The oldest evidence of murder?

Lethal wounds on a Neanderthal skull may point to a bloody encounter some 430,000 years ago.

Stone tools pre-date the genus Homo

Newly discovered stone tools pre-date the emergence of Homo. Scientists dated the artefacts, found in Kenya, to 3.3 million years ago.

CERN discovery backs physics' Standard Model

Researchers at the world's biggest particle collider have observed an extremely rare event — the decay of the neutral B meson into a pair of muons, the heavy cousins of electrons.  The results provide further support for the 'Standard Model', the conceptual framework for the particles and forces that constitute the cosmos.

Deep-sea fish found to be warm-blooded

While it was previously known that the opah (Lampris guttatus) could heat its eyes and brain, it can also heat its entire body. This makes the opah the only known fish species to be whole-body endothermic, or warm-blooded.

Europa's red bands may be salt seeping through its icy crust

Reddish bands that criss-cross the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa may be caused by salt seeping from an underground sea to the surface, then darkening as it is exposed to radiation.

Archaeornithura meemannae

Modern birds may have evolved six million years earlier than thought, say palaeontologists after analysing the fossil remains of a previously unknown prehistoric relative.  The extinct species, of which two fossils were discovered in China's northeastern Hebei province about two years ago, is the oldest known relative of all birds alive today.  The new bird, named Archaeornithura meemannae, shared many features with its modern cousins, apart from tiny, sharp claws on its wings.  It stood about 15 centimetres tall on two legs that had no feathers — suggesting it may have been a wader from a lake shore environment.

Chilesaurus diegosuarezi

Tyrannosaurus rex had a vegetarian cousin with a tiny head, long neck and stubby fingers.  Chilesaurus diegosuarezi had a bird-like beak with leaf-shaped teeth, evidence that it feasted on plants, but with hind leg features similar to theropod dinosaurs, the group into which it was slotted with notorious killers like Tyrannosaurus rex,Velociraptor and the horned Carnotaurus.