
Seventy-four thousand years ago, a supervolcano on Sumatra erupted with enough force to plunge Earth into a volcanic winter. The Toba catastrophe theory suggests it nearly wiped out our entire species — reducing all of humanity to perhaps a few thousand survivors. Every human alive today may owe their existence to that impossibly thin thread. Read more

Why do humans cook food when no other animal on Earth does? The answer goes far deeper than taste or culture. Scientists believe cooking and human evolution are directly linked — fire unlocked calories our raw-food ancestors couldn’t access, fuelling the brain growth that made us uniquely, unmistakably human. Read more