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A pod of killer whales in the Gulf of California is believed to have learned a unique set of skills to hunt the world’s largest fish: the whale shark. Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are known to prey on other marine mammals, turtles and fish. They can grow to about 8m. But whale sharks can grow […]

An interdisciplinary team of biologists and software engineers have developed a virtual reality arena for small animals that simulates real world environments. The new setup is designed for experiments that precisely measure animal behaviour and visual decision making. The method combines the control afforded by laboratory settings with the ecological relevance of natural settings, albeit […]

Newly discovered fossil footprints in Kenya’s Turkana Basin shows at least 2 different early human species walking on the edge of a lake at the same time. The hominin footprints were made 1.5 million years ago. The age and shape of the impressions suggests that they were left by Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei. It […]

Stretchy, self-healing lithium-ion batteries could be a viable power source for wearable mobile phones, soft robotics, and electronic skin, according to a new study. The researchers have made small, stretching batteries that can power an LED light – but they say their work is shows “high promise” for building future stretchable and wearable electronics. They’ve […]

Experts are also calling for urgent work to understand the effects on humans and plants of a new chemical increasingly being used to replace TNT in explosives. DNAN (2,4-dinitroanisole) is being increasingly used in explosive mixtures because it can be cast and melted more safely than TNT (2,4,6-trinitrotoluene). But comparatively little is known about its […]

Biologists have analysed the traits of all 216 bird species that have become extinct since 1500 in a bid to inform the conservation of endangered birds. They found that species more likely to go extinct sooner were endemic to islands; unable to fly; had larger bodies; had sharply angled wings and were highly specialised in […]

New research has identified several regions of the globe where heatwaves are increasing at a rate far higher than state-of-the-art climate models have been projecting.  These regions include eastern Australia, central China, Japan, Korea, the Arabian Peninsula, parts of South America, the Arctic, and, most intensely, northwestern Europe. “In most areas, the hottest days of […]

An analysis of more than 500 fossils from central Europe’s Polish Basin has shown how dinosaurs became the dominant lifeforms on land by the beginning of the Jurassic period. The fossils, however, are not bones, teeth or even footprints. They’re bromalites – the fossilised remains of digestive material such as faeces or vomit. To be […]

Earth-sized magnetic tornadoes at Jupiter’s poles have astronomers scratching their heads. The dark ovals were first seen by the Hubble Space Telescope in the 1990s. Images of Jupiter taken in 2015 and 2022 also show the storms. The Cassini spacecraft also spotted the dark objects during its flyby in 2000. But they drew little attention. […]

Researchers know there’s a connection between menstruation and mental health, but it’s a complicated one – with the cause and effect between various conditions poorly defined. A genetic study has found that depression is linked to a higher risk of period pain. According to the study, published in Briefings in Bioinformatics, depression is the culprit: […]

A leading Australian commentator says Australia should build on its space industry capabilities in areas where it excels on the global stage – ground and data space infrastructure. Over the past few years there has been uncertainty about the direction of the Australian space industry. Cassandra Steer, the Chair and Founder of the Australian Centre […]

The latest weapon in the war against invasive pests might be – you! A new report has identified that over a 12-month period, the alerts from members of the public who placed images on one website resulted in notifications for more than 150 species to 32 different agencies across Australia. Now two independent teams of […]

Anyone who has used voice-transcription audio software knows it can be glitchy. In my interview notes for a recent article for Cosmos, for example, otter.ai repeatedly rendered the term “hearables” as “hair balls.” Often this is simply humorous. We know what it meant; no harm done.Not so with medical transcription technology, which allows doctors to […]

Dr Yassie Samie remembers the first time she stepped into a warehouse packed with donated, used clothes. “Very cliche, but I lost faith in humanity in that point,” says Samie, a postdoctoral researcher at RMIT University. “It was just so overwhelming, incredibly sad.” Wealthy countries use – and donate – far more clothes, and often […]

Descendants of Vikings from Iceland and the Faroe Islands have genetic signatures that hint at their forebears, according to a new analysis. The study, published in Frontiers in Genetics, found that different groups of Vikings had colonised the two places, which are about 300km apart. “Scientists have long assumed that the Faroe Islands and Iceland […]

A decade on from the first live birth from a transplanted uterus, the procedures remain complex and difficult with the potential for significant complications for both the recipient and live donor. So far there have been only 100 successful transplants resulting in 40 live births, including 2 in Australia. Associate Professor Rebecca Deans, a fertility […]

Camera traps, drones, and audio recorders have exploded in use for conservation over the last decade. But it’s been discovered these surveillance tools have darker uses. In a forest in northern India, they’re being used to spy on and control local women – sometimes with deadly consequences. “Nobody could have realised that camera traps put […]

Fossils found in a cave in northern Spain might be an example of humans – in this case Neanderthals – collecting things for fun. Collecting things for aesthetic purposes is considered a very human thing to do. Modern people collect all sorts of things from stamps, comic books and cards to coins, art and models. […]

Scientists have made the world’s thinnest spaghetti, spinning white flour into fibres less than a thousandth of a millimetre thick. While delicate, the spaghetti is probably not good eating. “I don’t think it’s useful as pasta, sadly, as it would overcook in less than a second, before you could take it out of the pan,” […]

Professor Michael Ward is Chair of Veterinary Public Health and Food Safety at the University of Sydney aims to generate a new understanding of the interface between wild and domestic animals to allow advanced assessment of the risk of microbial spillover. During a five-year veterinary science degree, you do placements. When I was a student, […]

There are an estimated 37.2 trillion cells in the human body and scientists are another step closer to mapping all of them with the publication of more than 40 papers across Nature Portfolio journals. The studies from the Human Cell Atlas initiative reveal new insights into how the placenta and skeleton form, changes that occur […]

This video shows how the feathers on the wings and the tail respond reflexively to movement of the robotic bird (which mimics flight). Credit: Eric Chang, Lentink Lab Researchers in biomimetics have created a robotic bird model with real pigeon feathers to understand how birds manage to fly without a vertical tailfin. A plane without a […]

You know that feeling you get when you take a breath of fresh air in nature? There may be more to it than a simple lack of pollution. When we think of nutrients, we think of things we obtain from our diet. But a careful look at the scientific literature shows there is strong evidence […]

Archaeologists have found the world’s oldest evidence of alphabetic writing in an ancient Syrian tomb, challenging previous conceptions about the origin of alphabets. The findings, presented at the American Society of Overseas Research’s Annual Meeting this week, show the writing, etched into finger-length clay cylinders, dates to about 2400 BCE. This precedes any other known […]