New Scientist

A 1.3-kilometre swim by a jaguar is the longest ever confirmed, but the cat's motives for making the journey are unclear

There are three key nutrients that all plants need – nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium – but in different amounts. So finding fertiliser that suits all your plants might seem tricky, but there is a simple solution, says James Wong

It has long been claimed that only one mammal – the golden mole – has fur that shimmers with rainbow colours, but it now turns out that at least a dozen more mammals have iridescent fur too

An estimate that as many as 1.3 million wildebeest move across the Serengeti Mara landscape each year has been cut down to size using AI

Two fossils found in Germany show very young pterodactyls with arm bones thought to have been broken in flight, probably because of severe tropical cyclones

Photographer Nicole Tung captures the tough world facing South-East Asia’s fishers and their families in this series of images, which won her the Carmignac Photojournalism Award for fieldwork

Four new species of aquatic birds related to modern penguins have been described from fossils found in New Zealand, showing how these creatures flourished around 60 million years ago

An analysis of a range of dry dog foods finds that none are nutritionally complete, but vegan and vegetarian foods compare well with meat-based ones

Flamingoes, a kingfisher and two red-crowned cranes are shown in all their glory in these images from the new book Aviary: The bird in contemporary photography

Bizarrely, Iberian harvester ant queens lay eggs that turn into male builder harvester ants, and some of her offspring are hybrids of the two species

A fossil discovered in Patagonia shows a 3.5-metre-long reptile from the late Cretaceous with large, serrated teeth capable of slicing through muscle

The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week

The brightest and most colourful glowing plants yet have been created by injecting phosphorescent chemicals directly into the leaves, but it is little more than a cheap gimmick

A 165-million-year-old ankylosaur from the Atlas Mountains of Morocco was covered in an array of extreme armour including body spikes fused to its skeleton, a feature never seen in any dinosaur before

A comparison of the thylacine’s genome to other marsupials has revealed that the creatures lost genetic diversity long before humans and dingoes arrived in Australia

The rare sailback houndshark, which has an unusually large dorsal fin, was first described by scientists in 1973. That was the last record of its existence, until now

Microbes found buried deep in Siberian permafrost may be able to survive over extremely long timescales using protein repair genes

Scientists have long and studiously avoided claiming that other animals have language. Now, using the power of AI, they are on the verge of deciphering one

Robin Hammond's photographs show the conservation battle to eradicate three species introduced to New Zealand, in order to protect the island nation's birds

A dietary supplement made from engineered yeast could help honeybees thrive despite the declining availability of high-quality pollen in their environment