An ancient Martian system of canyons and valleys could be home to archaic life forms, a ground-breaking scientific paper has found. Scientists investigating the Red Planet’s mind-boggling cave system ...

Stretching over 200,000 square kilometres across southern Australia, the vast, flat plains of the Nullarbor mark one of the world’s largest regions of limestone. It formed when an ancient shallow sea ...

From lava tubes on Mars to ice pockets on Europa, subterranean environments may offer the best chance of finding life—and living safely—beyond our planet. “I was like, ‘OK, I'm pretty sure that ...

An international team of cave explorers has shown that cave walls and the prehistoric rock art that adorns them can preserve human DNA for thousands of years. Using sterilized scalpels and two layers ...

For the first time, scientists have recovered ancient human DNA from cave walls. The search took place at caves throughout Spain and Portugal known for prehistoric paintings, including Spain’s famed ...

Learn how ancient DNA preserved on and near cave art in Spain and Portugal could open new ways to study prehistoric people. A hand pressed to a cave wall should not leave much behind after thousands ...

Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...