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A revolution in archaeology, anthropology and palaeogenetics is underway, upending our understanding of the 300,000-year history of our species, Homo sapiens, and the evolution of our ancient hominin ancestors and relatives. Unravel the mysteries of human evolution and what it means to be human today with our in-depth analysis and coverage.
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Humans

Don't Miss: Explore wildfire's power at Science Gallery London

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

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TOPSHOT - A woman walks on a bridge during the fires in Renaico, Araucania region, Chile on February 4, 2023. - At least 23 people have died in hundreds of forest fires whipped up amid a blistering heat wave in south central Chile, a senior government official said Saturday night. (Photo by JAVIER TORRES / AFP) (Photo by JAVIER TORRES/AFP via Getty Images)

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Next Exit film review: New tale of the afterlife takes a wrong turn

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A scene from NEXT EXIT, a Magnet release. Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing.

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How to use the science of fat to make delicious, confit food

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Confit pork with thyme
Furrows row pattern in a plowed field prepared for planting crops in spring. Growing wheat crop in springtime. Horizontal view in perspective with cloud and blue sky background.; Shutterstock ID 423151204; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other: -

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Was the shift to farming really the worst mistake in human history?

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Episode 3. Alison Pill in "Hello Tomorrow!," premiering February 17, 2023 on Apple TV+.

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Hello Tomorrow! review: Selling holiday homes on the moon

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The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) ??? a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration ??? was designed to capture images of a black hole. In coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers revealed that they succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of the supermassive black hole in the centre of Messier 87 and its shadow. The shadow of a black hole seen here is the closest we can come to an image of the black hole itself, a completely dark object from which light cannot escape. The black hole???s boundary ??? the event horizon from which the EHT takes its name ??? is around 2.5 times smaller than the shadow it casts and measures just under 40 billion km across. While this may sound large, this ring is only about 40 microarcseconds across ??? equivalent to measuring the length of a credit card on the surface of the Moon. Although the telescopes making up the EHT are not physically connected, they are able to synchronize their recorded data with atomic clocks ??? hydrogen masers ??? which precisely time their observations. These observations were collected at a wavelength of 1.3 mm during a 2017 global campaign. Each telescope of the EHT produced enormous amounts of data ??? roughly 350 terabytes per day ??? which was stored on high-performance helium-filled hard drives. These data were flown to highly specialised supercomputers ??? known as correlators ??? at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and MIT Haystack Observatory to be combined. They were then painstakingly converted into an image using novel computational tools developed by the collaboration.

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Don’t Miss: Learning about how the first black hole image was taken

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Getting up in the morning

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Early risers may have inherited faster body clocks from Neanderthals

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People in relationships have higher love scores if they live in a country with high living standards, gender equality and collectivist cultures

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Couples are most in love in Hungary, according to science

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Tightly-curled hair appears to maximise the shielding effect from the sun while minimising an unwanted insulating effect

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Curly hair may have evolved to protect early humans from the sun

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Early hominin Paranthropus may have used sophisticated stone tools

Stone tools discovered in Kenya are the oldest Oldowan-type implements found, dating back at least 2.6 million years, and they may have been made by our relative Paranthropus

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Paranthropus, early human relative

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Don't Miss: Marvel's Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

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Marvel's Midnight Suns review: Meet your heroes in new strategy game

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A three-year drought may have brought down the ancient Hittite empire

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Neolithic complex dubbed ‘Stonehenge of the North’ opens to UK public

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