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European bee-eaters (Merops apiaster). Image credit: Rashuli / CC BY 2.0.

New Online Tool Charts Evolution of Every Known Bird Species

Jan 29, 2026 by News Staff

Ornithologists with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have stitched together the most complete avian evolutionary tree ever, unveiling surprising relationships...

This Webb image shows the galaxy MoM-z14 as it appeared in the distant past, only 280 million years after the Big Bang. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / Rohan Naidu, MIT / Joseph DePasquale, STScI.

Webb Discovers Most Distant Galaxy Yet: MoM-z14

Jan 29, 2026 by News Staff

MoM-z14 existed just 280 million years after the Big Bang, according a team of astronomers led by Dr. Rohan Naidu from the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics...

This artist’s concept depicts a cutaway view showing Europa’s ice shell. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / Koji Kuramura / Gerald Eichstädt.

Europa’s Ice Shell is Much Thicker than Previously Thought

Jan 29, 2026 by News Staff

New microwave measurements from NASA’s Juno spacecraft reveal Europa’s ice shell may stretch nearly 29 km (18 miles) deep, reshaping planetary scientists’...

This image of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS was captured by Hubble’s WFC3 instrument on January 22, 2026, at 13:10 UTC. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Man-To Hui, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory.

Rare Cosmic Lineup Gives Hubble Close Look at 3I/ATLAS

Jan 27, 2026 by Natali Anderson

On January 22, 2026, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observed the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS nearly perfectly aligned with the Sun-Earth axis, revealing...

An artist’s impression of a Marathousa 1 woman producing a digging stick from a small alder tree trunk with a small stone tool. Image credit: G. Prieto / K. Harvati.

430,000-Year-Old Wooden Handheld Tools are Earliest Ever Found

Jan 27, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists say they have discovered the ‘earliest known handheld wooden tools’ at the Middle Pleistocene site of Marathousa 1 in Greece. An artist’s...

Containing nearly 800,000 galaxies, this Webb image is overlaid with a map of dark matter, represented in blue. Image credit: NASA / STScI / J. DePasquale / A. Pagan.

Webb Creates Most Detailed Dark-Matter Map Yet

Jan 27, 2026 by News Staff

Using ultra-sharp imaging from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have produced an extremely detailed, wide-area map of mass in the...

Life reconstruction of Yeneen houssayi. Image credit: Gabriel Lío.

Paleontologists Unearth New Species of Titanosaur in Argentina

Jan 26, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of titanosaur sauropod dinosaur that lived during the Cretaceous period has been identified from the fossilized remains found in...

Prototaxites was the largest organism on land 410 million years ago. Image credit: Matt Humpage.

Prototaxites May Be Completely Unknown Branch of Complex Life

Jan 22, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

For more than 165 years, one of the earliest giants to rise above Earth’s barren land has defied classification. Known as Prototaxites, the towering,...

Paranthropus boisei. Image credit: © Roman Yevseyev.

2.6-Million-Year-Old Fossil from Ethiopia Shows Paranthropus Hominins Were Widespread

Jan 21, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

The newly-discovered fossil — a 2.6-million-year-old partial lower jaw found in the Afar region of Ethiopia — represents the first known specimen...

This Webb image shows a portion of the Helix Nebula. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / A. Pagan, STScI.

Webb Peers Deep into Iconic Helix Nebula

Jan 20, 2026 by News Staff

The new infrared image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveals the complex structure of gas and dust shed by a white dwarf in the center...

Veronika’s tooling technique. Image credit: Antonio Osuna-Mascaró & Alice Auersperg, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2025.11.059.

Researchers Observe Tool Use in Cattle for the First Time

Jan 19, 2026 by News Staff

In a paper published today in the journal Current Biology, researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, report the first experimental...

Facial reconstruction of Homo habilis. Image credit: Cicero Moraes.

2-Million-Year-Old Skeleton Offers Clearest Look Yet at Homo habilis

Jan 15, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A newly-described partial skeleton from the Koobi Fora Formation in northern Kenya is giving paleoanthropologists their most complete picture yet of Homo...

This image depicts a Pleistocene landscape in northern Spain with woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), a woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis), and European cave lions (Panthera leo spelaea) with a reindeer carcass. Image credit: Mauricio Antón.

14,400-Year-Old Woolly Rhinoceros Genome Shows No Evidence of Recent Inbreeding

Jan 14, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

The woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) is a cold-adapted herbivore that went extinct around 14,000 years ago, but little is known about their...

Life reconstruction of Xenovenator espinosai. Image credit: Connor Ashbridge / CC BY 4.0.

Thick-Skulled Troodontid Dinosaur Unearthed in Mexico

Jan 12, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A team of paleontologists from Mexico and the United States has identified a new species of bird-like dinosaur with an unusually thick and domed skull,...

773,000-Year-Old Hominin Fossils from Morocco Offer New Clues to Roots of Homo sapiens

Jan 7, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

The hominin fossils discovered in the Grotte à Hominidés at Thomas Quarry I in Casablanca, Morocco, are providing new evidence about the deep origins...

The Beni greenlet (Hylophilus moxensis) in habitat near San Ramón, Beni, Bolivia, on January 10, 2024. Notice the pale brownish gray auriculars, combined with dark lores, dark base of commissure, rufous on the entire crown and frons, and dark irides. Image credit: Tini Wijpkema.

New Songbird Species Discovered in Bolivia

Jan 5, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Deep in the seasonally flooded savannas of Bolivia, a small, olive-green songbird has been quietly eluding science. Now, after six decades of confusion...

An artist’s concept of a Penghu Denisovan walking under the bright Sun during the Pleistocene of Taiwan. Image credit: Cheng-Han Sun.

Researchers Sequence Genome of 200,000-Year-Old Denisovan

Jan 2, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A research team led by Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology scientists has generated the high-quality genome assembly of a Denisovan using...

An individual of Tinamus resonans at Morro Queimado, Serra do Divisor National Park, Mâncio Lima, Acre, Brazil. Image credit: Luis A. Morais.

New Species of Tinamou Discovered in Brazil

Dec 29, 2025 by Natali Anderson

Ornithologists have discovered a new species of tinamou living in the montane forests of the Serra do Divisor, western Amazonia, Brazil. An individual...

Reconstruction of Mezhirich’s mammoth bone structure in the National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo, Japan. Image credit: Momotarou2012.

18,000-Year-Old Circular Dwellings Made of Mammoth Bones Unearthed in Ukraine

Dec 25, 2025 by Sergio Prostak

The Upper Paleolithic site of Mezhyrich, located in Cherkasy oblast, central Ukraine, is home to four remarkable mammoth bone structures. Ranging from...