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An artist’s impression of the planet HS 0209+0832b. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Leah Hustak, STScI.

Astronomers Spot Possible Second-Generation Planet around Young White Dwarf

Oct 7, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Planets are supposed to form alongside their stars, but new research suggests that planets may also be born later, from the debris of a dying star, and...

An artist’s impression of Garamaudo bauciensis. Image credit: Bardet et al., doi: 10.24072/pcjournal.804.

New Species of Freshwater Mosasaur Identified in France

Oct 5, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Fossils from southeastern France reveal a previously unknown, roughly 2.5-m (8-foot) long tethysaurine mosasaur that appears to have lived in a freshwater...

An artist’s reconstruction of Dongoconodon platycauda. Image credit: Shi Yukun.

Dinosaur-Era Mammal Swam Like Platypus and Replaced Its Teeth Multiple Times

Oct 1, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Dongoconodon platycauda, a small eutriconodontan mammal that lived alongside dinosaurs in what is now northeastern China paddled through the water with...

Life reconstruction of Norellraptor barsboldi. Image credit: Zhao Chuang.

New Feathered Dinosaur Suggests Flight Evolved More Than Once among Birds’ Closest Relatives

Sep 30, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Norellraptor barsboldi, a new species of small microraptorine dinosaur from the 120-million-year-old rock beds of China’s Liaoning province, challenges...

Life restoration of Tenuicruris piscanexum. Image credit: Travis Tischler.

New Enantiornithine Bird Joins Australia’s Sparse Fossil Record

Sep 30, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Tenuicruris piscanexum is only the second Cretaceous bird species named from the Australian continent. Life restoration of Tenuicruris piscanexum. Image...

This artist’s impression shows how the gas giant exoplanet inside the disc of Beta Pictoris may look. Image credit: L. Calçada / ESO.

Astronomers Detect Radio Signal from Beta Pictoris b

Sep 28, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

For the first time, astronomers have directly detected radio emission from a planet beyond our Solar System. This artist’s impression shows how the gas...

Facial approximation of the Jebel Irhoud hominin. Image credit: Moraes et al., doi: 10.3390/heritage9090369.

Researchers Reconstruct Face of Oldest Known Homo sapiens

Sep 23, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Scientists have created a digital facial approximation of the Jebel Irhoud hominin, whose remains are dated to about 315,000 years ago. Facial approximation...

The first phase of the Bat1K project: 103 chromosome-level genome assemblies and annotations representing at least one species from each of the 21 currently recognized bat families. Image credit: Morales et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-026-11007-3.

Bats Originated in Europe, Genetic and Fossil Evidence Suggests

Sep 23, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Bats make up more than one fifth of all living mammal species, yet where and when they first took to the air has been debated for decades. An analysis...

Incendiamoeba cascadensis undergoes cellular replication up to 63 degrees Celsius. Image credit: Rappaport et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2026.08.043.

Geothermal Amoeba Found Thriving at 63 Degrees Celsius Shatters Limits of Eukaryotic Life

Sep 23, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Microbiologists have discovered a new species of heat-loving amoeba that divides at 63 degrees Celsius (145 degrees Fahrenheit) and remains motile up to...

Titanosaur hatchlings emerging from a nest in the Cretaceous of Patagonia, Argentina. Image credit: Masato Hattori.

Titanosaurs Nested Far South of Equator, Fossil Eggshells Reveal

Sep 22, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists working in Patagonia, Argentina, have uncovered fossilized eggshells that push the known range of dinosaur nesting deeper into the southern...

Life reconstruction of Jehol therizinosaurians, illustrating variation in body size, skeletal proportions and inferred ecological strategies among species (from bottom to top): Lingyuanosaurus sihedangensis is shown in a posture suggesting greater cursoriality; Jianchangosaurus yixianensis is depicted engaging in lingual-assisted feeding, consistent with its robust hyoid apparatus; Beipiaosaurus inexpectus exhibits a robust, less cursorial bauplan; and Kayrasaurus changliensis is reconstructed browsing on higher vegetation, reflecting its larger body size and inferred feeding strategy. Image credit: Kōhei Futaka.

New Therizinosaurian Dinosaur Unearthed in China

Sep 21, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have described a new genus and species of therizinosaur based on a nearly complete skeleton found in northeastern China. Named Kayrasaurus...

An anatomical illustration from Johannes Sobotta’s Human Anatomy, 1908.

Human Brain is Two Organs Fused Together, Study Suggests

Sep 21, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Scientists have long treated the brain as a single organ that grows from one pool of early cells. Stanford University neuroscientist Kyle Loh and colleagues...

Leopardus tilcayo. Image credit: Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz.

New Species of Tiger Cat Identified in Bolivia

Sep 18, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Scientists have demonstrated that the South American tiger cat complex Leopardus tigrinus consists of five genetically distinct species, including one...

The pink-bellied imperial pigeon (Ducula poliocephala). Image credit: Gwen So / CC BY-SA 4.0.

New Species of Imperial Pigeon Identified

Sep 17, 2026 by Natali Anderson

A previously unrecognized species of the fruit-eating pigeon genus Ducula inhabits the remote island of Tawi-Tawi in the Philippines’ Sulu Archipelago,...

Life reconstruction of Dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda. Image credit: Gabriel Ugueto.

New Dicynodont Species from Tanzania Suggests Younger Age for Rocks Tied to Earliest Dinosaurs

Sep 15, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have identified a new species of ancient, distant mammal relative from two fossil specimens found decades apart in the Manda Beds of Tanzania....

In 2012, physicists from the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN announced the discovery of a new boson looking very much like the Higgs boson. Image credit: Daniel Dominguez / CERN.

Entanglement Survives Violence of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider

Sep 15, 2026 by News Staff

Physicists from the ATLAS Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider have confirmed that quantum entanglement — the phenomenon Albert Einstein...

Life reconstruction of Hallucinochrysa diogenesi. Image credit: J.A. Peñas.

Spanish Amber Deposit Offers Rare Window into Cretaceous Life

Sep 14, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

El Soplao, a fossil site tucked into the hills of Cantabria in northern Spain, stands out for yielding amber pieces with a blue-violet hue and abundant...

The Spanish Diplodocus was a close relative of Diplodocus hallorum. Image credit: Carmelo López.

Diplodocus, Long Thought Exclusively American, Turns Up in Spain

Sep 14, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists from Fundación Dinópolis have identified the first confirmed fossils of the genus Diplodocus found outside North America. The Spanish...

While some dinosaurs are thought to have had ‘fuzzy’ or ‘downy’ feathers (shown in this illustration as the yellow spikes on a Nanotyrannus’ neck), ancient birds (such as the one in the Nanotyrannus’ mouth) were more likely to have had feathers that look similar to the birds of today. Image credit: Andrey Atuchin.

Exceptionally Preserved Bird Feathers Found in 66-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Coprolite

Sep 10, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists in Montana have discovered remarkably preserved feathers of an ancient aquatic bird inside a fossilized dinosaur dropping, offering rare...