The biggest dinosaur ever may have been twice the size we thought
Since 2014, when news first broke of its discovery, Patagotitan has frequently been described as the most massive animal ever to walk the Earth. Except it isn’t. Weighing up such giants isn’t simple, but new calculations indicate that other dinosaurs from the same family were at least as massive. Image: Zachi Evenor
The dirty truth about eating green
Look at a packet of Quorn mince and you’ll discover that a 75g serving contains 10.9g of protein, 3.4g of carbohydrates and 0.4g of saturated fat. Later this year, a glance at the packet will tell you something else: that producing the 75g serving released the equivalent of 0.16kg of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Image: Roxnstix
Who invented the alphabet? The untold story of a linguistic revolution
The story of that first alphabet has long been a mystery, but over the past 25 years we have made enormous progress towards pinpointing when and where it was invented. Most astonishing, the consensus today is that the alphabet didn’t emerge from a state-sponsored initiative as was long believed. Image: byorori.t
The mysterious microbes shifting humanity’s place in the tree of life
Strange microbes called the Lokis have reignited an argument about the shape of the tree of life, one of biology’s most fundamental ways of describing the rise of life on Earth, with implications for all of us. Image: david.mclanahan
The bizarre plant-like animals that say life’s big bang never happened
The Cambrian explosion is one of the most significant moments in life’s history on Earth because it is the point at which species that are clearly related to today’s animals first appeared. It is seen as evolution’s big bang. But over the past few years, geologists have begun to have second thoughts about whether it happened.
The first Americans: The untold story of the pioneers of the New World
Some 15,000 years ago, a small band of pioneers stood on the threshold of a new world. To the south were the Americas, 40 million square kilometres of virgin territory including wide-open prairies, dense rainforests and high mountain chains. An epic journey was about to begin – but only because a remarkable adventure had just ended. Image: TFM
