From a borrowed gene that helped mice live longer, to a chunk of metal that managed to be in two places at once, this week's stories cross the full sweep of science. We've also got salamanders, a spacecraft preparing to slingshot past Mars, and a warning from cardiologists about what's on your plate.

From a rover sniffing out building blocks of life on Mars to a triangular aluminium molecule that could replace platinum, this week's science had something for nearly every classroom. We've also got two faults that may quake together, a 200-million-year-old crab habit, deep ocean heat creeping toward Antarctica, and what your morning coffee might be doing to your gut bacteria.

Welcome to this week's roundup of science stories making waves around the world. From a 600-million-year-old "cyclops" ancestor that may explain why your eyes look the way they do, to the largest 3D map of the universe ever made, this week's stories span 600 million years of biology, the slow tearing apart of a continent, brain-inspired computing, and a literary discovery hidden inside an Egyptian mummy. Let's dive in.

From electrons that flow like water inside graphene, to printed neurons that can talk to living brain cells, this week has been packed with discoveries that blur old boundaries — between physics and chemistry, biology and engineering, and even between the artificial and the alive. Here are six stories worth sharing in the lab, the classroom and the staffroom.