New Scientist

An enzyme in a cyanobacterium can take the unusual form a triangle containing ever-smaller triangular gaps, making a fractal pattern

We have enough genetic material to bring back the northern white rhino, but doing so won’t be easy

California’s rare sequoias rely on high heat to disperse their seeds, and efforts to reduce the size of wildfires may be damaging their ability to reproduce

A popular idea links primates living on the ground with a tendency for right-handedness, but findings from urban langurs in India cast doubt on the idea

Trees use circadian genes to time photosynthesis and reproduction – but as temperatures rise, the clocks may not work as well

Amino acids and other molecules important to the origin of life can be enriched within networks of rocky fractures, which would have been common on the early Earth

Garter snakes may recognise their own scent and react differently when it is altered, hinting at self-awareness in reptiles

Long considered damaging to walls, a living coating of ivy can actually stabilise temperature and humidity and lower your energy bills, finds James Wong

There are thousands of species at risk of extinction, and we can’t save them all – how do conservationists think about which ones to focus on?

Horses show signs of stress if people touch them while they are tethered, but they appear much less anxious if they are able to walk away

Japanese tits sometimes flutter their wings in an apparent gesture of encouraging their mate to enter their shared nest first

A 38-centimetre-tall deer, found in an arid region in the central Andes, is the first new deer species found in South America for over 60 years

Pet dogs have different patterns of brain activity when they are shown an object that doesn’t match the word they hear, suggesting they have a mental representation of what words mean

Feasting on family members may be an unorthodox way for ant queens to keep their fledgling colonies from being overrun by lethal fungi

Together, a dark-hued male crab spider and a larger, paler female resemble a flower, in what researchers suspect is the first case of cooperative mimicry

The exceptionally long white hairs on the newly named longhorn beetle Excastra albopilosa may deceive predators into thinking it’s covered in fungus

A pair of blue tits were seen nesting in a tree cavity that was also inhabited by about 25 greater noctule bats, which commonly eat blue tits, but the birds lived to tell the tale

A dolphin that lived in the Amazon 16 million years ago grew to a length of 3.5 metres – larger than any other freshwater dolphin

Ten years’ worth of observations of a wild chimpanzee community show that most adults stop playing when food is short, but not mothers and their young

These stunning photographs, taken by botanist Chris Thorogood, chart the quest to protect species of Rafflesia, which are on the brink of extinction in the Philippines