The hunt for food led hominins to cast the first stone half a million years ago – 200,000 years earlier than we thought. Archaeologists have found the oldest evidence yet of stone-tipped spears. The new discovery in South Africa suggests that it was neither our species nor Neanderthals that pioneered the use of such spears, but our shared ancestor Homo heidelbergensis. Image: Jayne Wilkins
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Cancer cells might evade the body’s defences, but dodging DNA tentacles is another matter. A jellyfish-inspired device might make it easier to diagnose cancer in its early stages by trapping harmful cells in the blood. Image: jfeuchter
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Radioisotopes have ’em, and apparently so does DNA. A study of bones from New Zealand’s extinct Moas suggests the double helix has a measurable half-life. Its length indicates that we have underestimated DNA’s ability to survive in the fossil record. Image: M. Allentoft
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One religious statue has a stronger connection than most to the heavens. An 11th-century carving from Mongolia of the Buddhist god Vaisravana was fashioned from a meteorite fragment, a chemical analysis shows. Its extraterrestrial origins make it unique in both religious art and meteorite science. Image: Elmar Buchner
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The whole world shuddered in sympathy back in April, as Earth’s crust began the difficult birth of a new tectonic plate boundary. Two huge earthquakes ripped through the floor of the Indian Ocean, triggering large aftershocks the world over, and providing the best evidence yet that the vast Indo-Australian plate is being torn in two. Image: Fred Pollitz
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