Throughout most of human evolutionary history, our ancestors were preyed upon by large predators such as lions. Until recently, it was believed that our species, Homo sapiens, was the first one with the ability to kill and exploit resources from dangerous predators. Our study suggests that Neanderthals hunted and killed cave lions and used their body parts as cultural objects.

During a recent periodical cicada emergence, over 80 bird species altered their foraging behaviors to feed on the abundant insects. This diet shift reduced the rate of predation on forest caterpillars, doubling both their abundance and the amount of leaf tissue they consumed. Regional biomass pulses thus have the potential to disrupt the usual patterns of energy flow in forest ecosystems.  

Pearl octopuses brood their eggs in abyssal warm springs more than 3 km below the sea surface. This warmth speeds up the development and hatching of their eggs, shortening the brooding period for octopus mothers tending their nests. Exploiting this rare deep-sea heat source provides a reproductive boost that ensures the survival of this abyssal octopus.

Plans for over one million satellites have been submitted to the International Telecommunications Union, a United Nations agency, in the last 6 years. Either many of these satellites will launch, and cause environmental problems on Earth and in orbit, or companies and governments are inflating their numbers, suggesting more satellites than they plan to launch.  

Baleen whales were thought to have low mutation rates due to their size and long lifespan. By performing direct estimations of their mutation rates we found that despite being the largest and longest-living mammals, their mutation rates are similar to ours and other mammals. We also showed that it is possible to directly estimate mutation rates in wild populations in the absence of known pedigrees.

A radiation belt is a doughnut-shape region around a celestial object where charged particles are trapped by a magnetic field. These magnetic structures were only known to exist in the magnetized planets of the Solar System. For the first time, we detected a radiation belt beyond the Solar System and, remarkably, not in an exoplanet but a much more massive object.