New Scientist

Custom-made wool caps have enabled scientists to record electroencephalograms in awake cats for the first time, which could help assess their pain levels

What is it like to be a dog? And what can we learn from them? Mark Rowlands's take, in his book The Happiness of Dogs, is full of insights, finds Abigail Beall

Cleaner wrasse use their reflection to build a mental image of their body size, which they use to compare themselves to rivals before picking a fight

When worker ants are exposed to a pathogenic fungus, they build nests that are more compartmentalised to reduce the risk of an epidemic

From migrating sauropods and semi-aquatic predators to doting parents, palaeontologists are finally uncovering the mysteries of the lifestyles of dinosaurs

X-ray videos of Japanese eels swallowed whole by dark sleeper fish have revealed how the eels can make a daring escape from being digested

A camera trap at an Australian nature refuge has captured a boisterous interaction between a northern hairy-nosed wombat and an echidna

Breaching is a common behaviour in a wide range of sharks and rays, and it is thought to have functions related to courtship, birthing and hygiene

The largest pterosaurs, ancient reptiles that were the first vertebrates to master flight, may have mostly soared while smaller ones flapped their wings, a pattern that persists in today's birds

Cyanobacteria exposed to shorter days are better at surviving cold conditions, showing that even simple organisms can prepare for the arrival or summer and winter

The deeply researched podcast series Tested tells the stories of Namibian sprinter Christine Mboma and Kenya’s Maximila Imali, and how their early successes made their womanhood suspect to some

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

These images are taken from a new book, Seeds: Time capsules of life, which explores how plant life has flourished in the past 360 million years

A survey found 66 species of insects making their homes in cobbled pavements on the streets of Berlin, and greater biodiversity near insect-friendly flower gardens

Tracking data from a pregnant porbeagle shark near Bermuda suggest it was eaten by a great white shark – a kind of predation that has never been seen before

Marmosets are the first non-human primates shown to use personalised signifiers to refer to each other – the discovery could help us better understand how language evolved

High-speed camera recordings show that springtails spin at up to 368 rotations per second when they jump away from danger

These photos showcase some of the intricately created birds' nests found in the Natural History Museum in Tring, UK, home to one of the world's largest ornithological collections

The Origins and Habitability Lab at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a testbed exploring how geological conditions could impact life in environments such as early Earth, Mars or the icy moons of Jupiter

The veteran presenter adds authority to Secret Lives of Orangutans, a film about a family of endangered orangutans in Sumatra. File this new entry in his vast oeuvre under lovable but lightweight