“CONGRATULATIONS to America – this has been an amazing two days,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said on 31 May, as two astronauts arrived on the International Space Station. They had launched the day before, carried into orbit by a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. The launch was a major milestone for US space flight (see NASA […] More
Documentary Stalking Chernobyl meets the eclectic mix of people who keep visiting the site of world’s worst nuclear disaster. The film is a triumph, says Simon Ings Humans 3 June 2020 Stalking Chernobyl: Exploration after apocalypse Iara Lee Free on Vimeo and YouTube THE film festival circuit is frozen for lockdown, so how are independent […] More
Many people are experiencing boredom during lockdown. Book Out of My Skull brings together decades of research on this familiar yet elusive feeling, writes Elle Hunt Humans 3 June 2020 Out of My Skull James Danckert and John Eastwood Harvard University Press “Drab routine has begun,” wrote the Russian cosmonaut Valentin Lebedev, just one week […] More
The oldest and largest known monument built by the Mayan civilisation has been found in Mexico. Called Aguada Fénix, it is a huge raised platform 1.4 kilometres long. Aguada Fénix was built around 1000 BC, centuries before the Maya began constructing their famous stepped pyramids. Its design suggests that early Mayan societies were fairly egalitarian […] More
Fresh evidence from DNA analysis is helping to piece together the Dead Sea Scrolls – 25,000 fragments of parchment discovered in the Qumran caves and surrounding areas in the West Bank over the past 70 years, which contain the oldest known copies of biblical texts. Oded Rechavi and Noam Mizrahi at Tel Aviv University in […] More
In her latest book, Superior: The Return of Race Science, Angela Saini examines what she calls the “subtle” return of race within mainstream science. She tells New Scientist that part of the reason she wrote the book was to understand our beliefs on race, and whether scientific beliefs have really moved on since the era […] More
Religious ceremonies that took place thousands of years ago in what is now Israel involved the burning of cannabis, according to a study of an ancient shrine. The finding suggests psychoactive substances played a key role in rituals performed in the biblical Kingdom of Judah. “In many places in the world, psychoactive materials were used […] More
When everything is recorded by an implant in the brain, people become paragons of moderation – but this societal bliss isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, finds Sally Adee Technology 27 May 2020 No Signal Jem Tugwell Serpentine Books A BUREAUCRAT navigating the pandemic would chew their right arm off for an iMe. No […] More
