The King's 28 letters have been described by scholars as the world's best alphabet and the most scientific system of writing.

Recent discoveries about apes suggest, however, that a gorilla or common chimp stands at least as good a chance being murdered as the average human.

Measles and TB evolved from diseases of our cattle, influenza from a disease of pigs, and smallpox possibly from a disease of camels. The Americas had very few native domesticated animal species from which humans could acquire such diseases.

Today Charles Darwin is best known for establishing the fact of evolution and for recognizing the major role of natural selection in driving it.

In contrast [to trees and fish], oil, metals, and coal are not renewable; they don't reproduce, sprout, or have sex to produce baby oil droplets or coal nuggets.

The single most important problem is our misguided focus on identifying the single most important problem!

But this was the only way of life that humans knew for their first 6m years on the planet. In giving it up over the past few thousand years, we have lost our vulnerability to disease and cold and wild animals, but we have also lost good ways to bring up children, look after old people, stave off diabetes and heart disease and understand the real dangers of everyday life.