Pure Science

Cosmos

The latest weapon in the war against invasive pests might be – you! A new report has identified that over a 12-month period, the alerts from members of the public who placed images on one website resulted in notifications for more than 150...

Cosmos

A village bordering the Corbett tiger reserve in northern India. Credit: University of Cambridge Camera traps, drones, and audio recorders have exploded in use for conservation over the last decade. But it’s been discovered these...

Cosmos

This video shows how the feathers on the wings and the tail respond reflexively to movement of the robotic bird (which mimics flight). Credit: Eric Chang, Lentink Lab Researchers in biomimetics have created a robotic bird model with real...

Cosmos

Credit: John Calambokidis, Cascadia Research. A global survey has found that shipping traffic overlaps with almost the entire range of all whale species but only 7% of the areas with the highest risk of whale-ship collisions have...

Cosmos

Looking from the stern of the ship as it tows the long horizontal array of hydrophones. The tow cable can be seen going through the metal horn at the stern. The hydrophone array is several hundred meters behind the ship and about 200...

Cosmos

Artistic reconstruction of Huaxiazhoulong shouwen. Credit: Ye Jianhao. Palaeontologists have identified a new species of dinosaur from a Chinese fossil which was dug up in 1986. Huaxiazhoulong shouwen is a member of the ankylosaurid group,...

Cosmos

Researchers have done a “deep dive” into the most venomous fish species on Earth and revealed “surprising” new insights that might lead to better treatment for stings, and could be used to treat diseases such as cancer. The estuarine...

Cosmos

A new pterosaur fossil from southern Germany has shed light on how pterosaurs went from species with eagle-sized wingspans to the most enormous animals ever to fly in Earth’s skies.  “This is an incredible find,” says David Hone from...

Cosmos

Great tit (Parus major). Credit: Donald Davesne (CC BY) In some fascinating research involving training birds, scientists have added to our understanding of social learning in animal groups. Immigration, it seems, is a major driver of...

Cosmos

A remarkably well-preserved fossil skull of a bird which lived 80 million years ago has been discovered in Brazil. It fills a 70-million-year gap in our understanding of how bird brains evolved. An artist’s impression of Navaornis...

Cosmos

A reaction between 2 simple molecules might be the secret to uncovering how the building blocks of life were first encapsulated in a cell membrane, according to new research. There are a few ingredients needed for life on Earth. Most...

Cosmos

Credit: UC Santa Barbara There’s new hope for the survival of frogs facing the threat of a fungal disease ravaging their populations. After nearly being wiped out by the disease chytridiomycosis, populations of yellow-legged frogs are...

Cosmos

Credit: Joanna McCarthy / Getty Images Researchers have grown a genetically modified tomato with 30% more sugar – without sacrificing size. Over centuries of domestication, tomatoes have become 10 to 100 times larger than their wild...

Cosmos

A tooth from a 1.77-million-year-old fossil child has given new insights into the process of how a unique aging process evolved in humans. Credit: Vincent Beyrand and Paul Tafforeau, European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Grenoble,...

Cosmos

Many animals today use bright colour displays as a means of attracting potential mates or to warn off would-be predators. The classic case of sexual selection using colour signalling is found in peacocks which proudly show off their...

Cosmos

We have long known why plants grow flowers – to encourage pollination. But what prompts a flower to shrivel up, once it’s done its job? While there have been plenty of theories, the reason has not – until now – ever been directly tested....

Cosmos

A burst of steam erupting from Mount St Helens in 1982. The volcano erupted catastrophically in 1980, and continued to eject material throughout the early 1980s. Credit: Lyn Topinka In 1980, Mount St Helens erupted in the western USA,...

Cosmos

Scientists have examined how honeybees build symmetrical nests, relating the process to how mirrored patterns emerge in biology such as human faces and bodies. Images of honey bee combs, arranged to show the symmetry between the two sides...

Cosmos

Researchers may have solved the centuries-old mystery of how plesiosaurs swam by constructing a robot to test the biomechanics of the extinct creatures. Illustration of a plesiosaur called Styxosaurus. Credit: Warpaintcobra / iStock /...

Cosmos

Credit: DieterMeyrl/Getty Images It’s a fact of life: if you bath a dog, it will inevitably shake the water off all over you. Now, a new study has revealed the underlying neural mechanism that triggers the “wet dog shakes” reflex seen...

Cosmos

Chimpanzee Pal doing task 3, which involves pressing numbers in ascending order on a touchscreen once covered up. Credit: Akiho Muramatsu Does having eyes on you change how well you perform a task? If so, you’re not alone because new...

Cosmos

An Eastern tree frog – Hyla orientalis. Credit: Mkrc85, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Frogs are thriving in the area around the destroyed Chornobyl Nuclear Plant, with radiation levels causing negligible effects on their health. More...

Cosmos

With an experimental setup worthy of a reality game show, scientists put the balance of healthy mice to the test and discovered new insights into how they use their tails. The results could inform research into neurogenerative diseases in...

Cosmos

As part of the Ultramarine project we are republishing some paid content for free. This long read was originally published in issue 99 of Cosmos print magazine, in July 2023. You can read more amazing long reads if...

Cosmos

The 12-million-year-old fossil of an extinct, giant, carnivorous bird found in Colombia’s Tatacoa Desert could be the largest member of its kind. But it was probably killed by something much bigger. Life reconstruction of the terror bird...

Cosmos

Like all domesticated animals, cattle are descendants of wild animals which have changed genetically over thousands of years. New research published in Nature sheds light on the complex history of modern cows by analysing the DNA of their...

Cosmos

Can monkeys randomly hitting keys on a typewriter type out the complete works of Shakespeare? Alas, it is not to be. This is according to a statistical study published in the journal Franklin Open by 2 researchers from the University of...

Cosmos

Timelapse showing reverse development in a lobectomized individual of M. leidyi. Credit: Soto-Angel and Burkhardt (2024), PNAS, “Reverse development in the ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi“. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2411499121 Who knew you...

Cosmos

A whopping 16-centimetre-long tadpole fossil has been found – dating to the heyday of the dinosaurs. Tadpoles and adults of Notobatrachus degiustoi. Credit: Gabriel Lío. The find, described in a paper published in Nature today,...

Cosmos

Brachycephalus dacnis on a researcher’s palm. Credit: Lucas Machado Botelho/Projeto Dacnis Researchers have discovered a new species of flea toad in which one of the adults measured just 6.95mm in length – the second smallest adult...

Cosmos

Trained giant rats could fight illegal wildlife trafficking by sniffing out shipping containers at transport hubs to detect four common illicit products: elephant tusks, rhino horn, pangolin scales and African blackwood. The illegal...

Cosmos

The yellow-faced honeyeater is a common daytime migrant in eastern Australia. Credit: Ah Xin We’ve come a long way from the fantastical idea that birds migrate to the Moon when they disappear each northern hemisphere winter. But while...

Cosmos

Poaching is being blamed for a dramatic loss of number of Sumatran tigers. Only 11 Sumatran tigers were spotted during Indonesian monitoring activities between 2020 and 2022, potentially indicating “severe” levels of poaching, a scientific...

Cosmos

Different phenotypes of Zelandoperla stoneflies. The melanistic insects (right) flourish in forests, while the lighter-coloured types are favoured in cleared areas. Credit: Brodie Foster – Thesis, CC BY 4.0,...

Cosmos

How did mammal ancestors evolve from a sprawled posture like a lizard to the upright locomotion we see today? A new study sheds light on the puzzle. Land animals exhibit a continuum of limb postures. Credit: Peter Bishop. The research,...

Cosmos

A species of crustacean with unique panda-like black and white stripes has been confirmed as a separate species, decades after it was first found in Japan. The discovery highlights the importance of identifying species in order to protect...

Cosmos

Palaeontologists studying fossils of corals and algae from 385 million years ago have found  a symbiotic relationship between the organisms today was present in the ancient past as well. One of the tabulate corals called Thamnopora...

Cosmos

Palaeontologists have turned to robotics in an unusual attempt to recreate ancient life. The aptly named “palaeo-robots” could help scientists reconstruct how fish evolved to walk. Four-legged land animals such as frogs, humans and...

Cosmos

Researchers have found the body traits which help ethnic Tibetan women reproduce in the oxygen-scarce, highest region on Earth. Women with the most live births had a combination of blood and cardiovascular characteristics which enhance...

Cosmos

Elephant fossils from 300,000–400,000 years ago bear the marks of the earliest signs of ancient humans butchering animals in the Indian subcontinent. The fossils were discovered near the Kashmir town Pampore (also known as Pampar, Panpar)...

Cosmos

As part of the Ultramarine project we are diving into our archives and republishing some paid content for free. This long read was originally published in issue 97 of Cosmos print magazine, in December 2022. You can read...

Cosmos

An extremely well-preserved sawfly fossil dating to 11–16 million years ago has been found in central New South Wales. This ‘extremely well-preserved’ fossil details a new species of now-extinct sawfly. Credit: © Michael Frese, University...

Cosmos

Last week in Sydney, Australia hosted the inaugural Global Nature Positive Summit. It brought together government, corporate sectors, research and environmental organisations and Indigenous Peoples to “accelerate collective action to drive...

Cosmos

Australopithecus reproduction in the chamber of evolution of the Museum of Human Evolution (MEH), Burgos, Castile and León, Spain. Credit: Cristina Arias / Cover / Getty Images. Hands capable of using tools might have evolved much earlier...

Cosmos

What sound does a frog make? If you said “croak” or “ribbit” or even “bonk” like the  Australian pobblebonk frog, you’d be right. And now, thanks to new research, “Star Trek whistle” is also a correct answer! Seven newly discovered...

Cosmos

A new fossil found in South Australia’s Nilpena Ediacara National Park represents the earliest evidence of an animal with left-right asymmetry. It is also one of the first animals which could move on its own. The animal, Quaestio...

Cosmos

Credit: Alex Braczkowski Wildlife tourism rangers could be a “powerful” force in conservation monitoring, according to the results of a research project in Uganda. Surveying wildlife is a costly and difficult part of conservation. But this...

Cosmos

An international team of researchers has literally uncovered animal life thriving beneath sections of the seafloor in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. While microbes and viruses have been found in similar subseafloor habitats, this study...

Cosmos

The Australian government has announced an additional $95 million package to prepare for the arrival of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which is causing the deaths of poultry, wild birds and mammal species worldwide....

Cosmos

One of the earliest examples of a winged seed has been found in a mine in China’s Anhui province. The fossil dates to 365 million years ago – a period known as the Femennian. Seeds of Alasemenia tria gen. et sp. nov. Credit: eLife (2024)....