Nature

How far back can the story of humans and dogs be told? When and where did this ancient relationship begin? New DNA evidence suggests our connection with canines can be traced much further into prehistory than has ever been conclusively shown. According to scientists, analyses of ancient dog DNA suggests dogs were domesticated from Eurasian

The carcass of an enormous finback whale (Balaenoptera physalus) was discovered near the Italian port of Sorrento earlier this week, the Italian Coast Guard said in a Facebook post. Officials discovered the carcass on Sunday (Jan. 17), before towing it to the nearby port at Naples. The whale measured about 65 feet (20 meters) long and

If you saw the first episode of David Attenborough‘s new BBC series Perfect Planet, you will have seen the astounding bloodsucking behaviour of the vampire finches. These small birds exist only on two remote islands in the Galapagos and have evolved to drink the blood of much larger seabirds. You will also have seen the

While surveying the Hawaiian island of Kauai in search of invasive plants in 2017, botanist Kelsey Brock spotted something unusual: a few nonnative species of figs seemed to be settling in. As people traverse the planet for trade or travel, they bring a slew of species with them, many of which establish a foothold in

Like pappy used to say: if you see it writhe and hiss, give it a miss. Humans have passed on similar nuggets of wisdom since time immemorial, giving us a healthy (and sometimes less than healthy) respect for backing away from snakes. Yet the fact snake bites hurt is usually an accident of nature – virtually

Conservationists have started using satellite imagery to count elephants from space, a technique that British experts hope will help protect threatened populations in Africa.  Researchers at the University of Oxford and the University of Bath said the use of algorithms, machine learning, and satellite technology could replace current techniques used to count elephants – a

Scientists have unearthed massive, 98-million-year-old fossils in southwest Argentina they say may have belonged to the largest dinosaur ever discovered. Human-sized pieces of fossilized bone belonging to the giant sauropod appear to be 10-20 percent larger than those attributed to Patagotitan mayorum, the biggest dinosaur ever identified, according to a statement Wednesday from the National

Through a careful analysis of fossilised seafloor layers dating back some 20 million years, scientists have reconstructed the lair of a giant underwater worm that would most probably have lain hidden in sediment before leaping up to ambush its prey. The newly identified creature is likely to be an ancestor of the Eunice aphroditois or

In 2013, the lives of millions of sea stars were mysteriously extinguished. Limbs that were once strong, probing arms searching for sustenance, shrivelled and tore themselves away from the rest of their bodies and melted into a sickly goo. “There were arms everywhere,” ecologist Drew Harvell told The Atlantic‘s Ed Yong last year. “It looked

A male Springbok praying mantis looking for a hook-up doesn’t have to worry about a female stealing his heart away. There is, however, a very good change she’ll bite his head off, and he knows it. Indeed, 60 percent of sexual encounters between Springboks – one of nearly 2,000 mantis species across the globe – end in males being

New video shows the moment when Mount Etna, Europe’s largest active volcano, spewed bubbling lava and hot ash into the Sicilian sky earlier this week. On Sunday (Jan. 17), lava began “oozing” from the Etna’s southeast crater and toward the east, according to Boris Behncke, a volcanologist at the INGV-Osservatorio Etneo in Catania, Sicily, Express reported. By

If you are a lucky species, you will stumble into random gene mutations that just happen to help you survive better – allowing you and your descendants to keep and build on the helpful traits they encode. As with anything involving luck, the more chances you take, the more chances you have of hitting the

When a dog-sized Psittacosaurus was living out its days on Earth, it was probably concerned with mating, eating, and not being killed by other dinosaurs. It would never even have crossed its mind that, 120 million or so years later, scientists would be peering intensely up its clacker. However, that’s precisely what they have done,

Striking new videos show how RNA – the genetic molecule that tells cells how to build proteins – tangles up in insane knots as it forms, only to disentangle itself at the last second, and in a way that took scientists by surprise.  The high-resolution videos depict a bouncing conga line of nucleotides, the building

It’s no accident that cats are adorable: We’ve selectively bred them across generations for maximum cuteness. But that breeding has a downside: It’s left some of our feline friends with permanent frowny faces that cannot show emotions. In particular, new research published in December in the journal Frontiers of Veterinary Science suggests that selective breeding for the “brachycephalic,” or

Even though we know the deep sea is weird, ‘carnivorous sea sponges’ still sound like something from a sci-fi movie. And yet, researchers just announced the discovery of three new such species off the coast of Australia. Go a few hundred metres deep into the ocean, and it starts to look like you’re in a whole new

Most people associate the word “coral” with sunshine, blue skies and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. In fact, more than half of the 5,100 species on the planet exist as “cold-water corals” in deep and dark parts of the world’s oceans. Unlike most other animals, corals are immobile and so rely heavily on currents to transport

For most people, the word “vampire” brings to mind Dracula or perhaps slayers such as Blade or Buffy; or maybe even the vampire bats of South America. Few will think of a small and rather lovely bird – the finch. But there are indeed “vampire finches” that feast on the blood of much larger birds,

A lonely rhinoceros at a Bangladesh zoo is looking for new love after losing her partner seven years ago, but pandemic travel restrictions are hampering her keeper’s attempts to play matchmaker. Kanchi, a star attraction at the Bangladesh National Zoo, is at her most fertile age. But since the death of her male partner in

A desert gecko from Namibia has brilliant glow-in-the-dark markings that shine neon green by the light of the moon. The mechanism that produces its glow has never been seen before in land animals with backbones. Web-footed geckos (Pachydactylus rangei) have translucent skin with large, yellowish markings: stripes on their sides and rings surrounding their eyes. But those

Electric eels appear to not be the loners we thought they were. In a small lake deep in the Amazon River basin in Brazil, scientists have for the first time recorded the fish not just living together, but actively working together to forage, and to bring down their prey. There’s even evidence that the strategy

We know that all the excess CO2 we’re pumping into the air – alongside a host of other damaging effects – is driving up the acidity of the oceans as it sinks and dissolves into the water, but it seems as though the hardy octopus can find ways to adapt to its rapidly changing environment.

The ancient, extinct dire wolf may have been among the lonest of the wolves – so genetically distinct from its closest wolf relative that it could no longer interbreed, forcing it into an evolutionary dead end when it died out 13,000 years ago. That’s the finding based on a new study, the in-depth analysis of

Every eight years during fall, a plague of millipedes swarm train lines in mountainous Japan, earning them the nickname ‘train millipedes’. Working together, these small beasties (around 3 cm or 1.18 inches long) – which play a large role cycling nitrogen in Japan’s larch forests – have forced trains to come to a skidding halt.

At least two gorillas at California’s San Diego Zoo have caught the coronavirus, the first known instance of natural transmission to great apes, officials said Monday. Two primates began coughing last week and have since tested positive for COVID-19, while a third is showing symptoms, Governor Gavin Newsom said. They are thought to have contracted

Two thin strands wound together in a spiraling helix: This is the iconic shape of a DNA molecule. But sometimes, DNA can form a rare quadruple-helix, and this odd structure may play a role in diseases like cancer.  Not much is known about these four-stranded DNA, known as G-quadruplexes — but now, scientists have developed a

It’s not a question you might have thought about, but which came first: sleep or the brain? To put it another way, can organisms without brains go to sleep? Based on a study of primitive, water-dwelling life forms called Hydra vulgaris, scientists might finally have the answer. New research shows how these tiny creatures can

The thylacine has long been considered a truly remarkable species. The extinct Australian beast was a marsupial, but its skull was distinctly canine in appearance, almost identical to the skulls of red foxes and grey wolves. Now, new research has confirmed that this resemblance wasn’t limited to adult thylacines (Thylacinus cynocephalus) – it was present

Scientists have identified an entirely new mode of snake locomotion. The newly documented climbing behaviour is difficult, but allows snakes to impressively shimmy up large, smooth cylinders. Researchers have dubbed it ‘lasso locomotion’, because the snake climbs poles by lassoing its body around the cylindrical structures, gripping them tightly in a looped noose from torso

In a first-of-its-kind discovery, scientists have found that a species of non-photosynthetic bacteria are regulated by the same circadian rhythms that hold sway over so many other life-forms. In humans, our circadian rhythms act as a kind of biological clock in our cells, controlling virtually all the processes in our bodies, influencing when we sleep

Megalodon, the largest species of shark ever to have existed in Earth’s history, likely had a somewhat gruesome method for getting a head start in life. According to new research, the pups of the Megalodon shark (Otodus megalodon) are larger than most humans when they’re born. This suggests that they hatched in the womb and

A long-extinct lineage of insect, known fondly as the ‘hell ant’, has been discovered frozen in 99-million-year-old amber, with its scythe-like jaw still pinning its prey. According to scientists, this fierce predator is a newly identified species of prehistoric ant, known as Ceratomyrmex ellenbergeri, and it’s the first time we’ve ever seen a hell ant actively

Taxonomy, or the naming of species, is the foundation of modern biology. It might sound like a fairly straightforward exercise, but in fact it’s complicated and often controversial. Why? Because there’s no one agreed list of all the world’s species. Competing lists exist for organisms such as mammals and birds, while other less well-known groups have

Spend a few minutes watching the graceful dance of an octopus on the prowl and you’ll quickly appreciate their talent for making their arms flow like a living liquid.  It’s one thing to marvel at their flexibility. To really get a grip on their motor skills, researchers from the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts put

Seeing our world through the eyes of a migratory bird would be a rather spooky experience. Something about their visual system allows them to ‘see’ our planet’s magnetic field, a clever trick of quantum physics and biochemistry that helps them navigate vast distances. Now, for the first time ever, scientists from the University of Tokyo

The first complete map of a platypus genome has just been released, and it’s every bit as strange as you’d expect from a creature with 10 sex chromosomes, a pair of venomous spurs, a coat of fluorescent fur, and skin that ‘sweats’ milk. The duck-billed platypus is truly one of the oddest creatures on Earth.

As if spiders weren’t already crafty enough, on the island of Madagascar, biologists have now found what appear to be frog traps crafted by huntsman spiders (Damastes sp.). The so-called traps were made from leaves stitched together with silk, and potentially offered shady spots for amphibians to rest, resulting in them getting trapped in the

The power to be unseen has long captured our imaginations – from ancient myths to modern fantasies of rings and cloaks that can bestow such a gift. One way to achieve a type of invisibility is to let light pass straight through you – to become transparent. This requires a body composed of tissues that

The bleak history of whaling pushed many species to the brink of extinction, even in the remote waters of the North and South Poles. Over 1.3 million whales were killed in just 70 years around Antarctica alone. The scale of this industrial harvest completely decimated many populations of large whales in the Southern Ocean. But

Residents of St. Vincent and the Grenadines have been told to remain alert after a Caribbean volcano came back to life. La Soufrière is the highest point in St. Vincent and is located near the northern tip of the country but remained dormant for decades before beginning to spew ash on Tuesday this week, AP reported. Steam,

Melting permafrost in the icy north of Siberia is revealing a veritable graveyard of frozen prehistoric animals. In recent decades, locals and scientists in the Russian Republic of Yakutia have uncovered the ancient carcasses of two cave lion cubs, a bison, a horse, a baby woolly rhinoceros, and the most intact woolly mammoth ever found. 

How life originated on Earth continues to fascinate scientists, but it’s not easy peering back billions of years into the past. Now, evidence is growing for a relatively new hypothesis of how life began: with a very precise mix of RNA and DNA. RNA and DNA both determine the genetic make-up of all biological life, with

Despite several cliff-scaling efforts to locate another of its kind, so far this native Hawaiian flower appears to be unique. Found on one of the steep forested slopes of Helu that loom over Lahaina in West Maui, Hawaii, Cyanea heluensis was first discovered back in 2010 but it has only just been formally described. Botanist

Just when we thought octopuses couldn’t be any weirder, it turns out that they and their cephalopod brethren evolve differently from nearly every other organism on the planet. In a surprising twist, in April 2017 scientists discovered that octopuses, along with some squid and cuttlefish species, routinely edit their RNA (ribonucleic acid) sequences to adapt

It’s taken nearly five years, 45 research expeditions, and more than 80 scientists and students, but the largest oceanic research enterprise, the ATLAS project, is officially complete. Exploring 12 locations in the deep northern Atlantic, the project has set a gold standard for future marine research. Driving underwater robots to areas never before explored, researchers have uncovered

We’re naturally reluctant to abandon something we’ve sunk time, effort, and money into, even when the best option is to just walk away – and it turns out that monkeys feel exactly the same, according to a new study. This “sunk costs” phenomenon can apply to our relationships, home improvements, books, video games, car repairs,

Almost a millennium ago, a major upheaval occurred in Earth’s atmosphere: a giant cloud of sulphur-rich particles flowed throughout the stratosphere, turning skies dark for months or even years, before ultimately falling down to Earth. We know this event happened because researchers have drilled and analysed ice cores – samples taken from deep within ice

In an exciting development, a new type of whale song may very well belong to a previously unknown population of blue whales, peacefully swimming in the Indian Ocean. The unusual song was picked up at three different underwater locations separated by 3,500 kilometres (2,175 miles) of ocean. First recorded in 2017 off the coast of