Horses experience hyperflexion, or rollkur, when their necks bend far towards their chests – it could place the animal at a greater risk of physical discomfort and stress

An estimate of annual bird fatalities due to building collisions in the US brings the figure to more than 1 billion – it is the first to include deaths from injuries after the strike

Forget videos by gamers or influencers. For a real online thrill, watch the world's biggest flower emerging in a former web designer's greenhouse, says Annalee Newitz

All living creatures use only the left or right-handed forms of certain molecules, and now we might understand why

See the incredible shots that have won this year's BMC Ecology and Evolution and BMC Zoology Image Competition

A big rethink of our planet’s early years adds to growing fossil, chemical and DNA evidence that Earth was only a few hundred million years old when life began

A survey found 66 species of insects making their homes in cobbled pavements on the streets of Berlin, and greater biodiversity near insect-friendly flower gardens

Tracking data from a pregnant porbeagle shark near Bermuda suggest it was eaten by a great white shark – a kind of predation that has never been seen before

These images are taken from a new book, Seeds: Time capsules of life, which explores how plant life has flourished in the past 360 million years

X-ray videos of Japanese eels swallowed whole by dark sleeper fish have revealed how the eels can make a daring escape from being digested

What is it like to be a dog? And what can we learn from them? Mark Rowlands's take, in his book The Happiness of Dogs, is full of insights, finds Abigail Beall

Feeding bees edible bits of hydrogel increases their odds of surviving pesticide exposure by 30 per cent

From migrating sauropods and semi-aquatic predators to doting parents, palaeontologists are finally uncovering the mysteries of the lifestyles of dinosaurs

Echolocating bats can more easily find and pollinate long-stemmed flowers that stand out from the surrounding foliage, which may be why this floral trait evolved

Bacteria that have been genetically engineered to work like computers can solve a range of problems, using a very simple type of artificial intelligence

From colonialism to AI, this Booker-longlisted novel urges us to wake up to how we treat wild creatures and places

Fishers in Albania caught a blue shark with an 18-centimetre fragment of swordfish bill embedded in its skull, in the first known case of a shark surviving such an injury

Captive dolphins are more likely to make an open-mouthed expression when their playmate can see them and they often reciprocate, hinting that it is a form of visual communication

A traditional yogurt-making practice from south-eastern Europe uses live ants as a starter, with the insects providing the bacteria and acid needed to initiate fermentation

Ancient volcanic rock from South Africa has been found to harbour primitive bacteria, which may shed light on some of the earliest forms of life on Earth

Nearly 6000 species and subspecies of earthworms have been identified by scientists – but the true number could top 30,000

Evolutionary molecular biologist Beth Shapiro on the hunt for ancient DNA and her groundbreaking de-extinction and environmental mission  

Dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico have tiny bits of plastic in their breath, and this is probably a worldwide problem

Animals that hibernate need a way to keep their blood flowing as their body temperature drops, and it seems that the mechanical properties of red blood cells may be key

For nervous newbie gardeners, starting out with a single plant in a small pot is pitched as an easy win by the horticultural industry. James Wong explains why it isn't

Single-celled organisms called archaea can become multicellular when compressed, highlighting the role of physical forces in evolution

An analysis of thousands of cognitive tests carried out by chimpanzees finds that the number of spectators influenced their performance in different ways depending on the difficulty of the task

Campaigners are calling for stricter controls on rodenticides after finding that birds of prey in England are increasingly being exposed to high doses of rat poison

There are real benefits to a positive mindset, but the idea that we should always look on the bright side has gone too far. Research into toxic positivity can help restore balance

The New Horizons mission to Pluto, now zooming out of the Kuiper belt, has made a discovery that could upend what we know about where the solar system ends

Tribalism can be toxic, yet we need more of it if we are to meet today’s global challenges, argues one anthropologist. His research reveals how to create a “teratribe”

There may be ways to work with your body’s natural daily and monthly cycles to get the maximum benefits from workouts and avoid injury

The slow-running movement, in which people meet for unhurried jogs, is booming – but don't be fooled into thinking that if there's no pain, there's no gain

The first generation of stars changed the course of cosmic history. Now, thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, we have a real chance of spotting them

Evidence suggests that cynicism is bad for your health. Neuroscientist Jamil Zaki describes the three ways to conquer your inner cynic to boost your well-being

We instinctively know that relaxing feels good, but we are now figuring out what it does to the brain and uncovering the best ways to unwind to maximise its benefits

Past observations have indicated that the icy moon of Jupiter has a vast subsurface ocean. Launching in October, NASA’s Europa Clipper will go there in search of evidence that it could support life

Advances in generative AI mean fake images, videos, audio and bots are now everywhere. But studies have revealed the best ways to tell if something is real

Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have unexpected effects on the brain, opening up potential new ways to treat depression, anxiety, addiction and Alzheimer’s

They fight invaders, clear debris and tend neural connections, but sometimes microglia go rogue. Preventing this malfunction may offer new treatments for brain conditions including Alzheimer's

From migrating sauropods and semi-aquatic predators to doting parents, palaeontologists are finally uncovering the mysteries of the lifestyles of dinosaurs

Astronomer Jo Dunkley is planning to use the Simons Observatory to snare evidence for inflation, the theory that the universe expanded at incredible speed after its birth

Understanding the “effort paradox” can help you reshape your relationship to exertion so that you commit to those hard but truly meaningful activities

An outlandish experiment searching for a brain network that tunes up and down the feeling of immersion is hoping to unlock the therapeutic effects of psychedelics

Our metabolism's response to food is highly idiosyncratic and there are hints that tailoring our diet to these personal differences can deliver health benefits

We get about a quarter of our calories from snacks and new research shows that this isn't necessarily bad for us. Done right, snacking can boost our health

Peaks in appetite and metabolism driven by our body's inbuilt clocks mean that eating at the wrong time can have consequences for our health and waistline

Our ancestors probably used a wide range of plant-based tools that have since been lost to history. Now we're finally getting a glimpse of this Botanic Age

You might have heard about plans to establish a self‑sustaining city on Mars. Here’s what life would really be like on the Red Planet

Information contained within quantum objects gets scrambled when they interact. Physicists have now derived a speed limit for this process, challenging the idea that black holes are the fastest data scramblers