New Scientist

In new video footage, cuttlefish show off their dazzling camouflage techniques, such as creating stripes that move over their bodies or mimicking non-threatening objects

A new exhibition at Somerset House in London, SOIL: The World at Our Feet, wants us to rediscover how key soil is to our lives and to the planet’s future

Fossils and genetics are starting to point to life emerging surprisingly soon after Earth formed, when the planet was hellishly hot and seemingly uninhabitable

From the beginning of time to the origins of life, our "when" special series tackles the timing of crucial events and the surprising new discoveries we are making about them

Flowers have long inspired artists, but could they be artists themselves? A new Saatchi Gallery exhibition explores their beauty, symbolism and creative intelligence.

A new look at fossils from the Cambrian Period around 500 million years ago has revealed that some of the earliest animals spent time on mudflats that were sometimes exposed to the air – a find that could rewrite the story of when life first left the oceans

Fossil teeth of extinct megalodon sharks have grooves made by other megalodon teeth, hinting at violent encounters between these giant predators

James Wong had always dismissed the idea aspirin was beneficial to plants. But digging into the science brought some surprises

Some turtles "dance" when they anticipate food, which gives us clues as to how they navigate from A to B

The smooth wings of fruit-sucking moths appear to be ridged like a leaf – but the resemblance is created by nanostructures that reflect light in an unusual way

Archaeopteryx, long considered the earliest fossil bird, could be knocked off its perch by Baminornis zhenghensis, which lived around 150 million years ago and had a short tail like those of modern birds

The surprising discovery of entities smaller than viruses raises profound questions about what life is and how it got started

Vandenberg Space Force Base in Lompoc, California, is home to the US Space Force and is a major Space X launch site. It's also home to unique and rare biodiversity

The sounds that make up humpback whale songs follow some of the same statistical rules seen in human languages, which may be because of how they are learned

Genetic analysis suggests a form of mosquito found in urban subway systems evolved in the Middle East thousands of years ago

A remarkable plesiosaur fossil reveals that the extinct reptiles had scales like modern sea turtles, unlike the ichthyosaurs that lived during the same period

A group of male koalas were filmed grooming and playing together, in contrast to their solitary reputation, probably as a result of an unusually dense population in southern Victoria

A newly analysed fossil skull settles a palaeontological debate over Vegavis iaai, confirming it as a relative of ducks and geese that lived 69 million years ago

When spiders self-amputate two of their legs, they quickly adjust their running gait so they can return to full speed

Recognising that someone lacks information you possess is key for effective communication and cooperation, and bonobos seem to share this skill with humans