Reported declines in insect populations have sparked global concern, with artificial light at night (ALAN) identified as a potential contributing factor. Despite strong evidence that lighting disrupts a range of insect behaviors, the empirical evidence that ALAN diminishes wild insect abundance is limited. Using a matched-pairs design, we found that street lighting strongly reduced moth caterpillar abundance compared with unlit sites (47% reduction in hedgerows and 33% reduction in grass margins) and affected caterpillar development. A separate experiment in habitats with no history of lighting revealed that ALAN disrupted the feeding...

When plants started growing on land, they changed the world. Ancient fossil spores hint at how and when they did it.

Candice Larkin is trying to track down the elusive barking owl, whose calls are often confused with the woofs of a dog, and even the screams of a human. 

To some they're charming, to others they're creepy. But regardless of your feelings about the daddy long legs spider, odds are good you've seen the ubiquitous arachnid cruising up a wall or over its silky web somewhere. (And no, it's most certainly not capable of killing you.)

Slathering yourself in deadly poison is a great way to discourage predators from trifling with you and your cousins. There is, however, one massive flaw in this genius plan – it involves slathering yourself in deadly poison.

A new study has found caffeine can be used to help bees locate specific flowers. The research suggests the drug enhances bee memory and makes them more efficient at homing in on certain targeted flowers.

A study looks at an ancestral recombination graph of the genomes of modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans to map how much of our genome is shared.

Artificial intelligence has been used to predict the structures of almost every protein made by the human body. Proteins are essential building blocks of living organisms; every cell we have in us is packed with them. Understanding protein structures is critical for advancing medicine, but until now, only a fraction of these have been worked out.

Accurate protein structure prediction now accessible to all. Scientists have waited months for access to highly accurate protein structure prediction since DeepMind presented remarkable progress in this area at the 2020 Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction, or CASP14, conference. The wait

Although we might think of ourselves as far removed from blobby green algae, we're not really that different.

Researcher accidentally spots tiny insect walking on the underside of the water surface as if it were a pane of glass

Archaeologists may finally know the age and true identity of the “Rude Man,” also known as the Cerne Abbas Giant, one of dozens of geoglyphs etched into the British countryside.

DNA from ancient soil reveals the history of the cave that cracked open the field of human evolution

An exceptionally rare and critically endangered fungus, known as the tea-tree fingers, is rapidly losing its grip on the Australian mainland.

You could say there are a 'crapload' of viruses in the human gut. Luckily, most of these do not attack our cells, but instead feed on bacteria.

Hold up your hands in front of your face. For most people, they will be mirrored copies of each other: You can hold them palm-to-palm and they will match up, but you cannot superimpose them.

The first wattles of the season are about to burst into fluffy pom-poms of resplendent gold and pale cream. But in the early 2000s, these plants were in the centre of one of the world's biggest botanical controversies.

A microscopic worm-like creature, labelled an “evolutionary scandal” by biologists for having thrived for millions of years without having sex, has now been shown to persist for at least 24,000 years in Siberian permafrost and then reproduce, researchers have found.

The tiny multicellular microbes sprang back to life and produced offspring after 24,000 years.