Bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia, form alliances and coordinate the timing of their clicking noises to attract females and deter other males

A 99-million-year-old skull recently discovered in amber might actually belong to a lizard, rather than a tiny bird-like dinosaur as first thought

Plant-eating cave bears vanished when ice spread across Europe – maybe because their large sinuses prevented them chewing meat to adapt to the new conditions

Many great ape species are already in a precarious situation because of their dwindling numbers. Now they may also be at risk from the coronavirus pandemic

The age of a whale shark can be determined by dating the rings of growth in their cartilage, a method that has confirmed that these animals can live for at least 50 years

Soil’s earthy smell comes from chemicals produced by bacteria called Streptomyces, which use the odour to attract springtails to help disperse their spores

Ethereal photos of life’s building blocks, Earth’s toughest creature and a close-up of a gem win Olympus Global Image of the Year Life Science Light Microscopy Award regional prizes

Two lineages of ancient monkey migrated from Africa to South America more than 30 million years ago. But we’re not sure which ones got there first

Move over Martians, Earth has already been invaded by little green aliens, but how did parakeets become one of the most successful invasive species ever?

Pale spear-nosed bats can learn to alter their calls to mimic different sounds – a rare skill that could help us understand the biology of human speech and language

The first living organisms had to make essential carbon-based chemicals, and they may have done it by harnessing the chemical power of metals like nickel

Most molecules exist in mirror-image forms, and yet life prefers one over the other. How this bias began and why it persisted is one of the most baffling questions in biology – but now we have an answer

Male ring-tailed lemurs rub their wrists to release a sweet, fruity smell that may be the first evidence of sex pheromones identified in primates

An alligator carcass dropped in the deep ocean reveals the bizarre ecosystems of the seabed - including zombie worms that fed on prehistoric reptiles

An aerial view of crabeater seals in Antarctica, mating damselflies and a twilight rocket launch were among the most lauded entries to the inaugural Nature TTL Photographer of the Year award

Jane Goodall has tirelessly fought for a better world for humans and wildlife, and with covid-19 we must stay positive, she says 

Dingoes have been persecuted in Australia for centuries for killing livestock, but protecting them could benefit the environment and aid recovery from the devastating fires

Humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and bats have evolved to be good at metabolising alcohol, according to a study that suggests many mammals can get drunk

A well-preserved fossilised tail from Spinosaurus suggests this massive dinosaur may have been able to propel itself and hunt for prey in the water

Vampire bats are social creatures that build relationships through grooming and food-sharing, but when they feel ill, they self-isolate and call out for contact far less

Apollo 11, Take Your Pills, Pandemic: How to prevent an outbreak, and Icarus are all great documentaries available to stream at the moment

For years, the oldest turtle fossils we could find had fully formed shells. Now, more primitive fossils are revealing the strange tale of how turtle shells evolved

The Tully Monster is a famously odd 300-million-year-old fossil that looks like an alien, but a new analysis suggests it was a backboned animal like a hagfish or lamprey

For orangutans, scratching is contagious – but unexpectedly, the behaviour is transmitted more between individuals that do not know each other well

Most people hold curiously similar ideas about life after death, suggesting there is more to it than religion, fear or an inability to imagine not existing

Sentient machines with empathy and morality are coming. We urgently need to make some life-and-death decisions about their rights

Their unique blend of electric and magnetic properties was long thought impossible. Now multiferroics are shaking up fields from dark matter hunting to finding cancer

Rejection of science is rampant, but scientists can do better at countering doubt and there are grounds for optimism every day, says Naomi Oreskes, author of Why Trust Science?

Rushing medicines to market is supposed to help people in need. But relying on lower standards of evidence may ultimately cause more harm than good.

Entropy is the physicist’s magic word, invoked to answer to some of the biggest questions in cosmology. Yet a quantum rethink may be needed to tell us what it actually is

Tiny particles of plastic are in our food, water and even the air we breathe. We investigate the impact they have inside our bodies

Effective altruists use evidence and reason to maximise the impact of their kindness. Joshua Howgego follows their lead to see if it can help him do good better

Schrödinger's dead-and-alive cat embodies the uncertainty of the quantum world. But whether parallel realities truly exist is a question less of science than belief

A common misconception is that evolution naturally selects for biological complexity, eventually creating advanced organisms like us. That couldn't be further from the truth

Physicists are finally getting their heads round what information truly is – and using it to gain new insights into life, the universe and, well… everything

Most of us are convinced that we're coherent individuals who are continuous in time. There's just one problem with this sense of self – it can’t exist

Are you a human, or a human-Neanderthal hybrid? The concept of the species, one of the most basic in biology, may not be as well-defined as we think

It certainly wasn’t big, and probably didn’t bang – and the surprises in the conventional story of the universe's origins don’t end there

Our increased reliance on the internet and smart tech means we are watched more than ever before. Is that something to fight – or is our concept of privacy just outdated?

Human attempts to define intelligence are largely motivated by a desire to prove we have more of it – but a look at the world around us suggests a different story

The fossil record tells us extinctions happen all the time. The question is what part we play – and whether we could ever bring back creatures like the dinosaurs

If only the fittest survive, why do good deeds for no return? The enduring mystery of altruism goes to the heart of how evolution does – and doesn't – work

Our conceptions of alien life are based on a sample of one: Earth’s life. That means even our wildest imaginings are likely to be completely off beam

How much of our make-up is predetermined by our genes, and how much by our environment? The truth is that we're asking entirely the wrong question

A unique dodo specimen kept under lock and key in Oxford may have what it takes to resurrect the iconic species... but can we solve its grisly murder?

Dark energy dominates the universe, and could lead it to a cold, bleak end. But that's not to say we have much clue what it is or how it works

There are around a hundred billion stars in the Milky Way, and most are rather humdrum – but the oddballs are so strange that they challenge our understanding of physics

Next time you peel yourself a citrus fruit, follow our guide to make your own unique and memorable scientific baubles

So what if Rudolph can’t really fly? He and the herd have some truly amazing evolutionary adaptations that could inspire new treatments for human diseases

Snow may look pristine but even the freshly fallen variety is teeming with microscopic life. This vast and mysterious ecosystem could have a big impact on Earth