ScienceDaily: Top Science News

Plate tectonics may be unique to Earth and may be an essential characteristic of habitable planets. Estimates for its onset range from over 4 billion years ago to just 800 million years ago. A new study reports evidence of a transition in multiple locations around the world, 3.8-3.6 billion years ago, from stable 'protocrust' to pressures and processes that look a lot like modern subduction, suggesting a time when plates first got moving.

Stones that were incised with artistic designs around 15,000 years ago have patterns of heat damage which suggests they were carved close to the flickering light of a fire, a new study has found.