Europe heatwaves, China’s LineShine supercomputer and science policy

The Copernicus Climate Change Service warns Europe’s heatwaves are becoming more frequent and more intense.

• Main announcement:Copernicus deputy director Samantha Burgess says “Heatwaves are here to stay, until we turn the tap off to global emissions.” Europe is heating up twice as fast as the global average; researchers analysed meteorological data from 854 cities, finding almost half have already broken, or are predicted to break, all-time heat-stress records since 18 June.
• Other items in this briefing:China’s LineShine has been reported as the world’s fastest supercomputer using 14 million processing cores and specialized AI-capable units (not GPUs); scientists warn the far-right AfD party’s manifesto proposes restrictions on research in Saxony-Anhalt (quote from Bettina Rockenbach); the US NIH is experiencing new post-peer-review political screening that delays or rejects grants (algorithms flagging terms like “gender” and “climate change”); features include CRISPR epigenome editing and a study on overwintering “zombie” forest fires (paper DOI cited).