Speculating about what aliens look like has kept children, film producers and scientists amused for decades. If they exist, will extra terrestrials turn out to look similar to us, or might they take a form beyond our wildest imaginings? The answer to this question really depends on how we think evolution works at the deepest level.

With an estimated lifespan of 400 years, the Greenland shark has just been reported to be the longest-lived vertebrate on the planet. This is only the latest of a series of recent findings that push the boundaries of animal longevity, and it raises the perennial question of what factors enable some animals to achieve what we might call extreme longevity – lifespans that can be measured in centuries.

In scientific research on human impact the focus is usually aimed at the extinction of species. Nowadays however, scientists are becoming more and more aware of the fact that trough, for example animal domestication, we have also become a driving force of evolution. This driving force that has led to new species, traits and ecosystems.

Try shaking a colleague’s left hand with your right hand. It just doesn’t work, does it? Your right palm and her or his left palm cannot mesh comfortably because hands are chiral objects, having non-superimposable mirror images.

Paleoclimatologists have long known of the significance of Panama. In fact, the formation of this thin strip of land between North and South America may be one of the key events in Earth’s history.

An unheralded metal could become a crucial part of the renewables revolution. Vanadium is used in new batteries which can store large amounts of energy almost indefinitely, perfect for remote wind or solar farms. And what’s more there is loads of the stuff simply lying around in industrial dumps.

At this time of year in Europe, you may have noticed something in the air. Dust-laden winds blowing from the Sahara desert cause “seasonal haze episodes” that can even result in mud rain.

People often think of substances like arsenic or cyanide when asked to name a poison. However those are not the most toxic substances. So what are the actual deadliest poisons on earth?

As night closes in across Kentucky a small chubby spider makes a silk line between two plants. She then moves along her “trapeze wire” and waits. After a while a moth approaches within range, and the spider unleashes a swinging sticky ball, ensnaring the moth and pulling him in to be eaten. The attacker is a bolas spider, and she hunts by releasing an odour that precisely matches the chemical composition of female moth mating pheromones. The male moth is lured in, but instead of getting a mate, he gets eaten.

Imagine dolphins disappearing from the world’s oceans as a result of prolonged climate change and slower evolution. As shocking and unlikely as such an event might be, it happened in the past to a group of marine animals: the ichthyosaurs.

The question of whether animals other than humans can think and feel has been debated for centuries. Most of us would agree that humans have a level of consciousness, loosely defined as an ability to experience thoughts and emotions. But which other creatures have consciousness remains an open and controversial question.