During a 2014 field trip to Oregon’s Lake County, palaeontologist Gregory Retallack discovered fossilised animal tracks, writes Richard Collins

Over the next few weeks, hedgehogs will be awakening from their winter slumbers. The prickly porkers have slept, tucked up in nests of leaves and grass, since October or November, relying on their heating fuel, brown body-fat, for sustenance, writes Richard Collins

Hypatia, the first great female astronomer and mathematician, lived in Egypt in the 5th Century AD. 

During excavations at Paul St in central Exeter in 1983, archaeologists found the leg and wingbones of a large bird.

Women are to be allowed drive cars in Saudi Arabia and a cinema may open there shortly. A paper in the Turkish Journal of Zoology, suggests that the ultra-conservative whooper swan may also be “loosening up”.

Dogs, according to their owners, are more intelligent than cats. Some even have jobs; rounding up sheep, guarding buildings and performing circus tricks. Cat enthusiasts, however, consider the slavish grovelling ways of dogs to be slightly degrading.

Today’s jet aircraft are 80% more fuel-efficient than those of the 1960’s, but aviation still accounts for 3.5% of human-induced climate change, writes Richard Collins

WITHOUT the help of grand-parents siblings and friends, single mothers can find it difficult to raise a child.

The bigger a bat’s ears, the better its hearing, is likely to be. But is it, asks Richard Collins

All of us in Europe carry genes from this human species, writes Richard Collins