The researchers found that the changes in climate didn't explain the changes in the rodents' skulls, but the degree of urbanization did. The different ways the animals' skulls changed may be related to the different ways that an increasingly urban habitat affected them.

"Over the last century, chipmunks in Chicago have been getting bigger, but their teeth are getting smaller," says Feijó. "We believe this is probably associated with the kind of food they're eating. They're probably eating more human-related food, which makes them bigger, but not necessarily healthier. Meanwhile, their teeth are smaller -- we think it's because they're eating less hard food, like the nuts and seeds they would normally eat."

Voles, on the other hand, had smaller auditory bullae, bone structures associated with hearing. "We think this may relate to the city being loud -- having these bones be smaller might help dampen excess environmental noise," says Smith.

In the outer reaches of our Solar System, far beyond the orbit of Pluto, lies one of the most mysterious objects ever discovered, Sedna. This reddish dwarf planet follows such an extreme orbit that it takes over 11,000 years to complete a single journey around the Sun. Now, scientists are proposing a new mission to reach this distant world using a revolutionary propulsion technology.

Sedna represents far more than just another distant rock, though. It's a new orbital class of object, the sednoids, and its extreme orbit suggests it may be the first known member of the inner Oort Cloud. Understanding Sedna could unlock secrets about the early Solar System's formation and the gravitational influences that shaped it.

A new feasibility study has examined two cutting-edge approaches to technology that would reach Sedna within this narrow window of opportunity. The first involves the Direct Fusion Drive (DFD), a conceptual nuclear fusion engine, designed to produce both thrust and electric power. For the DFD, researchers assume a 1.6 MW system with constant thrust and specific impulse, representing a massive leap beyond current propulsion technology.

The second approach involves an ingenious variation on solar sailing technology. Rather than relying entirely on solar radiation pressure, this concept uses thermal desorption instead. This is a process where molecules or atoms that are stuck to a surface are released when that surface is heated up, and it's this process that produces the propulsion. It would be assisted by a gravity assist manoeuvre around Jupiter, using the planet's immense gravitational field as a gravitational slingshot.

Results indicated that Ophiocordyceps likely emerged during the Early Cretaceous, about 133.25 million years ago, earlier than previously proposed estimates of ~100 million years. Ancestral state reconstructions suggest that the genus initially parasitized beetles before undergoing host shifts to Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera during the Cretaceous. Researchers inferred that these transitions coincided with the diversification of moths and ants, which offered new ecological opportunities for fungal specialization.

The authors concluded that the fossils not only document some of the oldest evidence of insect-pathogenic fungi but also support the view that Ophiocordyceps diversified in tandem with its insect hosts.

Microbial ecosystems are fundamental to planetary and human health, yet human activities are accelerating their loss. Disruptions to microbial communities undermine environmental stability, biodiversity, and health. Urgent action is required to preserve microbial diversity.

The Microbiota Vault Initiative provides a global framework to safeguard microbiomes from human, animal, and environmental sources. It proactively archives microbial diversity for future needs, prioritizing depositor sovereignty, equitable collaboration, and ethical governance.

By sharing limited information on deposits, the initiative fosters microbial conservation and collaboration between local and global researchers. It complements other efforts to ensure the resilience of microbiomes in an era of rapid environmental change.

The two fossils are the first ever hominin fossils from submerged Sundaland and demonstrate that Homo erectus populations extended beyond Java onto the exposed lowland plains during the Middle Pleistocene.

It is likely that other hominin populations migrated south in a similar manner; however, limited fossil evidence complicates the understanding of the evolution and migration of these species. It is likely that more fossils are to be found on the submerged Sundaland seabed.

Corpses under the floor

The people of Çatalhöyük buried their dead directly underneath their homes. Previous studies into hereditary anatomical features of the skeletons had thrown up a surprising finding, namely that most of the people buried in a house were unrelated, while those who were most similar to one another were spread out across the whole settlement.

In other words, households appear to have been formed according to rules other than kinship. Did cultural, economic or social factors have a hand in this? Says Rosenstock, "Ever since it's been possible to study DNA that's this old, therefore, we've been using archaeogenetics to try and see how the occupants of a particular house were related."

The two skeletons of newborns that Rosenstock's team dug up were likewise found inside the same building, and they were not closely related either, as the study recently published in Science shows. What is more, they belonged to the same gene pool as the bodies found on the East Mound.

With an object in geostationary orbit, you could run a cable down to the Earth. Boom—there's your space elevator. But wait! There are some problems. Can you imagine a cable that's 36,000 kilometers long? That's a LOT of cable. It's so much that you’d also have to counterbalance the weight of the cable with some big mass a little past the geostationary level. This system would require a tension in the material that exceeds the maximum value for the strongest steel cables. It could only work with something like a carbon nanotube cable—which we don't have (yet).

it's Friday! in this week's podcast  we have a good old natter with Fatima Joji aobut revitalising Women for Independence #wfi.  Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts

PAPRs are reusable respirators that can be used to protect against gases, vapors, or particles, when equipped with the appropriate filter, cartridge, or canister. They are battery-powered with a blower that pulls air through attached filters or cartridges to clean it before delivering it to your breathing zone. PAPRs provide low breathing resistance with a high level of protection.

PAPRs often have a hood or helmet that covers your nose, mouth, and eyes. Therefore, they also provide eye protection. A PAPR may have a tight-fitting half or full facepiece or a loose-fitting facepiece, hood, or helmet.

Unlike tight-fitting PAPRs, loose-fitting PAPRs do not require fit testing. They may be a good alternative if you have facial hair or are unable to pass a fit test with a tight-fitting respirator.

Believe in Scotland is building the most effective grassroots-led campaign for Scottish independence and we need your input. As we prepare for the next stage of the campaign, including a major push ahead of the 2026 Holyrood election, we want to hear directly from Yes supporters like you.

This is our third annual survey. Last year, it generated over 4,000 responses, with some key findings published on our website and featured in The National.

This survey will help us understand your views on strategy, campaigning priorities, and the political landscape as well as how and where you think we can make the biggest impact. Whether you're an active campaigner or a quiet supporter, your opinion matters.

The survey takes just a few minutes to complete, and your answers will directly influence how we plan the next 12 months of campaigning. Together, we can help move Scotland forward.

Let’s make independence happen. Take the survey now.

Kepler 538-b is larger than Earth, and has a much higher temperature, but it still falls within the realm of potentially habitable. But that rarity points to another important finding from the paper - Earth is a statistical rarity in terms of planets, but not one that requires some miraculous confluence of planetary and stellar characteristics. Using a statistical technique called the Mahalanobis distance analysis, the authors found that Earth is around 69.4% different in terms of “statistical unusualness”, making it rare, but not too rare.

As the science of astrobiology and exoplanets moves forward, continuing this type of statistical analysis will provide valuable context that could otherwise mislead or obfuscate the areas that have the most potential to answer one of the most important questions to humanity - are we alone? With increasingly powerful observational equipment pointed in the right direction, we might soon have a definitive answer to that question.

Squids are rarely preserved as fossils because they don't have hard shells. Their origin and early evolution are the biggest questions in the 500 million-year history of cephalopods, which have been model animals for long-term evolution. Squid beaks, hard mouthparts that have a high fossilization potential, are therefore important clues for studying how squids evolved.

One of the study's most striking discoveries was how common squids were in ancient oceans. The team found that squid fossils far outnumbered those of ammonites and bony fishes. Ammonites are extinct shelled relatives of squids and have been considered among the most successful swimmers of the Mesozoic era.