A big ocean current that warms Europe is getting weaker. This could make Europe much colder. Scientists call it AMOC. It moves warm water from the tropics to Europe. Recent studies say it could weaken by half in 75 years. If it shuts down, Earth could become very cold, like a snowball. This might cause more extreme weather. Europe could have very cold and very hot days. The Southern Hemisphere would get even warmer. There would be stronger storms in the North Atlantic. Drought in Africa's Sahel would get worse. Summer rains in Europe could decrease, hurting farmers. Scientists have warned about this for many years. The movie The Day After Tomorrow showed this idea. But predictions have been very different. Now, scientists have more data. They think AMOC is weakening. Some scientists suggest building dams to stop water from flowing into the AMOC. This might help stabilize it. But such ideas are controversial. No one knows what might happen. The AMOC works like a conveyor belt. Water density drives it. Saltier water sinks. Colder water sinks. This keeps the current moving. As AMOC releases heat, water gets cold and sinks. Then it flows south along the seafloor. Warmer water moves north to replace it. For decades, scientists worried that climate change could weaken AMOC. Computer models suggested this. But models had trouble predicting when and how much. Now, scientists have about 20 years of direct observations. A new study says AMOC will be 50% weaker by 2100. Predicting AMOC is hard. It's not like predicting global temperature. The problem is that different climate models give different answers. The IPCC uses about 50 models. They take the average. But for AMOC, the results vary a lot. The biggest problem is predicting how salty the ocean will be. Saltier water sinks more, which drives currents. To predict salinity, scientists must predict rain. Rain can dilute ocean salt. But predicting rain is hard because clouds are uncertain. Past models varied widely. The average drop is about 32%, but it could be 37% more or less. Portmann's team used statistics to get a better idea.

Scientists have found a new kind of monkey in the forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is only the fifth new African monkey species found in 75 years. Local people call it the Likweli. The monkey is black with a crest of spiky hair. It has a bright orange-cream patch around its mouth and nose. It also has gray skin on its cheeks and a white patch near its tail. Adults weigh about 15 pounds, the size of a small dog. They live high in the trees in small groups of about 6 monkeys. They are usually quiet when people visit. But their loud calls sound like roars and are easy to hear. In 2008, an explorer took the first photo of the Likweli. But the photo was too blurry to identify the animal. The monkey was not seen again until 2018. That year, a local researcher named Jean-Pierre Kapale saw it in Lomami National Park. He took photos that made scientists want to learn more. Over several years, a team led by John Hart recorded 114 sightings of the monkey. They knew it was special, but they needed physical evidence to confirm it as a new species. In April 2021, park guards found three dead Likweli monkeys that had been killed for meat. This let scientists study the monkeys closely and get DNA. The monkey's features, DNA, and calls all showed it was a new species. Scientists named it Colobus congoensis, which means 'from Congo.' Its closest relative is the black colobus monkey, which lives over 700 miles away. The two species likely split from a common ancestor 4 to 5 million years ago. The scientists published their findings on July 15, 2026. They worry about the Likweli's future. The monkey lives in only about 656 square miles, mostly inside Lomami National Park. It faces threats from hunting and loss of its forest home. Hart and his team want the Likweli to be listed as Endangered. They hope this will help protect the monkey and its forest for many years.

Astronomers found two giant planets that are less dense than cotton candy. They are called TOI-791 b and TOI-791 c. These planets are the size of Jupiter. They orbit a star like our Sun. This star is about 1,113 light-years away from Earth. These planets belong to a rare group called 'super-puffs.'

'Only a few super-puff planets are known,' said Dr. George Dransfield. She led the study. 'It is even rarer to find two in the same system.' Their very low density makes them interesting to scientists. They want to learn how planets form and change.

Volunteers first spotted the planets. They were looking at data from NASA's TESS space telescope. They saw tiny dips in the star's brightness. These dips happen when a planet passes in front of the star.

To confirm the finding, Dr. Dransfield's team used telescopes around the world. The ASTEP observatory in Antarctica was very helpful. It is dark all winter there. So they could record full transits. A transit is when a planet crosses in front of its star and blocks some light. Each transit lasted more than 11 hours. These were the longest complete transits ever seen from the ground.

The team measured the planets' sizes by watching the star's light during transits. They found the planets' masses by seeing how their gravity pulled on each other. Together, these measurements showed the planets are very low in density.

The two super-puffs orbit their star in a pattern. For every five orbits of the inner planet, the outer planet makes three orbits. This suggests the two planets formed together from the same disk of gas and dust around their star. The findings were published on June 25, 2026.

Scientists still do not know how super-puffs form. One idea is that they have big amounts of hydrogen and helium gas around small solid cores. These thick atmospheres make the planets look much bigger than they really are. That keeps their density very low.

Dr. Dransfield and her team want to solve this mystery. They will study the atmospheres of TOI-791 b and TOI-791 c with the James Webb Space Telescope. They hope this will explain how super-puff planets form and change over time.