Insect trafficking poses a risk to wildlife and human health: Rhino beetles are just one insect species being traded illegally. Lightboxx/Shutterstock Four men were recently arrested and fined for attempting to smuggle more than 5,000 ants out of Kenya. Aiming to sell them as part of the exotic pet trade, these ants were being stored …
1.5 million-year-old bone tools discovered in Tanzania rewrite the history of human evolution: The ancestors of humans started making tools about 3.3 million years ago. First they made them out of stone, then they switched to bone as a raw material. Until recently, the earliest clear evidence of bone tool making was from sites in …
Ancient DNA reveals Maghreb communities preserved their culture and genes, even in a time of human migration: Doukanet el Khoutifa, Tunisia, where some of the remains were found. Giulio Lucarini, CC BY-NC-ND The Neolithic period began in southwest Asia around 12,000 years ago. It marked a major shift in human history as societies transitioned from …
Athol Fugard: the great South African playwright who captured what it means to be human: I was shocked to learn that the famous South African writer Athol Fugard had passed away. I had known his age to be 92 but somehow I never expected him to die. He was always a survivor. When I think …
LA fires show the human cost of climate-driven ‘whiplash’ between wet and dry extremes: October to April is normally considered to be the wet season in California, yet this January, the region is experiencing some of the most devastating fires it’s ever seen. As of January 10, five major fires in and around Los Angeles …
Better ways to recover metals needed for technology from electronic waste could benefit the environment and human health: Korawat photo shoot / Shutterstock Our increasing reliance on technology is placing pressure on the global supply of materials that are essential for manufacturing electronic devices. Raw materials are being mined to cover the demand for smartphones, …
Big companies profit from poverty but aren’t obliged to uphold human rights. International law must change – scholar: There is some disagreement among legal practitioners and scholars about whether corporations have duties under international law. Many argue that only states are bound by international law, and it is those states which are obliged to regulate …
Ancient human DNA from a South African rock shelter sheds light on 10,000 years of history: Oakhurst rock shelter is an archaeological site near the town of George on the southern coast of South Africa. It is set into a sandstone cliff above a stream in a valley forested by towering old yellowwood trees. Archaeologists …
‘The data on extreme human ageing is rotten from the inside out’ – Ig Nobel winner Saul Justin Newman: From the swimming habits of dead trout to the revelation that some mammals can breathe through their backsides, a group of leading leftfield scientists have been taking their bows at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the …
What the unique shape of the human heart tells us about our evolution: Human hearts differ from those belonging to our closest relatives like the chimpanzee. anek.soowannaphoom/Shutterstock Mammals, from the mighty blue whale to the tiny shrew, inhabit nearly every corner of our planet. Their remarkable adaptability to different environments has long fascinated scientists, with …
UK ‘taking back control’ of its borders risks rolling back human rights protections: The High Court in Belfast has ruled that key elements of the UK’s Illegal Migration Act are incompatible with the Windsor framework and should not be applied in Northern Ireland. Once again, Northern Ireland appears to be a block on the Brexit …
Leaving the European convention on human rights won’t stop the boats – but it will create other problems for the UK: Faced with legal and practical challenges to getting planes off the ground to Rwanda, Rishi Sunak has threatened to leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR). The prime minister argues the convention, which …
Gaza war: Israel using AI to identify human targets raising fears that innocents are being caught in the net: Death by algorithm: increasingly AI is being used to identify targets, as in Gaza. TSViPhoto/Shutterstock A report by Jerusalem-based investigative journalists published in +972 magazine finds that AI targeting systems have played a key role in …
How writing ‘made us human’ – an ’emotional history’ from ancient Iraq to the present day: Evidence suggests that writing was invented in southern Iraq sometime before 3000BC. But what happened next? Anyone interested in this question will find How Writing Made Us Human by Walter Stephens both an enjoyable and stimulating read. It offers …
A new supercomputer aims to closely mimic the human brain — it could help unlock the secrets of the mind and advance AI: Sdecoret / Shutterstock A supercomputer scheduled to go online in April 2024 will rival the estimated rate of operations in the human brain, according to researchers in Australia. The machine, called DeepSouth, …
Human intelligence: how cognitive circuitry, rather than brain size, drove its evolution: wikipedia/Foley, CC BY-SA It’s one of the great paradoxes of evolution. Humans have demonstrated that having large brains are key to our evolutionary success, and yet such brains are extremely rare in other animals. Most get by on tiny brains, and don’t seem …
Human trafficking, sexual abuse and exploitation: the ‘loss and damage’ from climate change a fund will not compensate: A child's doll discarded during a storm. Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson Violence against women and children, including sexual abuse and exploitation, remains a taboo subject in the policy debates attended by international delegates at COP28, the latest round of …
Apartheid in Namibia: why human rights and women are celebrated on the same day: 10 December is worldwide commemorated as Human Rights Day. It marks the anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted on that day in 1948. Many countries and organisations acknowledge this as a significant marker. It created a lasting, …