Humans

A 3D representation of the wreck site is shown in this photogrammetry image from the Maritime Archaeology Trust.Norfolk Historic Shipwrecks Ltd
THIS intriguing selection of images documents a catastrophic shipwreck that, after more than 300 years, has had some of its relics brought to the surface. They will be showcased in a new exhibition, The Last Voyage of the Gloucester, by the University of East Anglia and Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, both in the UK.
1682 painting of the wreck by Johan Danckerts.Royal Museums Greenwich/Wikimedia Commons
In 1682, the warship HMS Gloucester set sail for Edinburgh carrying the future King James II of England and Ireland, who was also King James VII of Scotland. Not long into its journey, the ship struck a sandbank off the Norfolk coast and sank. James survived, but some 250 people on board died.Advertisment

It wasn’t until 2007 that the miraculously well-preserved shipwreck was discovered by brothers Julian and Lincoln Barnwell, who had spent years scuba diving in search of the vessel. However, the pair were unable to reveal their find until last year so it could be protected.
The ship’s lifting tools on the seabed
A 3D representation of the wreck site is shown in the main picture in a photogrammetry image from the Maritime Archaeology Trust.

Pictured above: a pair of glasses in their case; and below two salt-glazed jugs, known as Bellarmine bottles; and a “Sun in Splendour” bottle. All were found at the site.
Two salt-glazed jugs, known as Bellarmine bottles, left; and a “Sun in Splendour” rightNorfolk Historic Shipwrecks
Pictured below the 65-kilogram bronze bell of HMS Gloucester.

The exhibition is at Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery until 10 September.

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Jeffrey Cirio as the Creature, in a still from Asif Kapadia’s film adaptation of the ballet Creature.Courtesy BFI Distribution and English National Ballet
Creature
Asif Kapadia
On limited release in the UK and Ireland

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A grave in Malomirovo, Bulgaria, containing a human skeleton bearing evidence of horse ridingMichał Podsiadło
The earliest evidence of horse riding has been found in 5000-year-old human skeletons from south-east Europe.
The bones of nine men from graves in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania show hallmarks of horse riding in the patterns of wear on their spines, legs and pelvises.
The adoption of horse riding is seen as one of the key developments of history, as it helped people to herd livestock, promoted trade and migration, and eventually transformed warfare.Advertisment
“Suddenly, people had the possibility to move five times as fast and carry 10 times more than they were able to transport before – that’s revolutionary,” says Martin Trautmann at the University of Helsinki in Finland.
It has long been suspected that the first people to domesticate horses were the Yamnaya, livestock herders originating in the Eurasian steppe north of the Black Sea and Caucasus mountains. They went on to colonise most of Europe in what some archaeologists see as a murderous rampage.
Traces of horse milk have been found in shards of their pots. Although this shows that people kept horses, they may have done so first for their milk and meat, so it is unclear when they might have begun riding the animals.
Trautmann’s team analyzed the remains of 217 human skeletons that had previously been found in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Serbia for signs of wear on their bones that could indicate horse riding. They dated from between 3000 and 7000 years ago. “Bones are living tissue and if you are doing certain activities throughout your life, the attached muscles and ligaments exert pressure on the bones,” says team member Volker Heyd, also at the University of Helsinki.
Several features have previously been proposed as hallmarks of horse riding, as they are sometimes present in modern people who spend a lot of time on horseback. They include wear of the top and bottom surfaces of the spinal vertebrae, caused by the up-and-down motion experienced on a horse.

Another potential sign is a thicker and rougher area where thigh muscles join to thigh bones, showing heavy use of the thighs, which could be from needing to grip the horse with the legs. “There’s additional bone growth to make the area where ligament meets bone bigger, so it disperses the force better,” says Trautmann.
The team assessed all the skeletons for six such hallmarks. Five individuals showed the strongest evidence for horse riding, having five or more of the signs. Another four skeletons showed four of the signs. All nine were male, dating from 4500 to 5000 years ago.
But William Taylor at the University of Colorado Boulder says other kinds of evidence of riding, such as remains of bridles, don’t show up in the archaeological record from this region until about 1000 years later. “It does zoom in on this region of the steppes as a homeland, but we are off by almost a millennium.”
The patterns of wear on the bones aren’t conclusive proof of horse riding, as they could have been caused by other activities, such as riding in a cart pulled by cattle, he says. “We don’t have the kind of data I would like to see to let human skeletons track horse riding versus other activities.”

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The newly discovered Moai statue found on Rapa Nui, also known as Easter IslandComunidad Ma'u Henua HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
A moai statue has been discovered on Easter Island at the bottom of a recently dried crater lake. The statue is the first of the island’s famous giant-headed figures to be found in the lake.
Easter Island, located more than 3500 kilometres from the South American continent, is dotted with more than 900 of the iconic statues, carved from volcanic rock more than 500 years ago by the Rapa Nui people.
Most of the statues were carved from rock quarried at the Rano Raraku volcano. Some were left at the volcano, which is now a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site. Hundreds of others, each of which weigh tens of thousands of pounds, were transported to other parts of the island.Advertisment
“We think we know all the moai, but then a new one turns up,” Terry Hunt at the University of Arizona told the television program Good Morning America, which first reported the find on 25 February.
The new statue is 1.6 metres tall and is “full-bodied with recognisable features but no clear definition,” according to a statement from Ma’u Henua, the Rapa Nui organisation that manages the park. It was found lying face down among tall reeds.
“Under the dry conditions that we have now, we may find more,” said Hunt.
Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs via Getty Images
The monolithic statues have long inspired awe and speculation about their role in an apparent collapse of the island’s population in the 17th century; the first European on the island landed in 1722. For indigenous Rapa Nui, Hunt said the statues represent deified ancestors.
“For the Rapa Nui people, it’s [a] very, very important discovery,” Salvador Atan Hito, the vice president of Ma’u Henua, told the tv program.
Rano Raraku’s crater is normally filled with water, but the lake has been shrinking since 2018, Ninoska Avareipua Huki Cuadros, director of Ma’u Henua, told Agence France-Presse.
Easter Island has seen a decade of drought, driven in part by climate change as well as the pattern of below-average temperature in the tropical Pacific known as La Nina. The current La Nina is the third in a rare “triple dip” event, which may itself be linked to human-caused climate change.

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Mike Darwin was president of a cryonics company called Alcor Life Extension FoundationSipa/Shutterstock
Frozen Head
Hosted by Alaina Urquhart and Ash Kelley
Wondery
FROM his childhood, Laurence Pilgeram was preoccupied with death. He would vividly imagine his parents in their caskets, wondering why people had to die. Pilgeram went on to build a lab on the family farm in Montana and experimented on guinea pigs, injecting bovine growth hormone into their pituitary glands to see if he could stop ageing and dying. “He was just so afraid of death,” his brother … More

Lianna Nixon; Leap of ScienceLianna Nixon
FEMALE scientists are still a minority, making up a third of all researchers. In celebration and support of the UN’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the UK-based Royal Photographic Society held its first Woman Science Photographer of the Year competition.
Margaret LeJeuneAdvertisment
“Representation helps to invite the next generation to follow their curiosity and get involved in the fields of science and art,” said Margaret LeJeune, who took the adult category’s top prize for her image titled Watershed Triptych (pictured above). It shows maps of the three largest watersheds in the US, lit by bioluminescent marine algae called dinoflagellates. Though their glow looks dazzling, the toxins some of them release can pose a threat to ocean life.
Kelly Zhang
The Young Woman Science Photographer award, open to under-18s, went to Kelly Zhang for The Beauty of Soap Bubbles (pictured above) – a trippy shot of the iridescent surfaces of these delicate spheres. Finalists also included Lianna Nixon for Leap of Science (main image), which provides a snapshot of the recent MOSAiC Expedition that probed how the Arctic will be affected by climate change. Here, researchers are searching for a spot to measure the surface reflectivity of sea ice.
Some shortlisted photos are shown in the trio of images below.
Jindra Jehu
A paper and engine oil structure transformed by the growth of pink oyster mushrooms, by Jindra Jehu (above);
Lina Yeleuova
A nanosatellite launched in 2022 to analyse air pollution, by Lina Yeleuova, runner-up in the under-18 category (above);
Irina Petrova Adamatzky
The skin of a corn snake under UV light, by Irina Petrova Adamatzky (above).

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