Before the Great Wall, Chinese rulers built a shallow ditch
A network of trenches, walls and enclosures built across the steppes of China and Mongolia 800 years ago seems to have been erected to control the flow of people, perhaps for tax reasons ⌘ Read more

We’re about to unlock the secrets of ancient human brains
For the first time, we have a method for extracting proteins from preserved soft tissues like brains – which could be a treasure trove of evolutionary information ⌘ Read more

Massive glacier collapse triggers landslide that buries Swiss village
Villagers in Blatten, Switzerland, were evacuated earlier this month after authorities warned a nearby glacier was on the brink of collapse – one of many becoming less stable as global temperature rise ⌘ Read more

How your whole imagination is conjured up from three brain processes
Understanding the neurological systems that produce the world inside your head can help you to harness its transformative power ⌘ Read more

Do we have free will? Quantum experiments may soon reveal the answer
Whether or not we have partial free will could soon be resolved by experiments in quantum physics, with potential consequences for everything from religion to quantum computers ⌘ Read more

How visualisation sets you up for success by changing your cognition
The vividness of your mind’s eye isn’t fixed - and training it up is the secret tool of top athletes and businesspeople. Here’s how you can help develop yours ⌘ Read more

Fossils show puzzling lack of evolution during last ice age peak
Thousands of fossils from the La Brea tar pits in California show no signs of mammals and birds evolving in response to shifting temperatures over the past 50,000 years ⌘ Read more

You can make fair dice from any shape you like
Want to roll an armadillo when you play Dungeons & Dragons, instead of standard dice? Now you can, thanks to a technique for mapping the probabilities produced by any shape ⌘ Read more

We’re getting close to recreating the first step in evolution of life
Life is thought to have begun when RNA began replicating itself, and researchers have got close to achieving this in the lab ⌘ Read more

Your imagination holds the power to make you healthier and happier
Imagination isn’t mere childhood whimsy – harnessing its extraordinary capacities can benefit us all ⌘ Read more

The world could experience a year above 2°C of warming by 2029
2024 was the first single year to surpass the 1.5°C global warming threshold – now scientists predict that a year above 2°C is possible in the near future ⌘ Read more

The extremes of imagination reveal how our brains perceive reality
The worlds inside our heads can be dramatically different. What does that reveal about how our minds shape our lives, asks cognitive neurologist Adam Zeman ⌘ Read more

Medieval woman was executed and displayed on London riverbank
A skeleton found in London records a brutal killing about 1200 years ago, thought to be a rare example of a judicial execution of a woman in medieval England ⌘ Read more

Humans were crafting tools from whale bones 20,000 years ago
More than 60 ancient tools found in France and Spain have been identified as whale bone, and the evidence shows that people made tools from this material a thousand years earlier than previously thought ⌘ Read more

The four types of imagination and how they create our worlds
Your imagination isn’t just one thing. The latest neuroscience is untangling just how diverse this faculty really is, says cognitive neurologist Adam Zeman ⌘ Read more

The sun is killing off SpaceX’s Starlink satellites
There have never been so many satellites orbiting Earth as there are today, thanks in part to the launch of mega constellations like SpaceX’s Starlink internet service - and now we are learning just how the sun’s activity can affect them ⌘ Read more