Biology

Mar 13th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Strolling a familiar beach and stumbling upon a relic from the age of dinosaurs sounds like pure fantasy, yet that is exactly what happened on England's west coast. A stretch of shoreline below Somerset's crumbling cliffs yielded a bone so large that it challenged everything we thought we knew about prehistoric marine reptiles. The fossil – a lower jaw more than 6½ feet long – promised a creature leagues beyond anything alive today. The find ... [Read More]

Mar 13th, 2026 - Scientists found two marsupials thought extinct for 6,000 years. Scientists have described an exciting discovery: two marsupials that modern science thought to be extinct are still alive in the rainforests of western New Guinea. The discovery is all the more amazing once you learn these were supposed to have gone extinct 6,000 years ago. Both were known from fossil or subfossil remains on the Vogelkop Peninsula, in what is now Indonesian Papua. And both lived in a landscape that is still ... [Read More]

Mar 13th, 2026 - With no trace for 6,000 years, scientists presumed two  marsupial species extinct. But, surprise! All this time, the creatures have been living in the remote rainforests of Western New Guinea, away from the hustle and bustle. The details of the discovery, published in Records of the Australian Museum , revealed that the identified marsupials were pygmy long-fingered possums (Dactylonax kambuayai) and the ring-tailed glider (Tous ayamaruensis). Both marsupials, now categorized under the ... [Read More]

Mar 13th, 2026 - Reading time 2 minutes A woodland species long absent from the forests of Ohio has made a triumphant return. For the first time in centuries, wildlife officials have documented the appearance of a furry creature known as the fisher. Officials at the Cleveland Metroparks detailed the fisher's comeback, caught on a wildlife camera last year, in a recent Instagram post. It's the first verified sighting of the mammal in the region since the 1800s, when it was locally driven to extinction. Its ... [Read More]

Mar 13th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google The sharp buzz of a rattlesnake's tail is one of the most recognizable warning sounds in nature. For many animals, that sound is enough to make them freeze, back away, or quickly leave the area. But why is the rattling noise so effective? A new study from the University of Texas at El Paso suggests the sound works as a powerful natural alarm. Researchers found that many animals react immediately to a rattlesnake's rattle, even if they have never encountered the snake ... [Read More]

Mar 12th, 2026 - Researchers have found the reason behind two mass strandings of dolphins in Argentina. These events took place in 2021 and 2023, respectively, at San Antonio Bay in northern Patagonia. Findings regarding these mass strandings have been published in the Royal Society Open Science journal. The team associated with the study determined that the dolphins got stranded because they were being chased away by deadly orcas . These state-of-affairs possibly caused hundreds of dolphins to become trapped. ... [Read More]

Mar 12th, 2026 - No Result View All Result No Result View All Result A newly discovered brain cluster acts as an on and off switch for sex differences [Adobe Stock] Researchers have discovered a distinct cluster of brain cells in mice that behaves like an on and off switch for sex-specific social behaviors, turning on permanently in females but remaining quiet in adult males until they mate. This strictly binary brain feature offers fresh insight into how social and reproductive life stages physically alter the ... [Read More]

Mar 12th, 2026 - Meet Lucy's hunter, a massive, horned crocodile that likely terrorized early human ancestors in ancient Ethiopia. Over three million years ago, the wetlands of ancient Ethiopia were dominated by an ambush predator that dwarfed early human ancestors and likely preyed on them. Researchers have officially identified this apex predator as a new species, Crocodylus lucivenator . The name translates to "Lucy's hunter." It references the famous fossil skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis discovered ... [Read More]

Mar 12th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Reptiles lived on land long before modern crocodiles appeared. Some of their early relatives looked very different from anything alive today. During the Triassic period, crocodile relatives came in many forms. Some walked low to the ground on four legs, while others developed features that made them look a lot like the early dinosaurs living at the same time. Researchers have now found one of the strangest examples. The animal was small and built a little differently from ... [Read More]

Mar 12th, 2026 - The story of a wildflower that adapted to a severe drought in California raises hopes that evolution will come to the rescue of species hit by climate change, but there are limits For the first time, we have seen a species that was in decline due to extreme weather recover through rapid evolution. Does this mean species that are increasingly being hit by soaring temperatures and other challenging conditions can adapt as the planet gets warmer? It is clear that evolution has saved countless ... [Read More]

Mar 11th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google A juvenile great white shark caught off Spain has become one of the clearest modern records of the species in the Spanish Mediterranean. That single animal forces a reconsideration of waters long treated as empty of white sharks, raising new urgency around where young individuals may be coming from. A juvenile shark appears Pulled aboard by local fishers, the shark measured nearly 7 feet (2.1 meters) long and weighed 176 to 198 pounds (80 to 90 kilograms). Examining that ... [Read More]

Mar 11th, 2026 - Everything we thought we knew about where magic mushrooms came from is probably wrong. Magic mushrooms are stepping out of the underground and into the clinic. Increasing evidence suggests that psilocybin mushrooms help with treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), addiction, and psychiatric illnesses related to a growing global mental health crisis. At the center of this psychedelic renaissance is Psilocybe cubensis , the golden-capped fungus cultivated by ... [Read More]

Mar 11th, 2026 - By A landmark ocean expedition off Japan's coast has confirmed 38 new species and identified 28 more candidates, including two worms found living inside the skeleton of a deep-sea glass sponge. The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census expedition launched in June 2025 in partnership with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC). Scientists aboard the JAMSTEC research vessel Yokosuka deployed the Shinkai 6500 , a crewed submersible, to explore two understudied deep-sea ... [Read More]

Mar 11th, 2026 - To most people, calories are the North Star of nutrition: a rigid quantity assigned to each and every food that never wavers or changes. Two individuals who eat the exact same thing in the exact same amount will always absorb the exact same number of calories, right? Or will they? "This is probably one of the more robust dietary myths that circulates," Janice Dada, MPH, RDN , a certified intuitive eating counselor based in California, tells SELF. Contrary to what you've probably thought all ... [Read More]

Mar 11th, 2026 - It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Get the Live Science Newsletter Get the world's most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox. By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and ... [Read More]

Mar 11th, 2026 - In a 1981 magazine essay, the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould let readers in one of his field's counter-intuitive truths. Aquatic animals, including lungfish and coelacanths, are more closely related to tetrapods — four-limbed vertebrates — than to salmon, sticklebacks and many other things people call 'fish' — or, as Gould quipped, "there is surely no such thing as a fish". Sharks could be in a similar situation. A genomic study of dozens of shark species and their ... [Read More]