An estimate of annual bird fatalities due to building collisions in the US brings the figure to more than 1 billion – it is the first to include deaths from injuries after the strike

Blackworms are ultra-fast swimmers, and they tangle up into worm balls to protect themselves from predators – but leeches have an ingenious method of catching them called “spiral entombment”

Microwaves in homes, offices and laboratories have been found to host diverse microbiomes, highlighting the importance of regular cleaning

After the release of a shocking video showing Olympic rider Charlotte Dujardin whipping a horse, it is time for equestrians to educate themselves on the science of horse training, says Christa Lesté-Lasserre

Forget videos by gamers or influencers. For a real online thrill, watch the world's biggest flower emerging in a former web designer's greenhouse, says Annalee Newitz

Lush and vibrant cinematography plus a "cast" of real animals make Heart of an Oak an enthralling celebration of the natural world

Two nankeen kestrels have been filmed flying in a wind tunnel to learn how the raptors keep their heads in a fixed position under turbulent conditions

Invasive cane toads have decimated native freshwater crocodile populations in northern Australia, as the predators don't know they should avoid the toxic amphibians

Lab-reared German cockroaches are susceptible to consumer insecticide sprays, allowing manufacturers to pass US regulatory tests, but insects taken from real-world infestations are able to shrug off the products

The South American lungfish has a whopping 180 gigabases of DNA in each cell, compared with 6 gigabases in human cells

It's time to expect the unexpected, says Natalie Cabrol, one of the world's top astrobiologists and author of an authoritative book on the hunt for life's origins – and ET

The Maugean skate (Zearaja maugeana) is only found in one habitat in Australia, which is under threat from human activity. Now the species has been saved from extinction by hatching in captivity

This week, we journey to the early 2030s, when machine learning first allowed us to communicate with sperm whales. Rowan Hooper tells us what they have to say

Scientists have known for centuries that sunflowers wobble in seemingly random ways as they grow – but it seems that those movements actually optimise how much light each plant gets

All living creatures use only the left or right-handed forms of certain molecules, and now we might understand why

The noises made by organisms like ants and worms as they move around in the soil can be used to assess whether an ecosystem is in good shape

From birds and bats to horses and great apes, Bill Schutt's seriously fun history of teeth, Bite, explains their role in both shaping evolution and our understanding of it

See the incredible shots that have won this year's BMC Ecology and Evolution and BMC Zoology Image Competition

Is it worth including activated charcoal in your terrarium’s potting mix? James Wong isn’t convinced by this pricey product

Male fireflies caught in an orb-weaver spider’s web start flashing in an unusual pattern, a deadly deception that seems to attract additional victims for the spider

Up to 100,000 extraordinary species, from spiders and beetles to salamanders and fish, live in subterranean caves and cracks. They aren’t as safe down there as we thought

A big rethink of our planet’s early years adds to growing fossil, chemical and DNA evidence that Earth was only a few hundred million years old when life began

The veteran presenter adds authority to Secret Lives of Orangutans, a film about a family of endangered orangutans in Sumatra. File this new entry in his vast oeuvre under lovable but lightweight

The Origins and Habitability Lab at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a testbed exploring how geological conditions could impact life in environments such as early Earth, Mars or the icy moons of Jupiter

High-speed camera recordings show that springtails spin at up to 368 rotations per second when they jump away from danger

Marmosets are the first non-human primates shown to use personalised signifiers to refer to each other – the discovery could help us better understand how language evolved

These photos showcase some of the intricately created birds' nests found in the Natural History Museum in Tring, UK, home to one of the world's largest ornithological collections

A survey found 66 species of insects making their homes in cobbled pavements on the streets of Berlin, and greater biodiversity near insect-friendly flower gardens

Tracking data from a pregnant porbeagle shark near Bermuda suggest it was eaten by a great white shark – a kind of predation that has never been seen before

Cyanobacteria exposed to shorter days are better at surviving cold conditions, showing that even simple organisms can prepare for the arrival or summer and winter

The largest pterosaurs, ancient reptiles that were the first vertebrates to master flight, may have mostly soared while smaller ones flapped their wings, a pattern that persists in today's birds

These images are taken from a new book, Seeds: Time capsules of life, which explores how plant life has flourished in the past 360 million years

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

Breaching is a common behaviour in a wide range of sharks and rays, and it is thought to have functions related to courtship, birthing and hygiene

A camera trap at an Australian nature refuge has captured a boisterous interaction between a northern hairy-nosed wombat and an echidna

X-ray videos of Japanese eels swallowed whole by dark sleeper fish have revealed how the eels can make a daring escape from being digested

When worker ants are exposed to a pathogenic fungus, they build nests that are more compartmentalised to reduce the risk of an epidemic

Cleaner wrasse use their reflection to build a mental image of their body size, which they use to compare themselves to rivals before picking a fight

What is it like to be a dog? And what can we learn from them? Mark Rowlands's take, in his book The Happiness of Dogs, is full of insights, finds Abigail Beall

Custom-made wool caps have enabled scientists to record electroencephalograms in awake cats for the first time, which could help assess their pain levels

Feeding bees edible bits of hydrogel increases their odds of surviving pesticide exposure by 30 per cent

From migrating sauropods and semi-aquatic predators to doting parents, palaeontologists are finally uncovering the mysteries of the lifestyles of dinosaurs

A species of leaf chameleon newly named Brookesia nofy was discovered in a patch of coastal rainforest, a highly threatened habitat in Madagascar

Echolocating bats can more easily find and pollinate long-stemmed flowers that stand out from the surrounding foliage, which may be why this floral trait evolved

Some lizards dive into streams to escape predators, and a specialised bubble-breathing technique enables them to stay submerged for up to 18 minutes

We are finally untangling the ancient history of the cactus family, revealing some surprising forces that shaped these plants – ­­­­­­and prompting concern for their future

African giant pouched rats proved adept at detecting four commonly trafficked products derived from endangered species including rhino horn and elephant ivory

Our gardening columnist James Wong isn’t convinced, and does the maths to get some answers

An octopus will work with several different species of fish to find and catch prey - and punch those that aren't helping

In most vertebrates, a pattern of chemical marks on the genome is a reliable indicator of age, but in axolotls this clock seems to stop after the first four years of life