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Graecopithecus May Have Been Partially Bipedal, New Fossil Suggests

Graecopithecus freybergi lived 7.2 million years ago in the dust-laden savannah of the Athens Basin. This view from Graecopithecus freybergi’s place of discovery, Pyrgos Vassilissis, to the southeast over the plain of Athens and under a reddish cloud of Sahara dust; in the background: Mount Hymettos and Mount Lykabettos. Image credit: Velizar Simeonovski.
Mar 5, 2026 by Sergio Prostak

A 7.2-million-year-old thigh bone unearthed at the fossil site of Azmaka in southern Bulgaria displays a mosaic of features suggesting a unique combination of locomotor capabilities, including aspects of terrestrial quadrupedalism and bipedalism, according to a research team led by Professor Madelaine Böhme from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen. The paleoanthropologists have tentatively...

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Life reconstruction of the pachycephalosaur individual CMNFV 22039 in an environment typical of the Upper Maastrichtian Frenchman Formation. Image credit: Kaitlin Lindblad.

Rare Fossil of Baby Dome-Headed Dinosaur Unearthed in Canada

Mar 2, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

For many years, the fossil record of pachycephalosaurs (dome-headed dinosaurs) has been dominated by fossilized skulls. The postcranial material of young...

Neanderthals. Image credit: Gemini AI.

Study: Ancient Mating Preferences Helped Shape Human Genome

Mar 2, 2026 by News Staff

Prehistoric humans and Neanderthals didn’t just interbreed, they did so with a consistent sex bias, as male Neanderthals and female modern humans mated...

Coronae glow on the tips of spruce needles, induced by charged metal plates in a laboratory. Image credit: William Brune.

Scientists Observe Electrical Discharges on Trees under Thunderstorms

Feb 26, 2026 by Sergio Prostak

Most people know about lightning and the havoc it wreaks on forests. They do not know about the weak electrical glow, called a corona, that is thought...

Plaquette with hybrid creature (so-called ‘Adorant’), ivory, from the Swabian Aurignacian. Image credit: Christian Bentz & Ewa Dutkiewicz, doi: 10.1073/pnas.2520385123.

Early Humans May Have Invented System of Symbols Long Before Writing

Feb 25, 2026 by Sergio Prostak

Early humans living in Europe some 40,000 years ago developed a conventional system of geometric signs — deliberate, repeatable markings that went...

Schematic of the expansion of the Universe from the Big Bang to the present day. Image credit: NASA / EFBrazil.

Astrophysicists Propose New Method to Measure Hubble Constant

Feb 25, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astrophysicists from the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago have developed an innovative method to measure the Hubble constant —...

Spinosaurus mirabilis is one of the last-surviving spinosaurid species. Image credit: Dani Navarro.

New Spinosaurus Species Discovered in Niger

Feb 19, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have identified the first unequivocal new species of the fish-eating dinosaur Spinosaurus in more than a century. Spinosaurus mirabilis...

Isolated colonies of Psychrobacter SC65A.3 on R2A medium at 4 degrees Celsius (A) and on TSA medium at 15 degrees Celsius (B). Image credit: Ioana Paun et al., doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1713017.

Multidrug-Resistant Bacterial Strain Found Preserved in 5,000-Year-Old Cave Ice

Feb 17, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Scientists have isolated a new strain of the Psychrobacter cryohalolentis species from 5,000-year-old ice from Scarisoara Ice Cave in Romania. Remarkably,...

Cave lions painted in the Chauvet Cave, France.

Japanese Archipelago Was Once a Refuge for Cave Lions

Feb 13, 2026 by Sergio Prostak

Between 73,000 and 20,000 years ago (Late Pleistocene), the Japanese Archipelago was inhabited by cave lions (Panthera spelaea), according to a new genetic...

An artist’s impression of the four-planet system around LHS 1903. Image credit: ESA / ATG Europe.

CHEOPS Discovers Rocky Exoplanet that Defies Conventional Formation Theories

Feb 12, 2026 by News Staff

ESA’s CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) has revealed a four-planet system whose outermost world is a small and rocky planet — not a gas...

This graphic shows the long-chain organic molecules decane, undecane, and dodecane, and NASA’s Curiosity rover. Image credit: NASA / Dan Gallagher.

Mars Organics Can’t Be Fully Explained by Geological Processes Alone, NASA Study Says

Feb 9, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Known non-biological sources, from meteorites to surface chemistry, fall short of accounting for organic compounds detected by NASA’s Curiosity rover,...

A life reconstruction of Archaeopteryx, including the oral papillae on the roof of its mouth, a bill-tip organ at the end of its beak, and a flexible-yet-sturdy tongue made possible by an extra tongue bone. Image credit: Ville Sinkkonen.

Archaeopteryx’s Feeding-Related Structures Reflect Elevated Demands of Flight, Scientists Say

Feb 5, 2026 by News Staff

New research led by Field Museum of Natural History paleontologists suggests that Archaeopteryx, the oldest known bird, had a feeding apparatus shaped...

Kanzi the bonobo. Image credit: Ape Initiative.

Bonobos Demonstrate Imaginative Ability in New Experiments

Feb 5, 2026 by News Staff

The consistent performance of Kanzi the bonobo in pretend play experiments suggests that the mental capacity to imagine nonexistent objects may trace back...

This visible-light image of Jupiter was created from data captured on January 11, 2017 using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. Near the top, a long brown feature called a ‘brown barge’ extends 72,000 km (nearly 45,000 miles) in the east-west direction. The Great Red Spot stands out prominently in the lower left, while the smaller feature nicknamed Red Spot Jr. (known to Jovian scientists as Oval BA) appears to its lower right. Image credit: NASA / ESA / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / Wong et al. / de Pater et al. / M. Zamani.

Jupiter is Smaller and More ‘Squashed’ than Previously Believed, New Juno Data Reveal

Feb 4, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Using high-precision radio-occultation measurements from NASA’s Juno mission and incorporating the effects of zonal winds, planetary scientists derived...

An artistic reconstruction of the possible ecological interaction between Python and Toyotamaphimeia in the Middle Pleistocene of Taiwan. Image credit: Lab of Evolution and Diversity of Fossil Vertebrates, National Taiwan University / Cheng-Han Sun.

Giant Pythons Once Lived in Taiwan

Feb 3, 2026 by Sergio Prostak

A fossil trunk vertebra from the Chiting Formation of Taiwan reveals that nearly 4-m-long pythons roamed the island during the Middle Pleistocene. An artistic...

Life reconstuction of Foskeia pelendonum. Image credit: Martina Charnell.

Tiny New Species of Herbivorous Dinosaur Unearthed in Spain

Feb 2, 2026 by News Staff

A new genus and species of diminutive bipedal dinosaur has been identified from the fossils found in Burgos province of Spain. Life reconstuction of Foskeia...

HD 137010b is estimated to be only 6% larger than Earth, with a surface temperature more similar to Mars -- potentially below minus 70 degrees Celsius. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Keith Miller, Caltech & IPAC.

Cool, Earth-Sized Exoplanet Found Orbiting Nearby Star

Jan 30, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers have discovered a new exoplanet orbiting the nearby K-dwarf star HD 137010 after detecting a single, shallow transit in the archival data from...

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’...

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