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An illustration of a scroll being unfurled by two hands, surrounded by Roman columns and wisps of smoke, with a Roman figure in a toga at the centre

Humans

We’re finally reading the secrets of Herculaneum’s lost library

A whole library’s worth of papyri owned by Julius Caesar’s father-in-law were turned to charcoal by the eruption of Vesuvius. Nearly 2000 years later, we can at last read these lost treasures

Features

Technology

Chatbots work best when you speak to them with formal language

News

Humans

Evolution of intelligence in our ancestors may have come at a cost

News

2AGP4K2 FBI Laboratory analysis of Castor Beans used to manufacture the highly poisonous agent Ricin. Ricin (/'ra?s?n/ RY-sin), a lectin (a carbohydrate-binding protein) produced in the seeds of the castor oil plant, Ricinus communis, is a highly potent toxin. A dose of purified ricin powder the size of a few grains of table salt can kill an adult human. The median lethal dose (LD50) of ricin is around 22 micrograms per kilogram of body weight if the exposure is from injection or inhalation (2 milligrams for an average adult).

Technology

Should we worry AI will create deadly bioweapons? Not yet, but one day

Analysis

Health

We now know why a belly button becomes an 'innie'

News

Central market in Acanceh, Yucatan state, Mexico

Humans

We evolved to match local micronutrient levels, which may be a problem

News

Los Angeles - CIRCA 1985: Author William Gibson poses for a portrait circa 1985 in Oakland, California (Photo by Aaron Rapoport/Corbis/Getty Images)

Technology

Is Neuromancer's cyberpunk dystopia still thrilling in 2025?

Culture

Illustration of a teenage girl who is the offspring of a Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) mother and Denisovan (Homo sapiens denisova) father. A bone fragment with this hybrid ancestry was found in the Denisova Cave in Russia. The bone belonged to a female who was at least 13 years old and died around 90,000 years ago. It was known from genetic analysis of other fossils that the two species had interbred, but this is the first first-generation offspring of such a pairing to be found.

Humans

Understanding the Denisovans means understanding ourselves

Leader

A skull unearthed in Harbin, China, turns out to belong to a Denisovan

Humans

An incredible Denisovan skull is upending the story of human evolution

Features

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Humans

Did childcare fuel language? A new book makes the case

Rearing our unusually underdeveloped young may account for the evolution of language. Michael Marshall is intrigued, but wants more evidence from Madeleine Beekman's The Origin of Language

Culture

Technology

I'm a cyclist. Will the arrival of robotaxis make my journeys safer?

Comment

Humans

Exploring humanity's ancient origins in fantastic new BBC documentary

Culture

Technology

NASA and IBM built an AI to predict solar flares before they hit Earth

News

Mind

Mind-reading AI can turn even imagined speech into spoken words

News