The age of discovery

The Long News: stories that might still matter fifty, or a hundred, or ten thousand years from now.

We may have Google-mapped every last nook and cranny of our planet, but we’re still finding ways to push back the limits of what we know. A few recent discoveries:

1. Could Mars have sustained life? New images show evidence of ancient Martian lake

2. Further into outer space: Black hole is most massive known

3. Closer to home: Sub explores ocean’s deepest trench

4. Pushing back our understanding of our own history (it seems the gatherers, not the hunters, invented agriculture): Food storage began well before farming

5. The invention of food storage on a smaller scale: Chinese pottery may be earliest discovered

6. And this story (found by Will Hill) of a species almost as successful as we are: Ant mega-colony takes over world

We invite you to submit Long News story suggestions here.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

More from History

What is the long now?

The Long Now Foundation is a nonprofit established in 01996 to foster long-term thinking. Our work encourages imagination at the timescale of civilization — the next and last 10,000 years — a timespan we call the long now.

Learn more

Join our newsletter for the latest in long-term thinking

Long Now's website is changing...