University of Portsmouth

Researchers have found picky eaters perceive food eaten out of red bowls to be saltier and less desirable than the same food served in white bowls. The findings add to understandings of how taste perception can be influenced by plates and cutlery.

While many people have long hoped that the Loch Ness monster is a plesiosaur, skeptics have pointed out that plesiosaurs lived in the ocean. New research, however, now suggests that some of the creatures may have inhabited freshwater rivers.

Scientists studying the makeup of limpet teeth have drawn inspiration from the way they form to create a composite biomaterial with extreme strength that could provide a more sustainable alternative to high-performance materials such as Kevlar.

Pterosaurs included the largest flying animals ever, and a new study has uncovered biological secrets that helped them grow so large. CT scans revealed that the neck vertebrae of giant pterosaurs had a supporting structure unlike any other animal.

Ichthyosaurs were intriguing prehistoric aquatic creatures, in that they looked kind of like dolphins but were actually reptiles. Scientists have now classified a previously-unknown species, that distinguished itself by diving deep.

If the movie Jurassic World is to be believed, pterosaurs could easily catch human-sized prey. A newly discovered species of the prehistoric reptile wouldn't have posed much of a threat to us, however, as it likely fed more like a modern sandpiper.

Debate is raging about whether ancient flying reptiles called pterosaurs had feathers or not. Years ago a study found fossil evidence of protofeathers, but now another team claims the evidence doesn’t stack up, and the creatures were instead bald.

Back in 2018, scientists made the key discovery of a bacterium with a natural appetite for PET plastics. Scientists have now used this bacterium as the basis for a newly engineered “super-enzyme” that can digest plastic waste at six times faster.

Earlier this year, paleontologists discovered that Spinosaurus was the first water-dwelling dinosaur. Now some of the same team has found further evidence, with a deposit of teeth recovered from an ancient riverbed, far outnumbering land dinosaurs.

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.