It’s the land that time forgot. Not only have conditions in the Altai-Sayan region in central Asia barely changed since the last ice age, but the mix of mammals that lives there is also almost the same – with the obvious exception of mammoths and the woolly rhinoceros. Image: Pavel “KoraxDC” Kazachkov
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In almost every region of the world, AD536 was marked with bad weather, social disorder – and death. This climatic downturn may well have profoundly altered the course of history. The trigger of this cooling has long been a mystery, but now we may finally be close to identifying the culprit – or culprits. Image: Yotam Rozin
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Nearly 80 years ago, Dutch anthropologist Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald discovered a giant human-like tooth in a drug store in Hong Kong, and named the animal it came from Gigantopithecus. Since then, thousands more large teeth and three jawbones have come to light – but why the largest known ape went extinct remains unclear. Image: Tim Evanson
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It’s a “build your own volcano” kit like no other. A team of geologists in Germany has built a model volcano that crackles with lightning as it erupts. But this is no toy science kit for kids – it could offer insights into the disruption risk to aircraft in the aftermath of an eruption. Image: fmg2001
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What caused the largest mass extinction of them all? A meteorite strike like the one that seems to have sealed the fate of the dinosaurs? Volcanic or tectonic convulsions?The ravages of a humble microbe? To the long list of possible culprits and accomplices we can now add another, controversial entry – fracking. Image: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
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