Michael Marshall

Schools have been closed in England for about two months amid another national lockdown. What have these disruptions done to children's health and wellbeing?

A famous member of an extinct human group went through hard times early in her life. The fossil, known as Little Foot, has tell-tale signs in her teeth that suggest she was either deprived of food or seriously ill during her childhood

Artificial steak is a step closer. Researchers have created a small sample of cultured meat that mimics the structure of real muscle, which is key to creating large pieces of meat

The extinction of woolly mammoths was caused by a combination of climate change and human hunting, according to a study that simulated the processes that drove their demise

For the first time, preserved DNA has been recovered from animal remains over a million years old. The DNA belonged to two mammoths that lived around 1.2 million years ago

Chimpanzees regularly string many different calls together into sequences, which are often three calls long and sometimes even longer

An early caterpillar that lived alongside the dinosaurs had sharp spines along its back to defend against predators

Some Chinese noblemen were using cosmetic face cream 2700 years ago

The existence of the Denisovans was discovered just a decade ago through DNA alone. Now we're starting to uncover fossils and artefacts revealing what these early humans were like

Perhaps a small twist of fate would have been enough to lead the Denisovans to make major cultural breakthroughs first, and it would be us, not them, almost lost in the mists of time

A small group of whales living in the Gulf of Mexico belong to a new species that has remained undetected for millennia

An active volcano in Ecuador has collapsed twice in the past 250,000 years, causing vast debris avalanches that reached over 60 kilometres away

Water is essential for life as we know it, but why? A new analysis may rewrite the idea that it is solely the medium in which the reactions that drive life occur, instead viewing it as an active participant

Researchers are studying the sensory impact of the coronavirus, how long it lasts and what can be done to treat it

The UK government is exploring the possibility of using gene editing to modify livestock and food crops, for instance to make crop plants resistant to drought and disease