News

The tooth of a young girl living hundreds of thousands of years ago may be from the Denisovans, an extinct hominid species of which very little is known. 

Crowdsourced photographs are helping to demonstrate the value of nature reserves to one of the world's largest fish.

Another bird from the island of the dodo is in danger of becoming extinct, scientists have warned.

While the plants flowered, lunar soils negatively affected their growth, meaning there is still some way to go until farming on the Moon becomes a viable prospect. 

Male trilobites could have acted like modern horseshoe crabs, using claspers to grip females and increase their chance of fathering young.

The 1918 influenza pandemic, also known as Spanish flu, can help scientists understand how modern viruses evolve as they spread across the world. 

We now know how whales evolved from furry, four-legged critters to giants of the ocean.

The UK's insect population has fallen sharply as the invertebrates are affected by rising temperatures and fragmented habitats.

Moon dust can be used to create the materials needed to explore space.

There are fewer than 10 vaquita left in the world, but it's still possible to save the species.

Some of the largest animals that ever lived retained their size right up until they were wiped out 200 million years ago.

Diseases which spread between animals and humans, such as Ebola virus, are likely to spread further than ever before.

Habitat loss and human persecution are the key drivers of their decline, with crocodiles and turtles most at risk.

Analyses of three meteorites suggest that the raw material for the origin of life may have formed in space.

A new report from the British Ecological Society warns the UK needs to change how it looks after biodiverse areas of the country.

Over half of all seabirds have been lost in the past 50 years, seeing less of the nutrients vital to life moved from sea to land.

A new natural history course for UK high school students will help pupils develop a deeper understanding of the natural world.

It beats the previous record holder by tens of millions of years.

The world's first flying vertebrates may also have been some of the biggest show-offs.

Though Gasteranthus extinctus may be Critically Endangered, there is hope it can be brought back from the brink.

Freezing koala eggs and sperm may help to buy the species time while wider threats are tackled.

Some of the species, described for the first time, are smaller than a 1p coin.

Understanding how bats, which are one of nature's largest disease reservoirs, have changed over time can help scientists to identify new disease hotspots.

Dating back to over 13 billion years ago, HD1 could have formed shortly after the Big Bang, with properties unlike any modern galaxy. 

With the finding yet to be published in a scientific journal, debate continues over whether this could be the case. 

In response to a warming world, many species are physically changing their body sizes. 

The tropics have long been perceived as being a riot of colour.

We have just three years to keep the dream of 1.5⁰C of global warming alive.

The Big Plastic Count will take place between 16 and 22 May

As climate change intensifies, a greater number of wildfires will increase the risk from ultraviolet radiation.

The bittern, whose call is as loud as a jet taking off, is returning to areas of the country it hasn't been seen in for centuries. 

The snakes can move their ribs independently to suck in air while others are constricting.

Spinosaurs were some of the only dinosaurs that spent much of their lives in water.

Populations of raptors are over 50,000 birds smaller than they would otherwise be.

NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) is undergoing its last big test before its first flight.

The reintroduction is another step forward for campaigns to return the aquatic rodent to the UK.

White clovers are adapting to face the dryness of cities globally by reducing production of anti-herbivore compounds.

The minerals, Tanzanite, Morganite and Rhodochrosite, are richly coloured, great in size and scientifically significant. 

It adds to the understanding of how these curious dinosaurs evolved and spread around the world.

Living over 40 million years before the sabre-tooth tiger, Diegoaelurus vanvalkenburghae may have preyed on rhinos and primates in the forests of California. 

There is currently not enough evidence to prove they are a genuine new species, or just a distinct population of an existing one. 

While its impacts are uncertain, it could have caused the world to warm significantly.

The Earthshot Prize is the most prestigious environmental prize in the world.

While it could provide a useful stopgap, there is no guarantee the technique, or whales, will ever fully restore what has been lost.

175 countries voted to start preparations for a new treaty aimed at regulating and controlling plastics last week.

The fossil uncovered in Montana suggests the ancestor of all squid and octopus had 10 arms, with some of these then lost by its descendants. 

The finding could offer insights into the impact of climate change on its modern relatives. 

Bashanosaurus primitivus adds to evidence the group of dinosaurs may have originated in Asia.

Understanding how frog eyes evolved can help explain how the diverse group came into being.

Palaeontologists have reacted with scepticism over the claims.

The second IPCC report is looking at the effects of climate change on extreme weather, floods and temperature rises.

Over thousands of years people have dreamt up all manner of strange and fantastic beasts in folklore, myths and legends.

Even the most carnivorous lizard can bite no harder than herbivores of the same size, Museum researchers have found.

Up to three quarters of all of Britain's rural hedgehogs have been lost in the past 20 years.

Almost half of all American bald and golden eagles are being poisoned by lead.

Just 20 large mammals, including beavers, bears and bison, could bring back communities across a quarter of the planet.

Ancient plants measuring just two centimetres long could show what the ancestor of vascular plants looked like.

The neck of a diplodocid shows evidence of a disease that still affects birds today.

A new species of crocodile-like animal has been described from fossils unearthed in Tanzania. 

Modern humans arrived in western Europe about 10,000 years earlier than previously thought.

Structures inspired by pollen could make electric car batteries cheaper and more efficient.

A chilly scene of willow trees rising above a frozen lake in Italy.

The unique ecosystem is one of the most diverse of the high Arctic.

The deep seafloor could be up to three times as diverse as the overlying waters, with much of this diversity yet to be discovered by science. 

The animals roamed Devon's vast grasslands thousands of years ago.

Plants in the UK now flower around a month earlier than they were hundreds of years ago. 

A group of fossilised snails and clams are challenging suggestions that ocean acidification contributed to the largest extinction in history. 

Sir Patrick Vallance to become Museum's next Chairman of the Board of Trustees

Scientists believe that the behavioural change may help the reptiles wash away poison from the cane toad, an amphibian which has decimated Australian biodiversity. 

Evidence of increasing carnivory in ancient humans may just be a quirk of sampling.

Air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides can cause as much as a 90% decline in pollinator visits to flowers.

Black holes could make up as much as 1% of all known matter, and may be the building blocks of the largest and most powerful objects in the entire universe.