The South American short-tailed opossum is a marsupial, a class of mammals that keep their young in a pouch. It could also be the closest thing we have to a living equivalent of sabre-toothed cats, according to new research. Image: BioDivLibrary
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With living apes so variable in their sexual preferences, it’s tough to work out the sex habits of the ancestor common to humans and chimps. But Michael Jensen-Seaman and Scott Hergenrother at Duquesne University in Pennsylvania think that it is the chimps – not humans – that have experimented with new sexual behaviours since our lineages diverged. Image: dullhunk
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Several volcanoes erupted in 2009 – but only one screamed in the process. Its unique guttural howls provide an unrivalled glimpse into the heart of a volcanic eruption, and may hold clues to the driving forces that cause volcanoes to blow their tops. Image: DCSL
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The human evolutionary tree is looking more tangled than ever: as many as six species of human-like apes were around during the crucial period from 2.5 to 1.8 million years ago when the first upright apes with relatively large brains evolved – and the one that gave rise to modern humans may have lived not in East Africa but in the south. Image: Lee Berger
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Rice could be fertile territory for battery development. The silica-rich husks left over when rice is harvested are normally turned into fertiliser additives, but there is a better solution. The abundant waste product could be converted into electrodes with the power to extend the lifetime of the next generation of batteries. Image: offal goat
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