Human settlement of islands across the Pacific Ocean was followed by waves of faunal extinctions that occurred so rapidly that their dynamics are difficult to reconstruct in space and time. These extinctions included large, wingless birds called moa that were endemic to New Zealand. In a new study, scientists from the University of Adelaide and

Komodo dragons (Varanus komodoensis) are the largest living predatory lizards and their serrated, curved and blade-shaped teeth make them valuable analogues for studying tooth structure, function and comparing with extinct species, such as theropod dinosaurs. Their teeth possess only a thin coating of enamel that is nevertheless able to cope with the demands of their

Snakebites affect about 1.8 million people annually. The current standard of care involves antibody-based antivenoms, which can be difficult to access and are generally not effective against local tissue injury. According to new research, heparin, a commonly used blood thinner, can be repurposed as an inexpensive antidote for cobra venom. The zebra snake (Naja nigricincta)

Tanimbar is one of the main island groups in Wallacea (a group of mainly Indonesian islands separated by deep-water straits from the Asian and Australian continental shelves) included in early human migration routes from Sunda to Sahul (Australia + New Guinea). Despite its geographic significance, the island group has not undergone thorough archaeological investigation. Now

Europa and Enceladus are key targets to search for evidence of alien life in our Solar System. However, the surface and shallow subsurface of these airless icy moons are constantly bombarded by ionizing radiation that could degrade chemical biosignatures. Therefore, sampling of icy surfaces in future life detection missions to Europa and Enceladus requires a

Using data from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and other telescopes, astronomers have found evidence for an intermediate-mass black hole in IRS 13, a population of dusty stellar objects within the nuclear star cluster of our Milky Way Galaxy. Intermediate-mass black holes may form in dense star clusters via the merger of stellar-mass black holes

A team of scientists in China has assembled a telomere-to-telomere reference genome for ginseng (Panax ginseng), a representative of Chinese traditional medicine. Overview of the morphological characteristics of ginseng (Panax ginseng). Image credit: Song et al., doi: 10.1093/hr/uhae107. Ginseng is one of the most important medicinal plants, grown in northeast Asia including China, Korea, Siberia

Harenadraco prima is the first species of troodontid dinosaur ever found in the Late Cretaceous Baruungoyot Formation of Mongolia. Life reconstruction of Harenadraco prima. Image credit: Yusik Choi. Harenadraco prima lived in what is now Mongolia during the Late Cretaceous epoch, between 72 and 71 million years ago. The new species belongs to Troodontidae, a