Uppsala University

Throughout the densely-populated country of Bangladesh, a lack of access to clean drinking water is responsible for a variety of debilitating and often-lethal infections. Soon, however, residents could filter virtually all harmful microbes out of their water, using paper derived from algae.

While dinosaurs were the biggest land animals ever, mammals were mostly rat-sized critters running around underfoot. But now palaeontologists have described a mammal ancestor from the Triassic Period that grew to the size of an elephant, giving those early dinosaurs a run for their money.

Waiting for water to boil is a minor inconvenience that we’ve all experienced. Maybe next time try the world’s most powerful X-ray laser, which has now been used to boil water to 100,000° C in 75 millionths of a billionth of a second, turning it into a new plasma-like state of matter in the process.

Researchers have found human-like footprints dating back 5.7 million years – a time when our ancestors were thought to still be getting around on ape-like feet. More mysteriously, these prints were found in the Greek islands, implying hominins left Africa much earlier than previously thought.

Museum specimens may have already been “discovered,” but important new details can still turn up on closer study. A new investigation into an old plesiosaur skeleton in a German museum discovered that not only did the bones belong to a new species, but the animal was the oldest of its kind.

Taking and storing liquid blood samples is expensive and time consuming. To bring down costs and broaden the use of samples, researchers are studying the potential for using millimeter-wide drops of dried blood on filter paper as an alternative means of collecting and storing samples.

Death by supervolcano is not what most people have in mind when they talk about going out in a blaze of glory. But these magma cauldrons exist among us and they are very much alive. A new study tells us what might trigger one of these sleeping giants.

Forget apes. Scientists say that we owe our jaws to a prehistoric fish that lived 423 million years ago.

Researchers at Uppsala University’s Ångström Laboratory have combined the salvaged remnants of a Li-ion battery with completely organic materials derived from alfalfa and pine resin, to create a recycled biomaterial Li-ion hybrid battery.

Scientists have accidentally created a new material thought for more than 100 years to be impossible. A single gram of Upsalite has a surface area of 800 sq m, equivalent to the sail of a megayacht.

Researchers at Stanford University have successfully alleviated PTSD in mice, while the rodents slept – offering hope that a similar method may be used for humans in the future.

A new study by Uppsala University in Sweden suggests that phobias and other anxiety disorders can be stopped before they fully form.