They came up a little short. A small archaic hominid known as the “hobbit” might have died out around 50,000 years ago after declining rainfall levels forced them to compete with modern humans, among ...

Back in 1999, the BBC’s Walking with Dinosaurs series spawned a new format: wildlife “documentaries” featuring long-extinct animals. I’m a big fan of this genre, and Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age, made ...

Just because a species is presumed extinct doesn’t mean it’s gone forever. Here are four glowing examples of this unique, and felicitous, phenomenon. Not all species that have been classified as ...

The Christmas Island shrew, a tiny mammal once found only on the Australian island of the same name, has been declared officially extinct. It’s at least the fourth small mammal species to be wiped out ...

Two years after a record-setting heatwave, scientists have confirmed that two iconic corals that have flourished across Florida’s 560-kilometre-long reef for more than 10,000 years are now ...

And then there were none. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has announced that several species of animals and plants have now gone extinct. The 2025 list of extinctions ...

Ancient human relatives were exposed to lead up to two million years ago, according to a new study. However, a gene mutation may have protected modern human brains, allowing language to flourish. UC ...

Long before factories, mines, and cars filled the air with pollution, our distant ancestors were already living with a silent toxin: lead. A groundbreaking study reveals that hominids — from early ...

Exposure to lead by ancient humans could have given modern humans a survival advantage over other species – more specifically, their ability to better resist lead's harmful effects, according to a new ...

UC San Diego researchers have found high levels of lead in the teeth of both Neanderthals (left) and modern humans (right). However, a gene mutation may have protected modern human brains, allowing ...