At least 19 of the 20 people who died in a "horrific" school dormitory fire were children, officials said on Monday, after a blaze tore through the building in the Caribbean country of Guyana.

A researcher has figured out that the Earth’s first continent was formed 3bn years ago, in a new paper that sheds fresh light on the early stages of the planet’s life. Jane Greaves, an astronomy professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University in Wales, was examining continent formation on distant stars and planets. It is thought that exoplanets with continents that formed in a similar way to Earth’s are more likely to be habitable, and perhaps even contain alien life. In the process, she calculated when several distant planets’ continents were born, as well as those a little closer to home. Continents on Earth sit on top of the planet’s hot, viscous mantle. Heat from the inner core stops the mantle from solidifying. The reason the core is hot is because it contains radioactive elements that came from neutron star collisions billions of years ago such as forms of Uranium, Thorium and Potassium. By analysing how many materials like this are present on Earth and on other planets, we are also able to estimate when the continents formed. On Earth, that was about 9.5 billion years since the beginning of the universe. Meanwhile, in Greaves' sample, the first continents appeared 2bn years before Earth’s on the exoplanets of younger, so-called thin disk stars. Older, thick disk stars analysed in her work produced rocky planets with continents that appeared even earlier: about 4 to 5bn years before Earth’s. “The outlook seems very promising for finding rocky exoplanets with continents, given that nearby Sun-like stars have already produced a few candidate hosts,” she wrote. The study, “When were the First Exocontinents?” is published in Research Notes of the American Astronomical SocietySign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) -Clashes between rival military factions could be heard overnight in parts of Sudan's capital, residents said on Wednesday,

BMW has announced plans to transform its Mini factory in Oxford, England, to produce nothing but electric vehicles

A person close to Britney Spears' husband Sam Asghari says the model and actor has filed to divorce the pop superstar

By Brenda Goh and Casey Hall SHANGHAI (Reuters) -Alibaba Group on Tuesday said its CEO and chairman Daniel Zhang will

UK inflation fell more than expected in October, data showed Wednesday, easing a cost-of-living crisis and relieving pressure on...

A 63-year-old hiker was rescued from the Grand Canyon in Arizona last week after he suffered a traumatic shoulder injury due to a fall, a volunteer search and rescue organization affiliated with a sheriff's office said.

Brendan Fraser and Leonardo DiCaprio had a brief encounter during the screening of the latter's film, ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’

While being married to Al, Jeanine faced issues not just in her work life but her personal life as well

WASHINGTON A senior U.S. State Department official will travel to China next week, the department said on Saturday,

Wales became the first team to qualify for the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup as they produced a record-breaking performance to hammer Austalia 40-6...