World

Two centuries ago, a British geologist gave the world its first named dinosaur. Megalosaurus, described from a handful of fossilised bones, marked the birth of an entire scientific field. Back then, researchers worked with little more than fragments, guesswork and imagination to picture prehistoric life. Fast forward 200 years, and palaeontology looks unrecognisable. Scientists no…

Representative Image (AI-generated) Around 1200 BCE, several of the eastern Mediterranean’s most powerful civilisations, including the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire, Canaanite city-states and parts of New Kingdom Egypt, began experiencing a period of dramatic decline. Historians have long debated whether warfare, invasions, earthquakes, internal unrest or climate change played the biggest role in this…

In 1976, ornithologist George Archibald began an unusual daily ritual, dancing beside a whooping crane named Tex in an attempt to save one of the rarest birds on the planet. Tex had been raised in captivity and had imprinted on humans rather than other cranes, meaning she showed no interest in mating with her own…

Parents of Vaibhav Duggal, the Indian student who committed suicide in Texas, seek $30 million from the university. Vaibhav Duggal, a s 24-year-old medical student of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center took his life in July 2025 while he was still wearing his doctor’s white coat. A year has passed and the parents now…

Girlguiding unveils first uniform redesign since 1990. The UK’s largest youth organisation for girls, Girlguiding, has introduced its first complete uniform redesign in more than three decades, giving members greater flexibility over what they wear while keeping a shared identity across the organisation.The updated range means members only need to wear one top from the…

Researchers clipped a few wing and tail feathers of wild Alaskan kittiwakes (AI enhanced image. Credit: Nature Counts) Researchers who clipped a few wing and tail feathers of wild black-legged kittiwakes in Alaska to make flying harder, have found that the effects lasted well beyond a single breeding season. The birds struggled to raise chicks…

Scientists studying ants have found that the brain circuits that caregiving behaviour may have evolved from far older circuits that originally controlled hunger. The research, carried out on clonal raider ants at Rockefeller University and published in the journal Nature, shows that two chemical signals in the ant brain, known as neuropeptide F and allatostatin…

For decades, Florida’s Everglades have faced a silent invasion unfolding beneath the dense vegetation and winding waterways. What began with the arrival of Burmese pythons through the exotic pet trade has become one of the most significant wildlife challenges in the United States. The turning point came around 1992, when Hurricane Andrew damaged facilities in…

Dutch microbiologist Professor Henk Jonkers holds a sample of self-healing concrete, an innovation that uses bacteria to repair cracks automatically. Concrete is the backbone of modern civilisation, supporting everything from homes and skyscrapers to bridges, tunnels and dams. Yet even this remarkably strong material has a costly weakness. Tiny cracks inevitably develop over time because…

A nearly 190-year-old pangolin specimen sitting on a museum shelf in London has helped scientists confirm the existence of a distinct pangolin species living in Nepal and northern India. Researchers used DNA extracted from the historic specimen, originally collected in 1836, to settle a long-standing taxonomic debate over whether the Himalayan pangolin was simply a…