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Alireza Sotakbar/ISNA/AP/Alamy

Israeli airstrikes on oil facilities in Tehran on 7 March led to sulphur dioxide emissions equivalent to a small volcanic eruption, potentially exposing people as far away as China to acid rain and toxic air pollution. As part of the US and Israeli campaign against Iran, warplanes struck several oil depots and a refinery that night, sparking massive fires that lit up the sky and spewed smoke for days. Black rain containing soot and hydrocarbons fell on the Iranian capital, and residents reported eye and skin irritation and difficulty breathing. Now, satellite data has shown that the plume of sulphur dioxide released by these explosions and fires covered 300,000 square kilometres, passing over several countries. Read more

A fertility start-up called Paterna Biosciences says it can take stem cells from the testes and turn them into sperm cells in the lab. This is a big claim, and one that would be welcome news for many men who struggle with infertility, but the company has provided no evidence to back it up. Columnist Michael Le Page talks to the co-founder and explores just how powerful this technology might be – and whether we might have to use gene-editing as well to realise its full potential. Read more

Two medical instruments recovered from the 15th-century tomb of a Chinese surgeon carry traces of an anaesthetic compound, the earliest chemical evidence ever found of doctors attempting to reduce the pain of a medical procedure. Read more

Critical safety equipment in many train systems is vulnerable to disruption by space weather, which could lead to fatal accidents. Read more

Gilles & Cecilie

Wherever you are reading this, look around you. Every living thing you can see – other people, pets, trees, flowers, mushrooms – is here because of unions between different species. This symbiosis, which means “living together”, has been neglected in our explanation of biology and ecology thanks to an emphasis on the role of competition in the evolution of life, argues Rowan Hooper. But if we stop focusing on the individual and instead look at life through the lens of togetherness, we get a whole new picture of how life on Earth – and elsewhere – may have begun. Read more

Gabe Xu at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, whose team developed a bright purple jet of microbe-killing plasma that could be used to do laundry in space.

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