When researchers at the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries recently took one of their ancient documents for carbon dating, they made a breakthrough discovery. The Indian “Bakhshali manuscript” containing the first known recorded use of the “0” symbol actually dates back to the 3rd or 4th century, making it — and the modern zero — 500 years older than previously thought. That’s important because India was the first place that mathematicians began using zero as a number in its own right. And, as Ittay Weiss explains, that revolutionised the theory and practice of maths. In fact, writes Christian Yates, ancient Indian scholars made a huge number of advances that effectively laid the basis for mathematics as we know it today.

The Caribbean and Central America are having a torrid time. Mexico is recovering from two of its biggest earthquakes in decades while people on the islands in the Caribbean are trying to piece their lives together again. From Mexico Jesus Espinosa Herrera explains why many Mexicans don’t trust their government to help them while Luis Gómez Romero unpacks why Mexico City will be able to shoulder the devastation better than the country’s neglected rural south. In the Caribbean poorer communities have also faced much greater risks as Levi Gahman and Gabrielle Thongs explain.

Famine in the Horn of Africa is being blamed on poor rains. But the link between drought and fame isn’t straightforward, argues Philippe Roudier.