Links

In the courtyard of a gift shop decorated with colourful ceramic frogs and dragonflies, it’s easy to overlook the historic marker. Perhaps that’s fitting for a secret site.

The global economy has been severely disrupted by Covid-19, with the virus wreaking particular devastation on the travel industry.

The Canary Islands’ subtropical climate, aquamarine waters and otherworldly volcanic and desert landscapes led more than 15 million people to visit the archipelago last year.

On 27 January 1945, Soviet troops cautiously entered Auschwitz. Primo Levi - one of the most famous survivors - was lying in a camp hospital with scarlet fever when the liberators arrived.

The European Space Agency is moving rapidly to develop its next Mars rover. It already has one vehicle set to go to the Red Planet in 2022, but is now pushing ahead with a second robot, which will depart in 2026.

Lockdown guidance on exercising for people in England will loosen on Wednesday. But Colin Johnstone is among those runners who have not allowed their strict exercise regimes to slip, even if it means going out in the middle of the night.

There is only one photograph in circulation of the Tibetan Gedhun Choekyi Niyima, one of the world's most famous "disappeared" persons. It is little more than a snapshot, taken when he was just six years old. It shows a boy with rosy cheeks and an impassive look on his face.

Despite being a reasonably experienced scuba diver, I had never seen a “bommie”, something Heron Island in the Great Barrier Reef is famous for. A couple of years ago, the chance to see one of these shaggy column-like mounds of coral finally took me there.

Astronomers say big cool patches on a "supergiant" star close to Earth were behind its surprise dimming last year. Red giant stars like Betelgeuse frequently undergo changes in brightness, but the drop to 40% of its normal value between October 2019 and April 2020 surprised astronomers.

You may not have noticed, but we are living in an intellectual golden age. Since the intelligence test was invented more than 100 years ago, our IQ scores have been steadily increasing.

You might have started seeing more of them on streets and in parks, gliding past you with a faint electric hum. As lockdowns lift and people avoid public transport, e-scooters – stand-up, electrically powered scooters – are becoming more popular.

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have unveiled a robotic colleague that has been working non-stop in their lab throughout lockdown. The £100,000 programmable researcher learns from its results to refine its experiments.

India and Russia have been declared joint winners of a major international chess tournament after two Indian players lost their internet connection during the final round. An online version of the Chess Olympiad contest is being held for the first time this year because of coronavirus.

image copyrightGetty ImagesA French woman has been arrested in India for making a video of herself naked on a sacred bridge in the northern city of Rishikesh.The video, shot on the Lakshman Jhula bridge, was posted on social media.

Marisa Papen posted the image of herself reclining naked on a rooftop overlooking the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The rabbi of the site described the incident as "grave and lamentable".

New pictures of the Sun taken just 77 million km (48 million miles) from its surface are the closest ever acquired by cameras. They come from the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter (SolO) probe, which was launched earlier this year.

Amid the global debate about race relations, colonialism and slavery, some of the Europeans and Americans who made their fortunes in trading human beings have seen their legacies reassessed, their statues toppled and their names removed from public buildings.

US Vice-President Mike Pence has said "faith in America is rising once again" - thanks to President Donald Trump. America's religious climate has shifted in recent years, but has it been in the direction Mr Pence suggests?

Televangelist Todd Coontz has a well-worn routine: he dresses in a suit, pulls out a Bible and urges viewers to pledge a very specific amount of money. "Don't delay, don't delay," he urges, calmly but emphatically. It sounds simple, absurdly so, but Coontz knows his audience extremely well.

This article originally appeared on The Conversation, and is republished under a Creative Commons licence. “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.