Michael Marshall

A trial will finally reveal whether limiting the time teens spend on social media really does affect their mental health

A fossil discovery in northern Ethiopia expands the known range of Paranthropus, a genus of strong-jawed hominins that lived around 2 million years ago, and suggests they lived in a range of habitats

Since the turn of the millennium, our understanding of our ancestors and extended cousins has shifted dramatically, thanks to a swathe of surprising archaeological discoveries

Whole-body MRI screening is booming in the private sector, yet radiologists and health economists say the scans will inevitably find abnormalities that lead to needless worry, wasteful investigations and diverted NHS resources

Hallucigenia was such an odd animal that palaeontologists reconstructed it upside-down when they first analysed its fossils - and now we may know what it ate

Clues from studies of ancient plants and animals have helped archaeologists pin down where the last Neanderthals found refuge

Discoveries in Jurassic rocks reveal that birds were adept fliers earlier than scientists realized

For years, we've thought of autism as lying on a spectrum, but emerging evidence suggests that it comes in several distinct types. The implications for how we support autistic people could be profound

The ideas presented in George Lakoff and Srini Narayanan's The Neural Mind are fascinating, but the writing is far less compelling

The largest study so far into the genetics of chronic fatigue syndrome, or myalgic encephalomyelitis, has implicated 259 genes – six times more than those identified just four months ago

The Asgard archaea bear traits that hint at how eukaryotes first emerged

From an incredible series of revelations about the ancient humans called Denisovans to surprising discoveries about tool making, this year has given us a clearer picture of how and why humans evolved to be so different from other primates

Climate records show thousands of years of drying before their extinction

The German government has committed half a billion euros for research on long COVID and other post-infection syndromes

Our writers and contributors have chosen their favourite ever science-y books, films, TV shows, music, video games, board games and more to see you through the festive period