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    Silt and Spacelines from the Far Out review: The solace of small games

    From global chip shortages to the war in Ukraine, major games studios have to delay their big releases. Luckily, eager players can find solace in smaller games like Silt or Spacelines from the Far Out, says Jacob Aron

    Humans

    22 June 2022

    By Jacob Aron

    Dive into the beautiful, if creepy, underwater world of SiltSpiral Circus
    Silt
    Spiral Circus
    PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch

    AS I have written here before, the covid-19 pandemic and global chip shortage have caused havoc for the video game industry.
    Whether due to the difficulty of collaborating from home, or an inability to produce consoles for eager players, major titles face repeated delays. Even the Russian invasion of Ukraine has contributed, forcing Ukrainian developer GSC Game World to … More

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    How to reap the benefits of crop rotation in your own garden

    Even the smallest vegetable patch can benefit from the principles of crop rotation, says Clare Wilson

    Humans

    22 June 2022

    By Clare Wilson

    Halfpoint Images/Getty Images
    WHEN I finally reached the top of my local area’s long waiting list for allotments, one aspect of vegetable growing that seemed daunting to me was crop rotation. This means dividing your ground into a few different patches and changing where you grow your plant varieties year on year. The intention is to reduce the build-up of pests and diseases, while also improving soil fertility.
    Any guidance I could find on doing this seemed complicated, plus it required more ground than I initially had, since most of the new plot was badly overgrown. But as I learned, you don’t always … More

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    UK’s earliest hand axes were made by ancient humans 560,000 years ago

    Stone tools found in Fordwich in Canterbury may have been made by an early human called Homo heidelbergensis

    Humans

    22 June 2022

    By Jason Arunn Murugesu
    A selection of flint artefacts excavated at Fordwich, UKAlastair Key
    A cache of prehistoric tools used by ancient humans living in what is now Britain has been confirmed to be at least 560,000 years old. The artefacts are the oldest of their kind known from Britain and among the earliest known in Europe.
    Archaeologists first found ancient hand axes at the site in Fordwich, Canterbury, in the 1920s. But their age was unclear.
    Alastair Key at the University of Cambridge and his colleagues used a modern dating technique to determine the ages of several of the tools, which are now stored in the British Museum. They also conducted fresh excavations at the site and uncovered more evidence of ancient human activity.Advertisement
    The hand axes may have been used to butcher animals and to process animal skins for making clothes. “Early humans probably needed animal skins to keep warm,” says David Bridgland at Durham University in the UK, who worked on the study.
    The team used a method called infrared radio-fluorescence dating to establish how old the tools were. This method involves dating the sand in which the tools were buried, and was made possible because the new excavations helped establish which layer of sand at the site had contained the hand axes found a century ago.
    The technique works by establishing when the sand grains were last exposed to daylight. “This provides a signal for how long [the tools] have been buried,” says Bridgland.

    The team estimates that the tools are about 560,000 to 620,000 years old. This makes the hand axes among the earliest found in Europe. But they are still relatively young compared to hand axes found in Africa, some of which are over a million years old, says Bridgland.
    “These are important findings,” says Chris Stringer at the Natural History Museum in the UK. “Although we have even earlier stone tool assemblages [in Britain] from Happisburgh in Norfolk and Pakefield in Suffolk, these do not include hand axes, making the Fordwich examples the oldest well-dated ones from Britain, and among the oldest known hand axes in Europe.”
    “We don’t know the human species responsible but the age of about 600,000 years is close to that of the Mauer sandpit in Germany, which produced the jawbone of Homo heidelbergensis, which could have been the species responsible,” says Stringer.
    Journal reference: Royal Society Open Science, DOI: 10.1098/rsos.211904
    Sign up to Our Human Story, a free monthly newsletter on the revolution in archaeology and human evolution

    More on these topics: More

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    Don't Miss: Oddball heroes return in The Umbrella Academy season three

    New Scientist’s weekly round-up of the best books, films, TV series, games and more that you shouldn’t miss

    Humans

    15 June 2022

    Courtesy Of Netflix
    Watch
    The Umbrella Academy is back for a third season, in which the adopted-sibling superheroes meet their less dysfunctional counterparts in an alternative reality. Available to watch on Netflix from 22 June.

    Read
    The Digital Republic
    is possible, says Jamie Susskind. He explains how – with proper governance and new institutions, rights and regulators – freedom and democracy can survive despite powerful digital technologies. Buy from 23 June.
    Wired Productions/Keoken Interactive
    Play
    Deliver Us the Moon sends you to Earth’s moon as humanity’s last astronaut, on an open-ended, do-or-die mission to find a missing energy source and save our world. Available on PlayStation 4, … More

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    Crimes of the Future review: Is Cronenberg sci-fi compelling or chaos?

    David Cronenberg’s latest outing is a fascinating sci-fi tale that sets out to be a transgressive exploration of human evolution, but ends up sunk by flaws in its internal logic

    Humans

    15 June 2022

    By Davide Abbatescianni

    Viggo Mortensen plays an artist who can grow new organsNikos Nikolopoulos/Neon
    Crimes of the Future
    David Cronenberg
    Now playing in US cinemas; UK dates pending

    SURGERY is the new sex – or at least it is in the world envisioned by David Cronenberg in his latest outing, Crimes of the Future, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last month.
    The story takes place in an unsettling future, where humans have adapted to an environment they have polluted for decades – or is it centuries, perhaps millennia? In this dystopia, body modification represents … More

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    Time to drop the outdated and unfair anonymity rule in organ donation

    The rise of social media means decades-old rules requiring that the identities of deceased organ donors and organ recipients remain secret are fast becoming obsolete

    Humans

    | Comment

    15 June 2022

    By Charles Weijer and Nicholas Murphy
    Simone Rotella
    IN JUNE 2012, Canadian teen Tyler Schwering died after an accident. Knowing it is what he would have wanted, Tyler’s mother, Kim LeBlanc, consented to organ donation on his behalf. That decision saved the life of Dave Allingham, who received Tyler’s heart the next day. A year later, after finding one another with the help of social media, LeBlanc and Allingham met. Both say the experience was life-changing.
    “Seeing what has come of something horrible has given me peace,” says LeBlanc. Allingham, now free of his heart condition, welcomed the chance to express his gratitude. “I cherish the gift I’ve been given,” he says. “Tyler’s legacy … More

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    Beyond Measure review: How measuring the world betrays its human side

    Our neat ways of measuring tend to seem like they have always existed. A romp through history shows it is much messier and more human than that

    Humans

    15 June 2022

    By Chris Stokel-Walker

    Ancient Egypt’s systems of measurement were based on the human bodyScience History Images/Alamy
    Beyond Measure
    James Vincent
    Faber

    WE TAKE the certainty of measurements for granted, but their story is as complicated and changeable as any other part of human culture. Journalist James Vincent makes this clear in his new book, which explores the history of calculating things.
    Beyond Measure is a pacy romp through time and space, moving from ancient Egyptians with their body-centric measuring systems to present-day scientists seeking to standardise measurement. But it isn’t just the stories of … More

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    Is Uttoxeter’s World Parts Centre the answer to the world’s problems?

    Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more

    Humans

    15 June 2022

    Josie Ford
    Spare parts
    Crisis in the stationery cupboard as our veteran laptop’s power plug finally expires. Now who will sell us a legacy LAVAFLO charging cable from 2003 (2nd edition)?
    Seventy-eight per cent battery charge might just last us until we reach Uttoxeter (just off the UK’s A50 road) and JCB’s promising-sounding “World Parts Centre”. Reader Paul Ticher finds comfort in its recent arrival, given “all the damage we are currently doing to our planet”. (But you can see how his mind works: on the sad occasion of his father’s passing, Paul tells us he called on the services of a … More