New Scientist

Antechinus males only live for one breeding season, so they give up 3 hours of sleep a night during this short period before dying of exhaustion

Owls are famously good at rotating their heads, but now anatomical findings suggest they really could go a full 360 degrees without injuring themselves

Three fossils of Pachycormus fish from the dinosaur era feature smaller members of the same species in their guts - perhaps showing how the animals got by when food was scarce

Fungi exposed to acoustic stimulation in lab experiments have faster growth rates, suggesting a possible way to speed up composting and restore habitats

Satellite images have helped to locate four previously unknown colonies of emperor penguins in the Antarctic. One of the colonies has over 5000 members

Growing up at a different temperature seems to transform common prey bacteria into predators, suggesting that bacterial ecology is more fluid than we thought

A camera can recreate how animals see the world through both visible and ultraviolet light

A raindrop can weigh 40 times as much as a water strider. So how does the insect deal with rain when getting hit with a droplet is equivalent to a car crashing into a human?

Chemical analysis of rocks found in South Africa shows that ancient microorganisms sustained themselves in a variety of ways, adding to evidence for an early origin of life on Earth

We have no complete skeleton of the ancient megalodon shark, but new evidence points to it being more long and slender than previous depictions, say researchers

For primates, being born with a missing limb or experiencing a major injury isn’t necessarily disabling if their environment or social connections help them thrive – just like humans

When tardigrades encounter harsh environments, high levels of free radicals in their cells trigger the onset of a dormant state in which they can endure extreme hardship

New Year, new tree? You can ignore advice to stake out your sapling – and get better results in the process, says James Wong

See stunning shots of cave diver Klaus Thymann's search for manatees in a flooded cave system on the Yucatán peninsula

Researchers estimate that 17,000 baby elephant seals have died from avian flu in Argentina and it is likely that the virus is spreading among marine mammals

On hot days, Alpine ibex increase their activity at nighttime to avoid the heat – but this might increase the risk of predation by wolves

A healthy rhesus monkey has been born after being cloned from fetal cells, but creating a clone of an adult human being would be much harder

Expedition leaders say they have found several new species of octopus using a remotely operated vehicle around 3 kilometres deep near Costa Rica

Invasive mink, which are native to North America, have been eradicated from most of East Anglia in England after a trial used the scent of the animals' anal glands to lure them into traps

The Guinness brewery has kept a record of the yeast strains it has used going back to 1903 – a genetic analysis shows these are distinct from those used to brew other Irish beers