Humans are drastically changing the planet and the Anthropocene is a useful tool to help us deal with that – so let's stop quibbling over definitions

A ring of asteroid debris could have orbited Earth for tens of millions of years, and perhaps even have altered the planet's climate

A story passed down in folklore led scientists to evidence of an 8-metre tsunami that hit an island in Hawaii hundreds of years ago

Forget Armageddon-sized rocks, just one of 25,000 smaller asteroids could destroy a city on Earth. How to Kill an Asteroid by Robin George Andrew shows how science plans to save the planet

An analysis of crystals in lava from the 2022 eruption of Mauna Loa has revealed an unknown magma reservoir within the volcano, which could extend forecasts of eruptions from minutes to months

Diets that claim to control excess oestrogen or stress hormones are all the rage on Instagram and TikTok. They could be good for us, just not for the reasons claimed

A fossil of a tadpole from Argentina is 161 million years old - and isn't that different from some modern species

A massive undertaking to map cancer tumours is providing new insights into how the disease forms, evolves and develops resistance to treatments

The Renaissance artist Michelangelo had carried out human dissections, which may have led him to include women with breast cancer in some of his pieces

People conceived during the UK's 1940s and 50s sugar rationing have a lower risk of type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure than those conceived after rationing ended

Forget Armageddon-sized rocks, just one of 25,000 smaller asteroids could destroy a city on Earth. How to Kill an Asteroid by Robin George Andrew shows how science plans to save the planet

From Harlan Ellison to Haruki Murakami, via an intergalactic cooking competition, this month has plenty of science fictional treats on offer

Running, swimming, HIIT or walking – what is the best way to work out? The answer is complicated, and depends on the person, finds Grace Wade

The focus is on finance at the UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, this month, but countries are a long way from any kind of consensus

Before Mesopotamian people invented writing, they used cylinder seals to press patterns into wet clay – and some of the symbols used were carried over into proto-writing

Experts predict that the number of cancer cases around the world will skyrocket, resulting in millions more fatalities by 2050

The earliest evidence of livestock with modified horns has been discovered in ancient Egypt – sheep skulls with horns that point in unnatural directions suggest humans forced them to grow that way

Data collected by the Zhurong rover and orbiting satellites suggests the existence of an ancient shoreline in the Utopia Planitia region of Mars

Dangerous radiation reaches Mars at levels we aren't exposed to on Earth, which makes the Red Planet a particularly dangerous place to be during pregnancy

An analysis of thousands of cognitive tests carried out by chimpanzees finds that the number of spectators influenced their performance in different ways depending on the difficulty of the task

Reaching net-zero emissions is essential for halting climate change - but even after we achieve this goal, parts of the planet will continue to warm. Delaying net zero will worsen these effects

Most assessments of global warming use 1850-1900 as a baseline, but researchers have now established a new pre-industrial reference by using Antarctic ice cores to estimate the average temperature before 1700

Droplets of fluid have been known to hover above a hot surface, but a new experiment suggests the same can happen to tiny jets of liquid too

You might have heard about plans to establish a self‑sustaining city on Mars. Here’s what life would really be like on the Red Planet

An analysis of crystals in lava from the 2022 eruption of Mauna Loa has revealed an unknown magma reservoir within the volcano, which could extend forecasts of eruptions from minutes to months

A Greek philosopher’s musings on pleasure, contained in ancient papyrus scrolls buried by Mount Vesuvius’s eruption 2000 years ago, have been rediscovered with the help of AI

3D mapping and artificial intelligence has helped decipher an ancient Herculaneum papyrus scroll which had been digitally scanned

Fossil evidence shows that humans have been practising cannibalism for a million years. Now, archaeologists are discovering that some of the time they did it to honour their dead

Archaeologists say a mysterious language inscribed on a 2000-year-old metal hand may be related to Basque, but linguists aren't convinced

A genetic study of nearly 2700 individuals has revealed the ancestry of Indian people, and gets scientists closer to reconstructing the genomes of ancient Neanderthals

Most people are too risk-averse when it comes to life's biggest choices. Learning how to overcome the cognitive biases at play can help you make better decisions - with no looking back

A southern mammoth skeleton found in Spain bears cut marks from stone tools and bite marks from carnivore teeth, suggesting that both hominins and felids feasted on its meat

A settlement in the east of England burned down in a fire 3000 years ago, falling into a muddy waterway that preserved everything inside the houses including tools, fabric, cooking pots and more

Evidence from an archaeological site in Ethiopia suggests ancient humans adapted their diet during a dry spell after the Toba volcano eruption 74,000 years ago

Italian canoes capable of transporting people and goods have been dated to the Neolithic period, suggesting there was a bustling trade across the Mediterranean Sea

A unique site in Brazil features rock carvings closely associated with dinosaur tracks, suggesting prehistoric people saw the footprints as meaningful

In the foundations of a Maya temple, researchers found the charred bones of royal individuals – possibly evidence of a fiery ritual to mark the end of one dynasty and the beginning of another

Underground tunnels created by lava flows provided humans with shelter for thousands of years beneath the hot desert landscape of Saudi Arabia

Outrunning prey over long distances is an efficient method of hunting for humans, and it was widely used until recently, according to an analysis of ethnographic accounts

Soil core samples show an ancient riverbed under the desert near many Egyptian pyramids, revealing an ancient waterway that dried up thousands of years ago

An experiment inspired by Homer’s description of combat in The Iliad tested the capabilities of the Dendra armour suit from Greece’s Bronze Age

Cut marks on a 4000-year-old skull suggest ancient Egyptian doctors tried to treat a man with nasopharyngeal cancer

Rock art along the Orinoco river in South America is made up of some of the largest etchings we know of and could date back 2000 years

Babies cannot tell us what they are experiencing, so it is hard to know what they are conscious of. But new research suggesting they perceive the world consciously could change how we care for them, says Claudia Passos-Ferreira

Pictograms and petroglyphs depicting abstract lines and shapes offer a rare glimpse into the culture of people who lived in South America thousands of years ago

The skeletons of ancient Egyptian scribes reveal the health toll of sitting on the floor while performing administrative tasks like writing

Wooden sticks found in an Australian cave appear to match the accounts of a 19th-century anthropologist, suggesting the GurnaiKurnai people practised the same ritual at the end of the last glacial period

Thousands of bones found in a Tibetan cave have been analysed to learn how mysterious ancient humans known as Denisovans lived

Anthropologists have been arguing for 20 years about whether Sahelanthropus, a hominin that lived about 7 million years ago, was one of the first bipedal apes

An arm bone from an ancient human that lived 700,000 years ago on the island of Flores is the smallest ever found from an adult hominin, adding a new piece to the puzzle of Homo floresiensis