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It’s well known that all humans alive today can be traced back to a common ancestor but a study may have found where that ancestor originates. Researchers at the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute mapped the entirety of genetic relationships among humans to create the largest human family tree ever. By combining modern and ancient human genomes data from eight different databases, the researchers were able to create a massive family tree. This allowed them to see how a person’s genetic sequence relates to another using the points of the genome. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “Essentially, we are reconstructing the genomes of our ancestors and using them to form a vast network of relationships,” Lead author Dr Anthony Wilder Wohns said. “We can then estimate when and where these ancestors lived.” Where they lived? Sudan, Africa. Dr Wohns told Reuters, "The very earliest ancestors we identify trace back in time to a geographic location that is in modern Sudan. “These ancestors lived up to and over 1 million years ago—which is much older than current estimates for the age of Homo sapiens—250,000 to 300,000 years ago. So bits of our genome have been inherited from individuals who we wouldn’t recognize as modern humans," Dr Wohns said. Researchers used 3,609 individual genome sequences from 215 populations and samples that ranged from 1,000s to over 100,000 years. By using a new method to compile the data, algorithms were able to predict where common ancestors were in evolutionary trees to explain some patterns of genetic variation. The results were a network of almost 27 million ancestors. “The power of our approach is that it makes very few assumptions about the underlying data and can also include both modern and ancient DNA samples,” Dr Wohns says. Not only does the data help us understand human geology better but the new method could help in other research, like medicine. “The underlying method could have widespread applications in medical research, for instance identifying genetic predictors of disease risk," Dr Wohns added. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The Moon has been a subject of awe and fascination for millennia, with its shape-shifting powers and enigmatic dark side. And though it’s the one celestial body on which man has taken (small) steps, we still have big leaps to go in understanding its potential and uncovering its secrets. However, one hidden feature of the Moon has been unearthed by scientists and it’s very, very big, and very, very heavy. Buried beneath its South Pole-Aitken basin – one of the largest preserved craters in the Solar System – is a structure which weighs at least 2.18 billion kilogrammes and measures more than 300km (186 miles) in depth and 2,000km (1,243 miles) in length. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The researchers who made the discovery, all based in the US, posited that the “anomaly” could be made out of metal from the core of an asteroid or oxides from the crystallisation of a magma ocean. "One of the explanations of this extra mass is that the metal from the asteroid that formed this crater is still embedded in the Moon's mantle,” lead author Peter B. James, from Houston’s Baylor University, said in a statement shared with IFLScience. Illustrating just how gigantic this thing is, he went on: "Imagine taking a pile of metal five times larger than the Big Island of Hawaii and burying it underground. That's roughly how much unexpected mass we detected.” The groundbreaking finding was made thanks to NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, which measures changes in the Moon’s gravitational field. Data collected by GRAIL can then be used to study the internal composition of our cratered companion. The South Pole-Aitken Basin has been at the centre of numerous investigations because of just how unique it is. The region offers clues both on the interior composition of our closest satellite and its history, and who knows what other mysteries it holds... Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The government suffers a setback as judges said Rwanda is not a safe third country.

The Court of Appeal has ruled the government's Rwanda policy is unlawful.

The ultimate comfort food, but also light; this recipe manages to be creamy and filling without you having to take a nap afterwards, which can be the case with heavier meat dishes,” says Trine Hahnemann, author of Simply Scandinavian. “It can be made with any fish, or also with the same weight of vegetables instead. This kind of pie will always do it for me when I’m in need of energy and comfort.” Fish pie Serves: 6 Ingredients: 800g large potatoes, chopped into big chunks 100g salted butter, plus 3 tbsp, plus more for the dish 500g firm white fish fillet, chopped into small pieces 300g raw prawns, sustainably caught 10 white asparagus spears 10 green asparagus spears 2 shallots, finely chopped 200g shelled fresh peas 5 dill sprigs, chopped Sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper Leaves from 2-3 sprigs of flat-leaf parsley, chopped, to serve (optional) Method: 1. Boil the potatoes in water until tender. 2. Butter a large ovenproof dish generously, then add the chopped fish and prawns in an even layer. Season with salt. 3. Snap the lower one-third of the white and green asparagus off, then peel the white asparagus until shiny and cut all the asparagus spears into four-centimetre pieces. (The trimmings and peelings can be used in soup). Fry the shallots gently in a frying pan in one tablespoon of butter. Turn off the heat, add the asparagus, peas and dill, mix well and season with salt and pepper. Arrange the vegetable mixture on top of the fish. 4. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. When the potatoes are cooked, drain them, reserving 100 millilitres of their cooking water. Mash the potatoes lightly together with the reserved cooking water and the 100 grams of butter, keeping the mash chunky. Season to taste with salt and pepper, then spread the mash over the pie filling and place the remaining two tablespoons of butter, in small dots, on top. 5. Bake for 30 minutes. Let it rest for a few minutes, then scatter with parsley and serve. ‘Simply Scandinavian’ by Trine Hahnemann (Quadrille, £27). Read More Budget Bites: Three light recipes that sing of summer What the hell is Scandinavian food? Three quick and easy plant-based fakeaways to create at home The Union Rye, review: Finally, a decent restaurant in this charming East Sussex town Missing Glastonbury? Here’s how to have a festival feast at home Four berry sweet recipes that go beyond strawberries and cream

Scientists have designed a new robot that people are dubbing a 'transformer' thanks to its ability to roll, fly, crawl, crouch, balance, and tumble its way through any terrain. Its adaptability is similar to that of a number of animals, including seals, meerkats, and chukar birds. The morphobot was created by the Northeastern University in the US, and will impact the future designs of response and rescue robots, as well as space exploration vehicles. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

People over 40 in England will be sent a blood test to carry out at home in a bid to reduce heart disease and obesity. Digital NHS health checks, which will also include an online health questionnaire, will be launched next spring for people aged 40 to 74. Around 15 million people will be eligible, with around one million online checks expected to be carried out over the next four years. Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay said: “Thousands of heart attacks and strokes could be prevented every year through simple health checks, which could save lives and ease pressure on the NHS. “This new digital check-up will mean people can do simple tests and get tailored advice from homes while reducing pressure on GP services.” The home blood test will check cholesterol levels with patients asked to take a blood pressure test at a pharmacy, alongside the online assessment covering details such as weight, height, diet, alcohol intake and exercise levels. Results will be made available online with help available to anyone showing early signs of issues such as diabetes or heart disease, as well as referrals to weight-loss clinics or medication. The online questionnaire will be available via phone, tablet or computer and the Government believes each check will save 20 minutes of NHS time. This could play an important role in helping people live healthier for longer and saving lives in the coming years, while reducing pressure on the NHS Professor Sir Nilesh Silemani Cardiovascular disease is the second biggest killer in England, affecting around 6.4 million people. The Government says the new digital check will help to identify 200,000 people who could benefit from the use of statins, 30,000 cases of hypertension and prevent around 400 heart attacks and strokes over the first four years. Professor Sir Nilesh Samani, medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “This initiative will help to reach more people and encourage them to get their blood pressure and cholesterol levels checked so that, where necessary, healthcare professionals can work with them to manage their condition. “This could play an important role in helping people live healthier for longer and saving lives in the coming years, while reducing pressure on the NHS.” Existing NHS health checks for people in the same age group take place face-to-face with a GP and concerns have been expressed that elderly people are not left behind if they struggle with technology. David Baines, vice chair of the Local Government Association, told The Times: “Making more digital health checks available is a useful tool to detect certain illnesses but it should be treated as an addition to, not a replacement for, a physical health check.”

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Danish pastries are world-famous, but what do you know about the rest of Scandinavian cuisine? With a food philosophy that centres around seasonal produce, perhaps the Scandi approach to cooking is the way forward when considering the environment and the cost-of-living crisis. “It’s very seasonal, lots of vegetables and very clean flavours,” Copenhagen-based chef and food writer Trine Hahnemann says of Danish cuisine. “So salt, pepper, nutmeg; salt, pepper, lemon; salt, pepper, vinegar – it’s not bland at all, we use spices, but we use them one at a time.” Hahnemann, 58, says this emphasis on seasonality helps save money. “It becomes too expensive to buy vegetables that are out of season, that are shipped or whatever,” she explains – but she’s all to aware that the Danish food scene is a bit of a paradox. She mentions produce “that have become everyday things, which people eat every day – like cucumbers, tomatoes and bananas. You can’t convince people there’s also a season for bananas – it’s year round, all the time. They’re the biggest fruit in Denmark”. This doesn’t stop Hahnemann advocating for eating the seasons – which in Denmark means you might be limited to root vegetables and potatoes in the winter. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, particularly as we’re now coming into summer and there’s a glut of fruit and vegetables available. Summer cabbage, radish, fennel, tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, strawberries, tomatoes – they’re all in her shopping basket during this time of year. Hahnemann is a salad fan, and she’s devoted a whole section of her new cookbook, Simply Scandinavian, to them. The chef argues people “don’t take [salads] seriously enough” – and opening a bag from the supermarket won’t quite cut it. “Buy a few vegetables, bake them nicely in the oven with either lemon juice and a little bit of a spice of some kind – it could be garam masala, it could be garlic – then always have a nice dressing. Spend some money on some good oils or good vinegars, because that’s where the flavours are. “Then think about texture… Texture means a lot when we eat.” The moral of the story? “Salads are amazing, because there are no rules – anything can become a salad,” she says. Hahnemann learned traditional Scandinavian cooking from her grandmother, saying: “My favourite dish when I was little that my grandmother would cook for me was meatballs with the cucumber salad.” Her grandma ever explicitly taught her how to make this dish – Hahnemann was instructed to help out, and eventually learned classic Danish recipes through osmosis. “It was much later in my 20s I realised what an amazing gift she’d given me without ever asking if I wanted to be involved – because I was involved, but I was never asked to be part of the cooking. I just saw it all tasted it,” Hahnemann says. Not that feeding Hahnemann was much of a chore: “When I was a child I loved everything. The only thing I didn’t like was a well-done omelette, that was the only thing I couldn’t eat when I was little.” Hahnemann’s grandmother also taught her how to bake, drawing upon the traditional recipes Denmark is famous for. As a child, she practised baking while living on a commune with her parents in the Sixties and Seventies. “There was this idea that children, their creativity should be nurtured, you shouldn’t put limits on things. So I baked all these horrible cakes and the grown-ups would eat them and say, ‘Oh, it’s wonderful Trine’ – and it was nothing like that,” Hahnemann remembers with a laugh. It was only when someone in the commune started giving her tips on beating the butter and sugar before adding the rest of the ingredients that “all of a sudden this world opened up to me about baking”. Hahnemann still uses baking as a tool when she’s “really stressed out”, and has a bakery in Copenhagen putting the spotlight on traditional Scandinavian bakes like cardamom buns and rye bread. She says baking is “the most important thing” about Scandinavian cuisine. “Because of the rye bread, and the whole lunch concept of open sandwiches on the rye bread. The whole breakfast is about bread, then you have all the celebratory baked goods – that you can say we now eat on a more regular basis.” While Hahnemann accepts some “traditions are disappearing, because everybody’s working so much”, she’s keen to keep the spotlight on traditional buns, breads and baking. When she recently taught a baking class, she was “so happy” to have a group of male friends in their 20s sign up, saying: “I think it’s important to keep it alive.” ‘Simply Scandinavian’ by Trine Hahnemann (Quadrille, £27).