New Scientist

Scuba divers will attempt to collect semen from at least nine wild male leopard sharks for the first time, for use in captive breeding programmes aiming to boost wild populations

Bees visited flowers on plants inoculated with diverse fungi more than plants without this treatment – but not every combination of fungus had the same effect

Mark Catesby's work documents the plants and animals he saw while journeying in North America and the Caribbean

Alternative thinking on the evolution of species is a welcome way to highlight some neglected aspects of life on Earth, but it doesn't mean Darwin was wrong

Natural selection isn't just something that happens to organisms, their activities also play a role, giving some species – including humans – a supercharged ability to evolve

Parts from dozens of different individual comb jellies have been fused together to create strange new animals unlike anything seen before

Want to protect your young plants from the ravages of slugs and snails? A classic gardening tip is to use crushed eggshells to discourage them. Shame it doesn't work, says James Wong

An analysis of hundreds of bromalites – fossilised faeces and vomit – shows how changes in diet enabled dinosaurs to take over the world in the early Jurassic

Scientists studying puppy cognition explore the impact of breeding versus training, shed new light on milestones in dogs' cognitive development and reveal science-backed methods to train a "good" dog

About 40 years ago, researchers noticed a population of orcas had begun swimming around with dead fish on their heads, and now the craze is back

Most dogs aren't bred to feel at ease in our homes, but scientists studying puppy cognition have found ways you can help yours adapt

Arthropods belong to an evolutionary branch – the ecdysozoa – that contains about half of all animal species, and the earliest fossil evidence of the group now dates back 550 million years

Groups of wild chimpanzees with more complex tool-using behaviours tend to be genetically linked, providing evidence for cumulative culture in other apes

In the first hearing test of live baleen whales, the animals detected much higher frequency sounds than expected, forcing researchers to reconsider how these mammals respond to predators – and humans

Growing wood directly from stem cells could offer an alternative to cutting threatened hardwood trees, but it isn't clear if it has same properties as actual wood

Endangered Ethiopian wolves feed on the nectar of red hot poker plants, and may transport pollen from flower to flower as they do so

Research highlights impacts of military sonar devices on dolphin behaviour

Tiny, solid windows in the shells of heart cockles let in light for the photosynthetic algae inside them – and they could show us how to make better fibre-optic cables

Four southern giant hornets have been identified in northern Spain, leading to concerns that the species could harm native insects if it becomes widespread

Several populations of Mexican tetra fish that live in darkness have independently evolved to need hardly any sleep, but the reason why is a mystery