Science

Researchers from Newcastle and Oxford Universities for the first time catalogued in detail each of the 54 rings of this type known to exist in the UK. They found that the quality of metals used in their construction (left), as well as images depicted on them, hinted at their use by members of high society. One famous example, the cursed Silvianus Ring (top right), is thought to have inspired JRR Tolkien when writing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It features the One Ring that gives the wearer invisibility but at the price of risking their soul, with the creature Gollum (bottom right) created through his addiction to ring's power.

The secret to how the ancient Egyptians managed to achieve the near-perfect alignment of the Great Pyramid of Giza (right image) may have finally been uncovered. Bronze Age engineers used shadows cast during the equinox to line up the 4,500-year-old structure with the cardinal points, north-south-east-west, an expert says. The theory may finally reveal how the Egyptians aligned the Great Pyramid of Giza's walls without the use of modern technology, a mystery that has long puzzled archaeologists. Glen Dash, an engineer who studies the Giza pyramids, says the ancient people used a technique known as the 'Indian circle method' to position the monument. He said they created points-of-reference using the sun during the autumn equinox, which is halfway between the summer and winter solstices when day and night are of equal length. Using a wooden rod known as gnomon, the Egyptians could have tracked the path of the sun throughout the equinox to help them draw perfect lines running east-west (left image, artist's impression).

Researchers captured on film the birth of a 'Dumbo' octopus in 2005. The creatures live thousands of feet below sea level in complete darkness. The film marked the first time the birth of an octopus from such a low depth was observed by scientists. The researchers learned that Dumbo octopuses are born almost completely self sufficient. Their organs and nervous system are fully formed when they hatch.

Roman boxing gloves (pictured left and bottom right), dating back to 118-120 AD and thought to be the only known surviving examples from the Roman period, have been discovered near Hadrian's wall in Northumberland. Unlike modern boxing gloves, these ancient leather gloves look like a protective guard, designed to fit snugly over the knuckles to protect them from impact. One of the gloves was packed with natural material acting as a shock absorber, and both gloves are still able to fit comfortably on a modern hand. Boxing was a well-documented ancient sport that preceded the Roman era. In the context of the Roman Army, it was a recorded pursuit, a martial activity designed to increase the skills and fitness of the boxers. Pictured top right is a print from an engraving showing Roman gladiators boxing.

Neanderthal art leaves a lot to be desired. Unlike Homo sapiens, our ancient cousins were unable to draw recognisable images of animals or people. Now, new research at the University of California claims this lack of artistic ability was closely related to Neanderthals' inferior hunting skills. Both drawing and hunting requires hand-eye coordination, which Neanderthals lacked - a fact that scientists say may have led to their extinction. Pictured top left is a drawing of lions painted in the Chauvet Cave, France by Homo sapiens. Bottom left, a Neanderthal brain (left) appears more elongated than the present-day Homo sapiens (right) brain, which is 'rounder and less overhanging'. Homo sapiens had a bigger parietal cortex - the area in the brain that integrates visual input and motor skills. Pictured top left is an example of a Neanderthal cave drawing and pictured right is a model of a Neanderthal male in his twenties.

A new swarm of earthquakes has cropped up at the Yellowstone supervolcano, with more than 200 small temblors detected in the last 10 days alone. According to experts with the US Geological Survey, the latest swarm began on February 8 in a region roughly eight miles northeast of West Yellowstone, Montana – and, it’s increased dramatically in the days since. But for now, scientists say there’s no reason to worry.

The Irish Navy is set to get its hand on a boat that is impossible to capsize. Dubbed the 'Thunder Child', incredible footage shows the search and rescue vessel - with passengers inside - being pushed over in the water by a crane. The crane pulls the boat 180 degrees before allowing the 54 knots (62 mph/100 km/h) vessel to bounce back into an upright position. The 'Thunder Child' is the creation of Safehaven Marine in County Cork, Ireland.

Stunning rock art on the Chilean coast has revealed how ancient hunter gatherers in the area used harpoons and rafts to hunt marine animals. The cave paintings date back to 1,500-years ago, and depict the slaughter of a variety of creatures, including whales, sea lions, swordfish and sharks. The pictographs, painted in iron-oxide, comprise hundreds of hunting scenes and portray a complex marine hunter-gatherer society. Archaeological evidence suggests that the society living in El Médano - a valley in between the ocean and the desert - specialised in hunting marine creatures. Pictured are some of the cave paintings, located at a newly discovered sit called Izcuña, a few miles north of El Médano, Chile.

A clip which has been doing the rounds on the internet is leaving viewers with complaints of headaches and nausea. The video, which is a satellite photograph of an unknown stretch of coast, plays on around a two second loop and makes you feel as if you are falling into a repetitive abyss.

Aspark have released incredible footage showing the electric hypercar smashing the sub-2-second mark. The clip was shot at a manufacturing facility in Japan. The car's creators say they are only going to produce 50 units - and the price will narrow their list of potential customers. Each car will cost just over £3million.

Pablo Picasso painted over the work of another artist to create one of his masterpieces. It seems the Spanish artist tipped the artist's canvas 90 degrees (right), and used some of the landscape forms to shape the woman's slouching posture in his oil painting The Crouching Beggar, or La Misereuse Accroupie (left). The discovery, announced on Friday at a conference in Austin, offers unprecedented insight into the esteemed painter's creative process. A team of scientists and curators used state-of-the-art non-invasive imaging techniques to find the landscape in a completely different style to Picasso's, and they suspect was by another Barcelona-based artist, who is not identified.

The discovery (left) was made by a team of researchers, including Colorado State University, about a half an hour’s drive from Morelia, in the central Mexican state of Michoacán. Experts used lasers to send beams of light from an aircraft to the ground below, measuring the reflected pulses to build up a map of the region (top right).Imaging also revealed that Angamuco was laid out in an unusual configuration, with monuments like pyramids and plazas dotted around (bottom left) eight zones on the edges of the city rather than concentrated as a focal point in the centre.

Cuttlefish can erect spikes from their skin to protect themselves. The tactic allows them to blend in with coral or other backgrounds. Researchers have now determined the anatomical features that control this characteristic. Along the way they discovered that squid and cuttlefish might share a common answer. Cuttlefish are found in the North, Mediterranean and Baltic seas.

Experts at the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Sciences have successfully fired superheated beams of a radioactive isotope of tantalum. The rare metal is one of few isotopes that can be added to warheads to create a salted bomb, with potentially devastating consequences. The device, which one nuclear weapons expert has labelled 'highly immoral', releases huge amounts of radioactive fallout. Scientists behind the project said their work aimed to 'meet a critical strategic demand of China's national defence.' They added it had potential military applications, but refused to give further details.If it develops a salted bomb, China could load it into one of its Dongfeng-41 missiles (main image), a long-range device currently under development with a range of 7,500 miles (12,000km) - long enough to hit the UK and the United States (inset image).

Graves from 34,000 years ago have explained to scientists the historical treatment of disabled people. The burials of two young boys were more extravagant than that of a nearby adult. The bodies were all located in the Sunghir burials in Russia. The archaeological site was excavated in the mid 1900s. Ivory spears, artwork and deer antlers were among the riches found in the graves. They were placed in a slender, long grave, positioned head to head, and their grave was filled with more than 10,000 ivory beads, more than 300 fox teeth and at least 20 armbands.

Japanese architects have unveiled plans for the world's tallest wooden skyscraper (top right inset shows new tower, left, against current highest wooden structures in the world). The tower will feature homes, shops, offices and a hotel, and will become the tallest building in Japan when it is completed in 2041 (artist's impression main image). Positioned in central Tokyo, the aim of the £4.2 billion ($5.9 billion) 'plyscraper' is to turn the Japanese capital into an environment-friendly city and help 'transform the town into a forest', architects behind the plans said. Designs for the structure were drawn up by Tokyo-based architectural firm Nikken Sikkei, but the building will be constructed by the Forestry arm of the Sumitomo Group, one of Japan's largest business conglomerates. Currently referred to as the W350 Project, named after its height, it is not clear which wood or woods have been chosen as the building material. The tower has 70 stories above ground and is made of a combination of wood and steel, with more than 6.5 million cubic feet (0.2 million cubic metres) of wood making up 90 per cent of the construction material. Nikken Sekkei's plans outline a braced tube structure that is able to withstand strong winds, as well as Japan's frequent earthquakes. As well as offices, a hotel, shops and residential units, the completed tower will feature a garden roof, balconies covered with greenery (top left image), water features and large soaring internal open spaces filled with natural light (bottom left image).

Aerial clips (right images) capture the huge crack in Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf that led to 'A-68', the third largest iceberg ever recorded breaking off from the continent last July. When the iceberg (left image) separated from Larsen C, it revealed an ocean hidden under the ice shelf for 120,000 years, and a team of scientists are now studying the region to uncover some of the hidden ecosystem's mysteries. Led by the Cambridge-based British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the group will study tiny animals, microbes and plankton on the seafloor to see how they copy with severe changes to their environment. As part of preliminary research for the trip, the team have taken aerial footage of the iceberg to monitor how far it has drifted to sea - the very first video captured of the berg since last year's split.