Our red blood is full of iron. We need iron for growth and for immunity. It is even added to foodstuffs, such as cereals, to ensure that there is enough of this nutrient in the diet to prevent iron...
History
A New Species Of Early Human? Why We Should Be Cautious About...
A collection of fossil footprints at Laetoli in Northern Tanzania, preserved in volcanic ash and dated to 3.66 million years ago, are still yielding surprises almost 45 years after their discovery...
The Chickenpox Virus Has A Fascinating Evolutionary History That...
In July 2021, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention presentation obtained by the press noted that the delta variant of COVID-19 “is as transmissible as chickenpox.” As some researchers have...
The Horse Bit And Bridle Kicked Off Ancient Empires – A New...
Starting around 3,000 years ago, a wave of innovation began to sweep through human societies around the globe. For the next millennium the continued emergence of new technologies had a dramatic...
The Story of Chilli is One of Politics, Geography and Culture
Chilli peppers are today an essential part of almost all major cuisines in some way or the other. They are the key to Asian, African, Latin American, and constitute an important part of Britain’s...
Remembering The Black Abolitionists Of Slavery In Yorkshire
“Cunning better than strong” is a Jamaican proverb; a message of survival and resistance that urges us to use our brain rather than our brawn to overcome oppressors. It’s a proverb that is...
Would We Still See Ourselves As ‘Human’ If Other Hominin Species...
In our mythologies, there’s often a singular moment when we became “human”. Eve plucked the fruit of the tree of knowledge and gained awareness of good and evil. Prometheus created men from clay and...
A Giant Space Rock Demolished An Ancient Middle Eastern City And...
As the inhabitants of an ancient Middle Eastern city now called Tall el-Hammam went about their daily business one day about 3,600 years ago, they had no idea an unseen icy space rock was speeding...
Tattoos Have A Long History Going Back To The Ancient World –...
While most of us would likely care to forget the pandemic as soon as is possible, a few have opted for a permanent reminder of the health crisis – in the shape of a tattoo. Some of these tattoos are...
Fossil Footprints Prove Humans Populated The Americas Thousands...
Our species began migrating out of Africa around 100,000 years ago. Aside from Antarctica, the Americas were the last continents humans reached, with the early pioneers crossing the now...
The History Of The Taliban Is Crucial In Understanding Their...
The rapid takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban left many surprised. To Ali Olomi, a historian of the Middle East and Islam at Penn State University, a key to understanding what is happening now –...
How Snake Oil Got A Bad Name
During the pandemic, the pejorative term “snake-oil salesman” has been bandied about a lot. It’s been used, perhaps with a tinge of 1980s nostalgia, to describe convicted fraudster and serial...
What A Baker From Ancient Pompeii Can Teach Us About Happiness
In a testament to its resiliency, happiness, according to this year’s World Happiness Report, remained remarkably stable around the world, despite a pandemic that upended the lives of billions of...
A Bitter Culture War In The Fourth Century Shows We May Not Be...
A large crowd gathers, seething with anger over the ignorant and harmful ideas of their opponents. They want to stamp out the power of the old regime for the good of the world. The group comes upon a...
The Little-Known Story Of How Slavery Infiltrated California And...
The history of American slavery generally conjures a set of familiar images: sprawling plantations white with cotton, gangs of enslaved African Americans stooped low over the fields, bullwhips...
Dinosaur Bones Became Griffins, Volcanic Eruptions Were Gods...
Everyone loves a good story, especially if it’s based on something true. Consider the Greek legend of the Titanomachy, in which the Olympian gods, led by Zeus, vanquish the previous generation of...
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu – The Forgotten Immunisation Pioneer
The remarkable progress with immunisation against COVID-19 has focused the world’s attention on the brilliance of vaccines. Many people know the story of Edward Jenner’s discovery of vaccination...
Dinosaurs Were Already In Decline Before The Asteroid Wiped Them...
Some 66 million years ago, on the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico, a 12 kilometre-wide asteroid crashes to Earth. The impact causes an explosion whose magnitude is hard to imagine today – several billion...
When Did Humans Start Experimenting With Alcohol And Drugs?
Humans constantly alter the world. We fire fields, turn forests into farms, and breed plants and animals. But humans don’t just reshape our external world – we engineer our internal worlds, and...
What The Discovery Of A Shackled Skeleton In A Ditch Reveals...
A body found buried in a ditch by construction workers in the village of Great Casterton, in the East Midlands of England, has shed new light on Roman slavery in Britain. A new analysis of the...