University of Portsmouth

For the daring tippler, scientists from the University of Portsmouth have distilled an artisan "radioactive-free" vodka, branded Atomik, made from ingredients from the Exclusion Zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor site.

Evolution helps life adapt to new environments – and now scientists have uncovered a rare occasion where it got a second chance. About 136,000 years ago, a flightless bird on an island in the Indian Ocean was wiped out, only to re-evolve itself back into existence tens of thousands of years later.

With a little luck, researchers have happened upon an engineered enzyme with an appetite for some of the most commonly disposed of types of plastic, meaning this waste could conceivably be broken down relatively quickly rather than contaminating the environment for hundreds of years.

Palaeontologists have uncovered the remains of some of humanity’s oldest ancestors in the UK. The team found two teeth belonging to rat-like animals that date back 145 million years, meaning they’re among the earliest creatures on our branch of the tree of life to have been discovered.

Kleptopredation describes what happens when one animal makes a point of eating another that has just fed, essentially eating both that animal AND its recently-consumed meal. The behaviour has been observed in nature for the first time, in sea slugs off the coast of Sicily.

Reef-forming coralline algae is currently at risk due to climate change, and scientists are doing something about it. They're creating synthetic reefs in the Mediterranean Sea, made from artificial coralline algae.​

A team of scientists have surveyed the human exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site, observing large animals like deer and elk to be in abundance despite lingering radiation.

Scientists now have a new source of inspiration in the form of limpet teeth, which are made of a material researchers say is potentially stronger than spider silk, is comparable in strength to the strongest commercial carbon fibers, and could one day be copied for use in cars, boats and planes.

A new study suggests that the amount of dark matter in the cosmos, the catalyst that facilitates the creation of new stars and galaxies, is decreasing as it interacts with dark energy. This would mean that the Universe could be destined to end up a desolate and nearly featureless place.