Paleo in the News

An egg-shape trend found among birds shows up in miniature with very protective bug parents. Elongated eggs fit more compactly under mom.

Art and literature hint at past people’s psyches. Now computers can identify patterns in those cognitive fossils, but human expertise remains crucial.

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

Natural history museums teach us about our world, but they aren’t telling us the whole story, writes curator Jack Ashby in Nature's Memory

Special quantum states allow computers to perform the most difficult class of quantum computing operations.

Finding a Saturn-sized world around the young star TWA 7 could pave the way for the Webb space telescope’s direct observation of other exoplanets.

The shift from lizard-like sprawl to upright walking in mammals wasn’t a smooth climb up the evolutionary ladder. Instead, it was a messy saga full of unexpected detours. Using new bone-mapping tech, researchers discovered that early mammal ancestors explored wildly different postures before modern upright walking finally emerged—much later than once believed.

The shift from lizard-like sprawl to upright walking in mammals wasn’t a smooth climb up the evolutionary ladder. Instead, it was a messy saga full of unexpected detours. Using new bone-mapping tech, researchers discovered that early mammal ancestors explored wildly different postures before modern upright walking finally emerged—much later than once believed.

The shift from lizard-like sprawl to upright walking in mammals wasn’t a smooth climb up the evolutionary ladder. Instead, it was a messy saga full of unexpected detours. Using new bone-mapping tech, researchers discovered that early mammal ancestors explored wildly different postures before modern upright walking finally emerged—much later than once believed.

Too little Bifidobacterium, used to digest breast milk, in babies' gut microbiomes can increase their risk of developing allergies and asthma.

The night lizards may have been the only terrestrial vertebrates that survived in the region of the asteroid impact 66 million years ago, which led to the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs

Enigmacursor darted around North America in the Late Jurassic 145-150 million years ago and its skeleton now be on display in London’s Natural History Museum

Squash’s killer “nick shot” has a formula. It’s all about height and timing, a new study shows.

People who are uninsured or part of a minority racial or ethnic group are underscreened for cervical cancer. Mailing them a self-sample kit may help.

Two bits of amber discovered in a lab basement hold ancient evidence of a fungi famous for controlling the minds of its victims.

Humans established a wild population of brown forest wallabies in the Raja Ampat Islands thousands of years ago for their meat and fur in one of the earliest known species translocations

DNA from a skull found at Newgrange once sparked theories of a royal incestuous elite in ancient Ireland, but new research reveals no signs of such a hierarchy. Instead, evidence suggests a surprisingly egalitarian farming society that valued collective living and ritual.

Drone footage has captured killer whales breaking off stalks of kelp and rubbing the pieces on other orcas, a rare case of tool use in marine animals

The whales use quick body movements to tear pieces of bull kelp for use as tools, perhaps the first known toolmaking by a marine mammal.

With genetic tweaks, E. coli turned 92 percent of broken-down plastic into acetaminophen, charting a path to upcycle plastic waste sustainably.