A worm that lived half a billion years ago preferred turning right
Fossils of Spriggina floundersi provide the earliest evidence of animals favouring one side of the body over the other – a feature of nervous systems that we see in our own right- and left-handedness
View ArticleChris Packham: 'I'd throw myself in front of a T. Rex to be consumed'
As Chris Packham gears up for his new TV show, Evolution, he tells Penny Sarchet why understanding the latest evolutionary science is so important if we are to truly appreciate the natural world - and...
View ArticleBumblebee facial movements give clues to their inner lives
A series of experiments shows that bees respond differently to tastes depending on their internal states, hinting that they have something akin to our emotions
View ArticleOrangutan mothers seem to plan playdates for their offspring
Female orangutans are generally solitary, but they travel more and eat less in an apparent effort to ensure their offspring have someone to play with
View ArticleThis thoughtful book will make you look at the wonders of trees anew
Aya Koda's Tree is an account of the late writer's visits to Japan's most famous, and ancient, trees. Featured in Wim Wenders's film Perfect Days, it is original and thought-provoking, says Rowan Hooper
View ArticleStunning photos reveal the intricate beauty of fungi
The vibrant colours and delicate details of New Zealand's fungi and slime moulds are documented in these images, taken from Jay Lichter's new book The Secret Life of Fungi
View ArticleSynthetic biology may finally be ready to solve life's biggest mystery
What makes something alive? We simply don't know, but synthetic biologists are a step closer to providing an answer thanks to SpudCell, the most sophisticated attempt at creating an artificial life...
View ArticleWhat is 'SpudCell'? Arguably the greatest bioengineering feat yet
A prototype cell partly capable of replicating itself has been created using 36 existing bacterial genes, but it's not really a living organism – yet
View ArticleThe world's fastest spider tops 3.5 metres per second
The most comprehensive database ever compiled of how fast arachnids can run has shown how leg anatomy and evolutionary history influence spiders’ running speed
View ArticleChildbirth for many primate species is even harder than for humans
For decades, we’ve thought that childbirth is uniquely challenging for humans, but it turns out that many other primates find the birth process just as difficult
View ArticleFossil fruits show flowering plants flourished in time of dinosaurs
Large fruits and seeds buried under volcanic ash nearly 75 million years ago upend the idea that flowering plants only came to prominence after the Cretaceous mass extinction
View ArticleThe 17 best popular science books of 2026 so far
The first six months of the year have brought us popular science reads on everything from consciousness to cosmology. Liz Else rounds up her favourites
View ArticleScrewworm could be the first species targeted by an 'extinction drive'
We have developed genetic technologies that could wipe out entire species of pests that are harmful to us. Columnist Michael Le Page says the flesh-eating screwworm is the most likely first target
View ArticleNew-to-science spider builds trap that flings ants into the air
A spider living in the rainforests of Queensland, Australia, builds a snare trap reminiscent of a Roman-era ballista weapon that it uses to catapult green tree ants into a web 30 centimetres above
View ArticleRemarkable fossils rewrite the story of how animals conquered the land
Palaeontologists have found new evidence that the early ancestors of amphibians, reptiles and mammals did not have a larval stage with external gills like modern frogs or salamanders
View ArticleComplex life on Earth may last 500 million years longer than expected
As the sun expands over the coming billions of years, Earth will become inhospitable to any life more complex than a microbe – but that might take longer than we thought
View ArticlePigeons lock their eyes in place when they are flying
Bird-mounted headsets and backpacks have revealed the surprising things pigeons do with their eyes when on the wing
View ArticleWalking shark found in Papua New Guinea is new to science
Hemiscyllium dudgeonae is the tenth recorded species of walking shark, which use their pectoral fins to move across reef flats, and its limited range means it may be at high risk of extinction
View ArticleHas the answer to life's origins been hiding in our cells all along?
The surprising discovery of mysterious blobs inside our cells is revolutionising our understanding of how life works, and how it got started
View ArticleGlobal map reveals the vast scale of underground fungal networks
Our soils are teeming with networks of fungi, and we're starting to understand how important they are
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