Coming up, evidence for a super bright supernova that left debris behind on Earth.

Well, if you would have been on Earth, you would see a new star to appear on the sky, on the daylight sky.

It would be so bright.

And a study of human sacrifice exposes the dark side of religion.

Religion is often claimed to underpin morality, but our study shows how religion can also

be exploited by social elites.

Plus, mobile apps from mental health are more popular than ever.

But are they any good?

This is the Nature Podcast for April 7, 2016.

I'm Adam Levy.

And I'm Kerry Smith.

Astronomers are used to looking up into the night sky to learn about the cosmos. But increasingly, scientists are finding that the secrets of the solar system's history

are also written down much closer to home in the fabric of our planet itself.

Reporter Lizzie Gibney checks out two papers in nature this week.

When a massive star reaches the end of its life, it explodes in a supernova.

Elements that are fused in its fiery core are flung far and wide.

Back in the 1990s, scientists suggested that if an explosion was big enough and near enough to Earth, there might be a chance of seeing minute amounts of that debris on our planet,

and perhaps learning about the stars in the process.

The prediction proved right around 15 years ago when traces of a radioactive element

called Iron 60 were found in the ocean crust.

Iron 60 can't be produced on Earth, so it must have come from space. But exactly when and how

remained up for debate. Now an international team of space archaeologists has carried out the

...