But after nearly three years of debate, members of the world’s leading authority on climate change still can’t agree on a timeline to publish its next review of the latest science on the warming planet. Such assessments from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have informed ⁠every major ​United Nations climate agreement for three decades. But the ⁠impasse over publication dates could leave countries to decide the next phase of action without consensus on critical issues – including the extent to which some global warming might be reversible – according to interviews with more than a dozen current and ⁠former IPCC scientists, government negotiators and meeting observers.

Trump to appear at White House science event on Thursday

US President Donald Trump will speak at a White House event on scientific discovery on Thursday, according to a social ​media post from his tech adviser Michael Kratsios. The event will highlight the Trump administration's plan to overhaul how federal scientific research funding is managed and distributed, according to an invitation seen ⁠by Reuters. Kratsios first released the plan in July. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman will also speak at the event, according to the invitation and a post from Kratsios on the social media platform X.

Scientists in Vienna ⁠and ​Beijing create world's first nuclear clocks

Scientific teams working separately in Vienna and Beijing have developed the world's first two operating nuclear clocks in what they are calling an important advance in timekeeping that promises wide-ranging practical applications and offers a new tool to investigate fundamental physics. The two devices represent the next generation of atomic clocks, the ultra-accurate timekeeping machines first created in 1949. The two research teams, ⁠describing their achievements on Wednesday in scientific papers published in the journal Nature, said nuclear clocks have the potential to outperform the best conventional atomic clocks, but do not do so ⁠yet.

Russian satellite activity raises concerns for Starlink, German space ⁠commander says

The shadowing of a Western satellite supporting Ukraine by a cluster of Russian military satellites earlier this year demonstrates capabilities that could threaten commercial constellations such as Elon Musk's Starlink, Germany’s space commander told Reuters. In May, Russia manoeuvred four military satellites, known as Cosmos 2610 through 2613, close ‌to a commercial radar-imaging satellite, according to ‌the US Space Force. Finland's ICEYE, which supplies data to the US and its allies, confirmed to ​Reuters that it was one of their satellites.