A surprising new study is claiming that the Earth’s atmosphere was actually loaded with oxygen billions of years ago, totally contradicting what scientists had believed for many years.

The discovery is based on incredibly old micro-meteorites dated back 2.7 billion years ago, and scientists think they’ve found evidence in these microscopic particles that show that Earth wasn’t devoid of oxygen in its early days, according to a Monash University statement.

The scientists based their finding on 60 meteorites fossilized in limestone in Western Australia that were first uncovered in 2014 and 2015. The micro-meteorites are tiny — smaller than the width of a human hair — but they contain some mighty important information for understanding the early days of the Earth.

The scientists examined the chemical composition of the meteorites, which are fairly common and easy to find, and determined what the atmosphere was like back when these meteorites collided with the earth by studying the chemicals in them. They were able to do this because the makeup of the atmosphere would have affected how these chemicals cooled and what molecules they formed.

They found that rather than being mostly made up of nitrogen, the Earth’s upper atmosphere was packed with life-giving oxygen.

“Using cutting-edge microscopes we found that most of the micrometeorites had once been particles of metallic iron – common in meteorites – that had been turned into iron oxide minerals in the upper atmosphere, indicating higher concentrations of oxygen than expected,” team leader Dr. Andrew Tomkins said in the statement. “This was an exciting result because it is the first time anyone has found a way to sample the chemistry of the ancient Earth’s upper atmosphere.”

Mount St. Helens last erupted 36 years ago, but a swarm of earthquakes underneath the volcano have raised concerns that another eruption may be inching ever closer.

The massive 1980 eruption killed 57 people and demolished 250 homes, making it easily the worst volcano-related disaster in United States history. Now, scientists have observed a swarm of tiny earthquakes underneath the mount since March. Scientists think that this indicates the volcano is recharging with magma, according to news reports.

However, that is not an indication at Mount St. Helens that an eruption is imminent. Magma recharges can happen for many years without an eruption, and scientists haven’t seen the kind of ground inflation or shallow tremors that usually indicate a volcano is about to erupt.

Mount St. Helens is located in the Cascade Mountains, a comfortable 55 miles from Portland and 95 miles from Seattle. Scientists believe it has had four major explosive eruptions in the last 500 years, with the 1980 eruption being the most famous one. The USGS has monitored Mount St. Helens ever since, and scientists have used it to come to a better understanding on how volcanoes operate.

“On March 16, 1980, the first sign of activity at Mount St. Helens occurred as a series of small earthquakes,” the USGS said in a statement on the 1980 eruption. “On March 27, after hundreds of additional earthquakes, the volcano produced its first eruption in over 100 years. Steam explosions blasted a 60- to 75-m (200- to 250-ft) wide crater through the volcano’s summit ice cap and covered the snow-clad southeast sector with dark ash.

“Within a week the crater had grown to about 400 m (1,300 ft) in diameter and two giant crack systems crossed the entire summit area,” it continued. “From the start of the eruption, the bulge grew outward—nearly horizontally—at consistent rates of about 2 m (6.5 ft) per day. Such dramatic deformation of the volcano was strong evidence that molten rock (magma) had risen high into the volcano. In fact, beneath the surficial bulge was a cryptodome that had intruded into the volcano’s edifice, but had yet to erupt on the surface.”

An incredible discovery in China could forever change how we understand the history of human evolution.

A “mother lode” of fossils in China first discovered in the 1990s of a small monkey-like creature that was 10 million years older than apes in Africa suggests that our ape ancestors may have rafted across the sea to Africa many eons ago, according to a University of Kansas statement.

Previously, scientists had thought that primates had evolved in Africa over millions of years ago into man before starting to cross continents and oceans to our present locations. But this discovery seems to indicate that a species of monkey evolved in Asia and then sailed across the sea to Africa, and then went extinct in Asia due to climate change. Scientists think they may have rafted across on trees, as monkeys aren’t good swimmers.

The discovery would rewrite our understanding of how apes evolved into humans and then subsequently spread across the world.

“At the Eocene-Oligocene boundary, because of the rearrangement of Earth’s major tectonic plates, you had a rapid drop in temperature and humidity,” K. Christopher Beard, senior curator at the University of Kansas’ Biodiversity Institute and co-author of the report, said in the statement. “Primates like it warm and wet, so they faced hard times around the world — to the extent that they went extinct in North America and Europe. Of course, primates somehow survived in Africa and Southern Asia, because we’re still around to talk about it.”

Scientists have just discovered a new blood test based on certain biomarkers that could allow them to spot concussions days after they happened — and far more reliably, too.

Concussions are difficult to spot early on, as symptoms are often delayed in children (in adults as well, but more rarely). This new blood test could detect concussions up to a week after a potential injury, according to an Orlando Health statement.

Concussions have been a growing concern in the sports world as we have come to understand just how dangerous they can be. Rather than simply a knock on the head that we can just wait to subside, concussions are actually brain injuries that can have long-term impacts. It can lead to difficulties focusing, headaches, and even serious depression, so detecting them properly is of paramount importance so that people can get the treatment they need early on.

The new blood test looks for biomarkers called glial fibrillary acidic proteins (GFAP), which are believed to be unique to the central nervous system and the brain and are released after a brain injury, lingering days later so that doctors can test the blood and see if they’re still there.

“Symptoms of a concussion, or a mild to moderate traumatic brain injury, can be subtle and are often delayed, in many cases by several days,” Linda Papa, MD, MSC, an emergency medicine physician and NIH funded researcher at Orlando Health and lead author of the study, said in the statement. “This could provide doctors with an important tool for simply and accurately diagnosing those patients, particularly children, and making sure they are treated properly.”

An ancient artifact discovered in Italy has the archaeological world talking, as it could shed light on the mysterious Etruscan culture of ancient Italy.

Scientists have uncovered a gigantic stone that is about 500 pounds and stands four feet tall by two feet wide, and appears to have at least 70 legible letters and punctuation marks that could end up being an ancient sacred text of the Etruscan culture from 2,500 years ago, according to a Southern Methodist University statement.

The text could help us understand more about the religious culture of the Etruscans, and what kind of god or goddesses they worshipped. The Etruscans once ruled Rome and were a very religious people, likely having magistrates that ruled over the people and wrote religious laws. This stone slab may be a clue on what kind of religions and worship practices were predominant thousands of years ago before the Romans took over.

The Mugello Valley Archaeological Project has been spearheading the project for the last two decades. They want to better understand the Etruscan culture, as well as the daily lives of both the elites and non-elites.

“This is probably going to be a sacred text, and will be remarkable for telling us about the early belief system of a lost culture that is fundamental to western traditions,” archaeologist Gregory Warden, co-director and principal investigator of the Mugello Valley Archaeological Project, said in the statement.

“We hope to make inroads into the Etruscan language,” he added. “Long inscriptions are rare, especially one this long, so there will be new words that we have never seen before, since it is not a funerary text.”