Smallpox is the only human infectious disease to have been eradicated worldwide. Researchers have now recovered fragments of ancient DNA belonging to variola virus, the virus that causes smallpox, from the naturally mummified remains of two Indigenous people buried in northern Chile. For centuries, smallpox caused devastating epidemics. Its severe form, variola major, killed around…
From the Vredefort Dome in South Africa (the world’s oldest and largest known meteorite-impact structure) to the volcanic lakes of the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, Africa’s landscapes hold some of Earth’s oldest stories. Morocco’s M’Goun Unesco Global Geopark records more than 200 million years of geological history, while Tanzania’s Ngorongoro-Lengai landscape brings together a…
Over the past 50,000 years, many of the world’s large mammals have gone extinct. Until recent decades, all we knew about them came from fossils. Now, analysis of ancient DNA is adding to the picture. Ancient DNA is damaged and degraded genetic material often obtained from fossils thousands of years old. It’s giving scientists insights…
Drought-resistant and locally sourced, they are sustainable alternatives to wheat and the market for them is growing. As health-conscious consumers increasingly look beyond wheat, Africa’s indigenous crops are finding new commercial value. Growing demand for gluten-free foods is encouraging bakeries, researchers and food manufacturers to transform traditional staples such as cassava, millet, sorghum and teff…
Several people were also injured in the incident on Monday at the popular tourist site, say Mexican officials, weeks before the country hosts the Fifa World Cup.
The helmet and three golden bracelets were stolen in January 2025, but one bracelet is yet to be found.
He turned “cat burglar” into a job description. A 52‑year‑old man has been charged after an Egyptian cat sculpture and “priceless” artifacts were stolen from an Australian history museum, Queensland police said Sunday. The suspect is accused of smashing a window at the Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology in Caboolture, north of Brisbane, in…
Blood tests are useful tools for doctors and scientific researchers: they can reveal a lot about a body’s health. Usually, a blood sample is taken to get a picture of the large molecules that are present, such as cholesterols, lipids and proteins. This is called a metabolic profile. For more specific information, another kind of…
You have probably seen the images of the surface of Mars, beamed back by NASA’s rovers. What if there were a time machine capable of roaming Earth during its remote geological past, perhaps even going right back to its beginnings, beaming back pictures of similar quality? This is not science fiction. In remote corners of…
New genetic research is shedding light on some of the earliest chapters of our human history. In one of the largest studies of its kind, scientists analysed DNA from 28 individuals who lived in southern Africa between 10,200 and a few hundred years ago. The study provides more evidence that hunter-gatherers from southern Africa were…
