The world’s best violins come with strings made from catgut—which isn’t typically from cats, but does definitely come from the inside of an animal. If you want a more vegetarian alternative, though, ...

A piece of 50,000-year-old string found in a cave in France is the oldest ever discovered. It suggests that Neanderthals knew how to twist fibres together to make cords – and, if so, they might have ...