Move over Africa. It is where humanity began, where we took our first steps and grew big brains. But those interested in the latest cool stuff on the origins of our species should look to Asia instead. Why so? It looks as if some early chapters in the human story, and significant chunks of its later ones too, took place under Asian skies. Image: Tadias Magazine
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Even ancient cities knew about rebranding. Troy was destroyed by war about 3200 years ago – an event that may have inspired Homer to write the Iliad, 400 years later. But a geochemical analysis of pottery from the famous city suggests it rose again, reinventing itself to fit a new political landscape. Image: quantumlars
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An improbable microbe, first found living 3.3 kilometres below South Africa, has been glimpsed half a world away in California. Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator lives in water-filled fractures in South Africa’s deep gold mines, isolated from every other life form on Earth. So how did it arrive in the western US? Image: NASA
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Billions of years ago, a tiny cyanobacterium cracked open a water molecule – and let loose a poison that wrought death and destruction on an epic scale. Now, for the first time, geologists have found evidence of the crucial evolutionary stage just before photosynthesising cyanobacteria split water and began generating oxygen – the moment that made the modern world. Image: Specious Reasons
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Tug of war could well be the oldest game in the world. Cells use it during division to tear themselves apart – each side of the cell planting two tiny “feet” on the ground to gain traction. Now researchers have measured the tiny forces involved when an amoeba plays the game. Image: oceandesetoiles
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