The vast subterranean ocean of Europa, one of Jupiter’s many moons, contains carbon, one of the crucial ingredients for life, scientists have discovered.

A study led by researchers at MIT, the University of Florida, and in Brazil aims to settle the debate over dark earth’s origins. The team has pieced together results from soil analyses, ethnographic observations, and interviews with modern Indigenous communities, to show that dark earth was intentionally produced by ancient Amazonians as a way to improve the soil and sustain large and complex societies.

A new study suggests that Spain’s ancient peoples shared complex beliefs about death and the afterlife. The research has been published in PLOS One

A pair of interlocking logs that haven’t seen sunlight in half a million years could challenge some fundamental assumptions about the technology and culture of our Stone Age ancestors. See the study here.

More than 1.3 billion years ago, two continents collided at modern-day Argyle in Western Australia, causing pressures so intense that it forced carbon deep underground to form diamonds with glittering pink, red and brown hues. Or, at least, that’s the theory proposed by a study in Nature Communications.