Our earliest vertebrate ancestors may have had four eyes
Illustration of Haikouichthys, a fish from the Cambrian period, with a second pair of eyes suggested by fossil evidence Xiangtong
First treaty to protect the high seas comes into force
A trawler in the Southern Ocean Shutterstock A treaty that will protect areas of the largely lawless high seas from
Distant ‘little red dot’ galaxies may contain baby black holes
A collection of “little red dots” spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and D. Kocevski
Our elegant universe: rethinking nature’s deepest principle
In the Altes Museum in Berlin stands a boy with his arms raised to the heavens. Aside from the right
Why does the United States want to buy Greenland?
The ice-covered island may be strategically important, but it’s unclear that it could be a commercially viable source of minerals
The first quantum fluctuations set into motion a huge cosmic mystery
Tiny oscillations in the early universe left a big mark on the universe Jozef Klopacka / Alamy The following is
Fossil analysis adds to debate over how earliest known hominin walked
Sahelanthropus fossils (centre) compared with a chimpanzee (left) and a human (right) Wiliams et al., Sci. Adv. 12, eadv0130 A
Could 2026 be the year we start using quantum computers for chemistry?
Quantum computers are well-matched to solve chemistry problems Marijan Murat/dpa/Alamy Whether quantum computers can actually solve practical problems is one
Mathematicians spent 2025 exploring the edge of mathematics
When numbers get large, things get weird Jezper / Alamy In 2025, the edges of mathematics came a little more
6 incredible new dinosaurs we discovered in 2025
Zavacephale rinpoche Masaya Hattori If there’s ever a creature you would not want to bump heads with, it is Zavacephale