Did you ever wonder how old the water is that you see flowing at Sabino Dam in Arizona? Probably not, if you’re not a hydrologist. But this is an important question in relation to the water resources available in our water-stressed environment. Read more.

In a British cemetery dating back to the Norman Conquest, archaeologists have found a high number of skeletons affected by leprosy. One particular young man, though, was discovered with a pierced scallop shell – could his bones and burial reveal his status as a religious pilgrim affected by leprosy? Read more.

The arrival of water on our planet is shrouded in mystery. Our leading theory says icy meteorites brought it here after most of the planet and its core had formed, about 4.5 billion years ago. But now an analysis of isotopes from meteorites seems to imply that the wet stuff got here much sooner. Read more.

During the Ice Age, things were a bit different than they are today in the land of Sahul. If the name Sahul doesn’t ring a bell, it is probably because it isn’t a place anymore. It is the landmass that includes Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea—all once connected. At times of lower sea level when water is locked up in ice, the continental shelf is exposed and merges all of these seemingly separate swathes of land.

During this last glacial maximum, the continent was teeming with giants like 500-pound kangaroos, massive fuzzy wombat-relatives, and 20-foot-long crocodiles. But around 30,000 years ago, these enormous land dwellers had almost disappeared. A whopping 88 species of mammals went extinct in Sahul between 500,000 and 30,000 years ago, but why? Read more.