Jana Howden

The four most notable mechanisms of camouflage, and some of the animals whose lives depend on the...

For many creatures in the animal kingdom, camouflage is a matter of life and death. Whether the hunter or the hunted,...

NASA scientists were in Australia this week to talk about the scientific and social results of se...

“A scientific wonderland” is how Alan Stern – principle investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission – described the m...

Internet searches can be used to accurately track the spread of disease

A simple Google search could hold the key to tracking and preventing the outbreak and global spread of epidemics.In r...

An analysis of ancient mitochondrial DNA has cleared up the family tree of the mysterious Macrauc...

An artist’s reconstruction of Macrauchenia patachonica.Jorge BlancoSolving an 180-year-old mystery that Charles Darwi...

If you’ve ever wondered how big the planets really are, this video helps put things in perspective.

It’s easy to feel small in the vastness of our solar system. Get ready to feel even smaller: this video provides an e...

This video celebrates the diverse array of clouds that can be seen from space

If you were to look down at Earth from space, you’d notice that around two-thirds of its surface would be blanketed b...

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is currently observing the solstice on Saturn.

An enhanced-colour animation showing seasonal changes in Saturn’s north polar region between 2013 (left) and 2017 (ri...

High definition and slow motion reveal the majesty of ink.

The mesmerising movement of ink through water is in fact nothing more than the random motion of molecules. Ink enters...

NASA’s Operation IceBridge monitors the state of the Arctic ice from above.

Meltwater in crevasses in southern Greenland, as seen during Operation IceBridge's last flight of the 2017 Arctic cam...

NASA’s RAISE mission takes a quick flight above the atmosphere to snap some high-speed pics of th...

The RAISE rocket being prepared for take-off.Amir Caspi, Southwest Research InstituteCapable of snapping 1,500 images...

A re-examination of a fossil skeleton unearthed in 1995 reveals a new species of Diplodocus-like ...

Paleontologists Emanuel Tschopp (left) and Ben Pabst with the mounted G. Pabsti skeleton in the Sauriermuseum Aathal ...

Infant mice receive an immunity boost after an infusion of Clostridia bacteria, writes Jana Howden.

Colonies of Clostridium difficile bacteria.CDC/ Dr. Gilda JonesFrom mood manipulation to yo-yo dieting, our intestina...

Australian doctors often fail to give patients appropriate treatment.

Infecting 50 to 100 million people each year and causing symptoms ranging from a rash to haemorrhaging, dengue virus ...

Can you "catch" attitudes from others? New research suggests you can. Jana Howden reports.

Can't be bothered? Sounds like you've caught a dose of laziness.MotoEd/Getty ImagesFeeling lazy, impatient, or pruden...

Many species of fish spend time out of water. New research involving Plasticine is helping scient...

Many species of blenny spend periods of time out of water.Getty ImagesTaking the phrase “fish out of water” to new he...

Poking about in ancient dental plaque throws up surprising clues about Neanderthal diets. Jana Ho...

A Neanderthal skull, showing teeth that could yield surprising clues about diet and medication.Wikimedia CommonsAncie...

A UK study finds the use of fertiliser to make our daily bread is unsustainable. Jana Howden repo...

Bread: beautiful but environmentally costly.Andrew MastersonA team of scientists from the University of Sheffield in ...

New research suggests that women with genital herpes carry an increased risk of giving birth to a...

Women with genital herpes – a sexually transmitted disease affecting about one in five American females – have twice ...

Seagrass is much more than a sediment stabiliser – Jana Howden discovers that it can also stop pe...

A plethora of species lives alongside seagrass meadows, such as these fish and invertebrates in Indonesia.Margaux Hei...

Millions of years of horse development suggest that one of the key assumptions of evolutionary th...

These three Hipparion species coexisted around eight million years ago in the Iberian Peninsula, being just one examp...

Two women who died nearly 8,000 years ago on the Russian-Korean border are helping geneticists un...

A skull from Devil's Gate, an early Neolithic cave site in East Asia.Elizaveta VeselovskayaTwo 7,700-year-old Stone A...

The proof-of-principle study shows how cells of one species can be grown inside the body of anoth...

An illustration of tissues of the pancreas. The numerous beta cells (yellow) secrete insulin. Researchers have grown ...

Wookiee, Eopie, Gigoran ... these critters have captivated generations. Jana Howden found their c...

Volanthevist / Getty ImagesStar Wars galaxy: Ewok Milky Way galaxy: Philippine tarsier, Tarsius syrichtaLooking like ...

That run-of-the-mill flavour is produced by time-consuming, laborious farming practices. But ther...

Vanilla is found in an estimated 18,000 products worldwide, but down the track, genetic modification might be the onl...

The long parasitic fish generate spinning vortices in the water that essentially pull its body fo...

Lampreys are – unsurprisingly – parasites of other fish. But the physics of their swimming style is the topic of a ne...

Get up close – really close – with this time-lapse footage of delicate water crystals.

While we’re able to watch the mesmerising formation of snowflakes here in Vyacheslav Ivanov’s time-lapse video, the s...

Cephalopods comprise some of our favourite colourful creatures. How they see the world is nothing...

Octopuses and their cephalopod cousins are famous for their ability to change colour and hide from predators and attr...

Sugar and brandy don't just make fruitcake tasty, they bestow longevity on the holiday staple. Ja...

Love it or hate it, fruitcake certainly has some staying power.Verity Welstead / Getty ImagesAs Christmas races towar...

Synchronised brain waves, induced by a strobe light, prompted immune cells to gobble more beta-am...

The brain’s cleanup crew can be kicked into action to mop up harmful proteins linked to Alzheimer’s disease, a new mo...

Populations of our primate cousins made famous by Jane Goodall were found to have antibiotic-resi...

Primatologist Jane Goodall – pictured here in the 1960s – studied the Gombe chimpanzees. Since then, contact with hum...

Species can help each other out if there’s something in it for them. But some relationships are s...

Azem Ramadani / Getty ImagesAphids and the bacterium Buchnera aphidicolaThese small, sap-sucking insects are the bane...

Nocturnal photography captures the Milky Way galaxy and aurora borealis in 4K.

Branding himself a "nocturnal photographer", Vincent Brady creates stunning images and videos of the night sky over t...

Engineers in the US have come up with a better way to find hidden explosives using an entirely di...

The inside of a pooch's shnoz helps them detect minuscule traces of a compound. Researchers have capitalised on this ...

Biomedical engineer Molly Shoichet will deliver a lecture on translating research to real life.Tara Walton / Toronto ...

This video from the American Chemical Society's Reactions team puts a few food expiration-date mi...

More than 60 billion kilograms of food is thrown out in the US every year, meaning as much as 40% of America’s food i...

From a cat that impersonates monkeys to spectacularly sticky spit, Jana Howden takes us through s...

UMI NO KAZE / a.collectionRF / Getty ImagesBacterial buddiesThe bobtail squid (Sepioloidea pacifica) which looks like...

A mouse study shows a high-fat diet changes the microbiota and dampens the obese body's ability t...

As if losing weight wasn't hard enough. A mouse study shows resident gut microbes affect how much weight an obese mou...

First a red spot, then pus rising from beneath – telltale signs of a dreaded pimple. So what's go...

Acne afflicts up to 50 million Americans each year, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. But is it true ...

The endangered greater bilby once ranged over most of mainland Australia but introduced predators have confined them ...