Men and women might have had their fingers deliberately chopped off during religious rituals in prehistoric times, according to a new interpretation of palaeolithic cave art.

In a paper presented at a recent meeting of the European Society for Human Evolution, researchers point to 25,000-year-old paintings in France and Spain that depict silhouettes of hands. On more than 200 of these prints, the hands lack at least one digit. In some cases, only a single upper segment is missing; in others, several fingers are gone.

In the past, this absence of digits was attributed to artistic licence by the cave-painting creators or to ancient people’s real-life medical problems, including frostbite.

But scientists led by archaeologist Prof Mark Collard of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver say the truth may be far more gruesome. “There is compelling evidence that these people may have had their fingers amputated deliberately in rituals intended to elicit help from supernatural entities,” said Collard.

It has been another catastrophic climate year: record-breaking wildfires across Canada scorched an area the size North Dakota, unprecedented rainfall in Libya left thousands dead and displaced, while heat deaths surged in Arizona and severe drought in the Amazon is threatening Indigenous communities and ecosystems.

The science is clear: we must phase out fossil fuels – fast. But time is running out, and as the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation worsen, there is mounting recognition that our political and industry leaders are failing us.

If the science isn’t enough, what role could – or should – faith leaders play in tackling the climate crisis? After all, it is also a spiritual and moral crisis that threatens God’s creation, according to many religious teachings.

Globally, 6 billion people – about 80% of the world’s population – identify with a faith or religion, while half of all schools and 40% of health facilities in some countries are owned or operated by faith groups. In addition, faith-related institutions own almost 8% of the total habitable land surface – and constitute the world’s third largest group of financial investors.

Neanderthals, which disappeared from the archaeological record roughly 40,000 years ago, have long been considered our closest evolutionary relatives. But almost since the first discovery of Neanderthal remains in the 1800s, scientists have been arguing over whether Neanderthals constitute their own species or if they're simply a subset of our own species, Homo sapiens, that has since gone extinct.

So what does the science say? In particular, what does the genetic evidence, which didn't exist back when many early hominins were first discovered, show?

I went out for a curry with some friends last night, have a fairly straightforward day at work today then a pizza this evening and have a day booked off on Monday: I have some DIY lined up over the weekend.

Should be a good showing of the Perseid meteor shower this weekend too. It peaks tomorrow, but it looks like it'll be cloudy. I might spend a bit of time in the garden this evening though, since it is supposed to be clear, and see if I can spot any.

Kickin' in the front seat or sittin' in the back seat: which is it today folks?

Workwise, it should be ok today, then - rain permitting - I have a bat monitoring session this evening. That might be pushed to next weekend though (I'd get to watch the Perseids at the same time, if it was, by the look of it).

And then out to an open air production of A Winter's Tale tomorrow night - also rain permitting and the forecast is currently saying it won't.

What have you got lined up?

Blood on the corn, harvest in the horn, may you never hunger, may you never thirst!

I had a good Sunday lunch at the pub and a relaxed afternoon yesterday, have a relatively sane looking week lined up at work and then out for an outdoor Shakespeare play (rain permitting) on Friday.

What's lined up for today - or for the weekend then?

For me, on the plus side: pizza tonight.

On the minus side, I just had to update an address, which ended up involving installing an app which PLAYED MUSIC at me in the play store before even installing it. When did that become a thing?? Needless to say, it did not go down well with the SO.

In the past six years, Russia has built 475 military sites along its northern border. The Kola peninsula and the archipelagos of the Barents Sea have seen dozens of new airstrips, bunkers and bases.

The unprecedented new military buildup has experts concerned about devastating results for these delicate Arctic ecosystems. It is already among the most polluted places on Earth. Currents that carry warm water from the Atlantic Ocean into the Barents Sea make it one of the world’s great marine garbage patches, while decades of Soviet nuclear tests, the dumping of radioactive waste, and industrial pollution have left many waterways highly toxic, contributing to elevated rates of disease among local people.

Or got any plans for the week?

It was my SO's birthday and she wanted to go to a local transport museum, which was actually great fun riding around the site on trains, trams and trolley buses. A couple of shots of some 1920s trams.

A task force launched by UK supermarkets to tackle the exploitation of farm workers has failed to complete audits months after the investigations were supposed to take place, leaving vulnerable migrants at risk.

Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives on Friday suffered two crushing UK parliamentary by-election defeats but averted a “3-0” drubbing by unexpectedly holding on to Boris Johnson’s old Uxbridge seat.

The grave problems facing the British prime minister were highlighted when the opposition Labour party secured its biggest-ever by-election win in the once-safe Tory seat of Selby and Ainsty in Yorkshire.

Earlier the centrist Liberal Democrats demolished a massive Tory majority to win the seat of Somerton and Frome, opening up a dangerous new front for Sunak in the Tory heartlands of England’s South West.