Topic description and stories

Heliocolocellus fossil

‘Missing’ sea sponges discovered

05 Jun 2024

The discovery, published in Nature, opens a new window on early animal evolution.

Read more
Male wren with bright blue plumage brings food to a cuckoo fledgling .

Cuckoos evolve to look like their hosts - and form new species in the process

30 May 2024

Two decades of cuckoo research have helped scientists to explain how battles between species can cause new species to arise

Read more
Artistic recreation of the marine animal forest

Earth’s earliest sea creatures drove evolution by stirring the water

17 May 2024

3D reconstructions suggest that simple marine animals living over 560 million years ago drove the emergence of more complex life by mixing the...

Read more

Revealed: face of 75,000-year-old female Neanderthal from cave where species buried their dead

02 May 2024

A new documentary has recreated the face of a 75,000-year-old female Neanderthal whose flattened skull was discovered and rebuilt from hundreds of...

Read more
A cast of the skull of Homo Heidelbergensis, one of the hominin species analysed in the latest study.

Interspecies competition led to even more forms of ancient human – defying evolutionary trends in vertebrates

17 Apr 2024

Competition between species played a major role in the rise and fall of hominins, and produced a “bizarre” evolutionary pattern for the Homo lineage.

Read more
Illustration of Calamophyton trees

Earth’s earliest forest revealed in Somerset fossils

07 Mar 2024

The oldest fossilised forest known on Earth – dating from 390 million years ago – has been found in the high sandstone cliffs along the Devon and...

Read more

Successful honey-hunters know how to communicate with wild birds

08 Dec 2023

Wild honeyguide birds prefer to cooperate with people who have learned local cultural traditions to find and access honey-filled bees’ nests, a new...

Read more
Chimpanzees are seen attentively listening to other chimpanzees heard at some distance in the West African forests of Côte d’Ivoire, studied as part of research by the Taï Chimpanzee Project

Chimpanzees use hilltops to conduct reconnaissance on rival groups

02 Nov 2023

Research on neighbouring chimpanzee communities in the forests of West Africa suggests a warfare tactic not previously seen beyond humans is...

Read more
A cross-section of the polygonal muscle modelling approach, guided by muscle scarring and MRI data.

First hominin muscle reconstruction shows 3.2 million-year-old ‘Lucy’ could stand as erect as we can

14 Jun 2023

Digital modelling of legendary fossil’s soft tissue suggests Australopithecus afarensis had powerful leg and pelvic muscles suited to tree dwelling...

Read more

Mitochondria surrounded by cytoplasm

New route to evolution: how DNA from our mitochondria gets into our genomes

05 Oct 2022

Scientists have shown that in one in every 4,000 births, some of the genetic code from our mitochondria – the ‘batteries’ that power our cells –...

Read more
Artist Concept of an Early Earth

Seawater could have provided phosphorous required for emerging life

27 Sep 2022

The problem of how phosphorus became a universal ingredient for life on Earth may have been solved by researchers from the University of Cambridge...

Read more

Shaking the dinosaur family tree: how did ‘bird-hipped’ dinosaurs evolve?

21 Sep 2022

Researchers have conducted a new analysis of the origins of ‘bird-hipped’ dinosaurs – the group which includes iconic species such as Triceratops –...

Read more

Pages