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In an important advance in palaeontology, researchers have uncovered a 149-million-year-old fossil in southeast China which could be the earliest “true bird”. It is well understood that dinosaurs evolved into birds. Today, birds are the most diverse group of terrestrial vertebrates with at least 11,000 species. Macroevolutionary studies suggest that birds began to diversify after […]

The inhospitable Antarctic Peninsula hosts only one native insect, and scientists from Japan have just identified an unprecedented combination of adaptations that allow it to thrive in the extreme cold. The Antarctic midge is a tiny, flightless insect that lives most of its two-year life as a larva, the grub-like stage that follows the egg […]

A University of Adelaide biomedical engineer has received an international award for her invention of 3D-printed hair-thin endoscopes that can see inside the human body. Associate Professor Jiawen Li received the Judges’ Commendation at the Sony Women in Technology Award with Nature, at the award ceremony in Tokyo last week. She is the only Australian […]

Severe Tropical Cyclone Zelia is approaching Port Hedland, Western Australia, having jumped from a Category 3 to nearly a Category 5 storm in 24 hours and is expected to make landfall sometime Friday. “That’s a pretty impressive intensification event” says Hamish Ramsay, cyclone expert and Senior Research Scientist at CSIRO, Oceans and Atmosphere. Cyclone intensity […]

Bee-reaking news: Belgian scientists have developed a simple method to cryopreserve the semen of drones, the male equivalent of honey bees (Apis mellifera). As part of the FreezeBEE project at the University of Liège, the researchers then thawed the semen and successfully artificially inseminated queens. It resulted in a female brood with an equivalent viability to […]

I can’t imagine what it would be like to sense a magnetic field. But a new study has presented the first evidence that loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) use magnetic fields as a compass to determine direction and also use it to determine their geographical location. There’s a little dance involved, too. Sea turtles are extraordinary […]

Recent research on lightweight particles called neutrinos might have passed you by – much like the more than 10 trillion neutrinos passing through your body each second. Now, our new paper – with 21 countries, more than 60 institutes and around 360 scientists contributing – reports the observation of the most energetic neutrino yet. Despite […]

Crocodiles in northern Australia are altering their behaviour to try to keep cool as they experience increasingly stressful temperature extremes driven by climate change. New research has revealed that saltwater crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) are spending more time at or close to their critical thermal limit of 32-33°C, diving less and cooling themselves off more. “As […]

A detector sitting on the sea floor off the coast of Italy has made a remarkable discovery: the first observation of an ultra-high energy neutrino. The kilometre cubic neutrino telescope (KM3NeT) spotted the neutrino in 2023. The event, dubbed KM3-230213A, was subject to meticulous analysis before being confirmed as the highest energy neutrino observed in […]

In pursuit of creating artificial intelligence that can “think” more like a person, researchers have developed a new machine learning algorithm that uncovers patterns in data without human guidance. The algorithm, called Torque Clustering, can efficiently and autonomously analyse vast amounts of data. It could be used to detect disease patterns, uncover fraud, or understand […]

A team of researchers say their latest attempts to understand how molecules chemically reacted to form the basic building blocks of life on Earth are promising. There has long been debate about the origins of the basic building blocks of life on Earth. Did these first organic compounds form through processes on our planet, or […]

Researchers at the CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, have developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool for estimating the biological sex of individuals – from their skulls. The tool has the potential to speed up investigations in criminal analysis or after severe natural disasters. Results published in Scientific Reports show the AI tool achieved an […]

Conserving and restoring Southeast Asia’s peatlands and mangroves could mitigate more than 50% of the region’s land-use carbon emissions, according to a new study published in Nature Communications. Peatland and mangrove ecosystems make up just 5% of the land in Southeast Asia. But they play an enormous role in carbon emission reduction. They store more […]

International data shows 2024 was an exceptionally calm year for shark attacks on humans. The International Shark Attack File, maintained by the Florida Museum of Natural History, provides data on what are considered unprovoked bites, defined as incidents in which a person does not initiate contact with a shark. Instances in which a person intentionally […]

A new artificial intelligence-driven approach to more efficiently free up hospital beds will likely be rolled out across several South Australian hospitals within the year, with plans to implement it interstate in the next 18 months. The system provides a prediction of the likelihood that the patient will be discharged within 24 hours. Known as […]

A European-Australian research team has stumbled upon an unexpected accumulation of the rare radioactive isotope Beryllium-10 at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Dating to around 10 million years ago, this anomaly may serve as a global ‘time marker’ that will improve geological dating methods into the deep past. But the mystery remains as to […]

It is common for engineers to be inspired by nature. Now, researchers say we might be in for a revolution in palaeo-biomimetics – using the designs of ancient creatures to inform how we can design and build structures today. It’s not surprising to imagine that flying machines might take inspiration from animals that have taken […]

In a welcome spot of good news, researchers at Arid Recovery in South Australia have discovered that their small population of endangered kowaris has almost quadrupled in size. This is a promising sign for kowari conservation, and it gives researchers the opportunity to pinpoint why this unique Australian marsupial is declining in the wild. Molly […]

A team of geophysicists using seismic data from more than three decades of earthquakes have found evidence that the Earth’s inner core isn’t completely solid. The new research sheds light on a hotly debated question in geology by showing that the surface of the inner core can change, and can do so on annual timescales. […]

A 183-million-year-old plesiosaur fossil found in Germany has preserved soft tissue which reveals that the ancient marine reptiles had turtle-like scales. The new research helps bring these prehistoric creatures to life in a way that hasn’t been possible despite 200 years of research. Plesiosaurs are often mistaken for dinosaurs. While they lived at the same […]

Scientists have been able to use satellite imagery to find the warrens of wombats and rabbits in the remote Australian desert. They argue the test shows that satellite imagery could be a viable alternative to long and arduous ground-based surveys, particularly in harsh desert environments. The research is published in Australian Mammalogy, the peer-reviewed journal […]

A serendipitous image taken by the European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope allowed astronomers to spot a stunning new example of an Einstein ring. This extremely rare phenomenon occurs when a large space object acts like a lens and magnifies light from another object directly behind it. This was first predicted by Einstein’s general theory of […]

How do you look for something that doesn’t absorb, reflect, or emit light? A team of researchers has developed a new way to use atomic clocks aboard GPS satellites and a network of ultra-stable lasers to search for dark matter. “Despite many theories and experiments scientists are yet to find dark matter, which we think […]

A previously unknown phenomenon discovered deep inside the ice streaming from the Greenland ice sheet will change the way scientists model ice melt and rising sea levels. The ice streams of Antarctica and Greenland are major contributors to sea level rise, carrying ice from inland ice sheets to the sea. So, accurately predicting their behaviour […]