Michael Marshall

The answer to one of the biggest questions of all

An African toad has found a nifty way to scare off predators: it looks and sounds like a venomous snake

Many people have DNA inside them that they inherited from extinct hominins like the Neanderthals – and now we know that in some cases it’s not just tiny snippets but long stretches

The world’s fastest ant can run at almost a metre per second, covering more than 100 times its own body length in that time

An ancient city, hidden in the jungles of Cambodia for hundreds of years, has been revealed by aerial mapping

When the first life emerged on Earth, it may have had a helping hand from an unexpected source: urea, a chemical found in urine

Our mammal ancestors were cold-blooded for tens of millions of years after their first appearance

Something strange is going on in the deep sea. Luminous bacteria have teamed up with predatory anglerfish, which may use the glowing microbes to help catch prey. The bacteria have evolved to depend on the anglerfish – yet they spend much of their time floating free in the water

There is a roaring trade in wild meat from the Amazon rainforest in big cities in Brazil, even though it is illegal

Earth contains 1.85 billion billion tonnes of carbon. If it were all combined into a single sphere, it would be larger than many asteroids

We have finally uncovered hard evidence that 3.5 billion year old rocks in Australia really do contain fossils of the oldest known microorganisms

How many people could be in need of humanitarian support following climate-related disasters by 2030 and 2050 if the world does not urgently invest in climate adaptation measures today? And what could the financial cost be for governments and donors supporting an already overstretched humanitarian system?

Some early whales may have swum using their arms as well as their legs, a bit like a dog paddling in water

The number of mildly harmful mutations in the European population has gradually increased over the last 45,000 years, ever since modern humans arrived on the continent

For the first time, wild mountain gorillas have been seen playing in water and having a splashing good time