Spectacular cosmic pinwheel set to blast gamma rays across the Milky Way

Astronomers have named the breathtaking pinwheel Apep, after the Egyptian god of chaos and destruction.  At its centre are two massive, fast-spinning "Wolf-Rayet stars" which appear to be on the point of exploding.  Stars like these are thought to be a source of long gamma ray bursts — a violent blast of radiation never before seen in our galaxy.

Signs of an exo-planet orbiting Barnard's star

Barnard's star is the closest single-star system to us.  Astronomers have detected signs of a frozen alien world 3.2 times the mass of Earth.  If it is confirmed, it will be the second-closest exoplanet to Earth.

Goffin's cockatoos cut tools to the length they need to reach food

Goffin's cockatoos were trained to cut cardboard strips to use as tools. Tools were cut to the right length to reach food. Only the female cockatoo could adjust the tool width.

World's oldest-known animal cave art painted at least 40,000 years ago in Borneo

A number of caves in the Indonesian province of Kalimantan contain thousands rock art images of animals, hand stencils and symbols.  Sophisticated dating of the paintings shows the earliest paintings were created at least 40,000-52,000 years ago.  Paintings shifted from animals to humans at the peak of the Ice Age between 20,000-21,000 years ago.

Dinosaur eggs were colourful

Palæobiologists analysed fossilised eggshells for traces of pigments and found eggs laid by dinosaurs closely related to birds were coloured, while more distantly related dinosaurs were plain, which suggests that modern birds inherited their eggshell hues from dinosaurs, rather than evolving them independently.