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Researchers from China, Canada, and the University of Bristol have discovered a dinosaur tail complete with its feathers trapped in a piece of amber.

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Scientists working in the mid-Atlantic and south-west Indian Ocean have found evidence of microfibers ingested by deep sea animals including hermit crabs, squat lobsters and sea cucumbers, revealing for the first time the environmental fallout of microplastic pollution.

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Oscar Wilde may have considered consistency “the last refuge of the unimaginative” in human behaviour, but when it comes to fish, the element of predictability is critical. Such are the findings of new research led by the University of Bristol, which reveals that fish with consistent personalities are more successful in social groups and better at helping to build tighter shoals.

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“The mouth is a spitting image of the Sarlacc from Star Wars,” says Bristol University’s Dr Jakob Vinther, referring to the beast with the gaping mouth in the sand dunes of Tatooine in the ‘Return of the Jedi’.

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The size of a grain of rice, the carotid body, located between two major arteries that feed the brain with blood, has been found to control your blood pressure.

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Scientists from the Universities of Bristol and Málaga have proposed that the long extinct marsupial lion hunted in a very unique way - by using its teeth to hold prey before dispatching them with its huge claws.

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New research, using computer models of wave chaos, has shown that three-dimensional tangled vortex filaments can in fact be knotted in many highly complex ways.

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How can we ever know what ancient animals ate? For the first time, the changing diets of elephants in the last two million years in China have been reconstructed, using a technique based on analysis of the surface textures of their teeth.

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There has been a long debate about why dinosaurs were so successful. Say dinosaur, and most people think of the great flesh-eaters such as Tyrannosaurus rex, but the most successful dinosaurs were of course the plant-eaters.

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Imagine rolling your eyes to help you see more clearly. Although it wouldn't work for humans, new research published today in Nature Communications has shown mantis shrimp use eye rotations to enhance their polarization vision.

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Thousands of remarkable fossil birds from the time of the dinosaurs have been uncovered in China. However, most of these fossils are flattened in the rock, even though they commonly preserve fossils.

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The new stem cell-containing bio ink allows 3D printing of living tissue, known as bio-printing.

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Researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Exeter are one step closer to developing a new generation of low-cost, high-efficiency solar cells. The structure is one of the world's first examples of a tri-layer metasurface absorber using a carbon interlayer.

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An ancient basin hidden beneath the Greenland ice sheet, discovered by researchers at the University of Bristol, may help explain the location, size and velocity of Jakobshavn Isbræ, Greenland's fastest flowing outlet glacier.

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Archaeologists studying the distribution of ancient rice believe they may be close to solving one of the enduring mysteries of the ancient world - how people of South East Asian origin ended up living on the African island of Madagascar, 6,000 km away.

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In the Mesozoic, the time of the dinosaurs, from 252 to 66 million years ago, marine reptiles such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs were top predators in the oceans. But their origins and early rise to dominance have been somewhat mysterious.

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An international team of researchers has shed light on the potential impact of new drugs for hepatitis C virus (HCV).

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Recognised welfare outcome assessments within farm assurance schemes have shown a reduction in feather loss and improvement in the welfare of UK cage-free laying hens, according to the findings of a study from the AssureWel project by the University of Bristol, RSPCA and the Soil Association.

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Scientists at the Universities of Bristol and Newcastle have uncovered the secret of the 'Mona Lisa of chemical reactions' - in a bacterium that lives at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

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Scientists and engineers from the Universities of Bristol and Western Australia have developed how to efficiently simulate a "quantum walk" on a new design for a primitive quantum computer.

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New research that discusses how people will interact with technology in the future will be presented this week at one of the world's most important conferences on human-computer interfaces, ACM CHI 2016, in San Jose, USA [7-12 May].

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How birds' beaks evolved characteristic shapes to eat different food is a classic example of evolution by natural selection.

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Why does sleeping on it help? This is the question tackled by new research at the University of Bristol, which reveals how brain activity during sleep sorts through the huge number of experiences we encounter every day, filing only the important information in memory.

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Ocean acidification (the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's oceans, caused by the uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere), is affecting the formation of the skeleton of coralline algae which play an important part in marine biodiversity, new research from the University of Bristol, UK has found.

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The first experimental evidence that birds can be deceived by camouflage in the same way that humans are deceived, is published today.

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The famous Lorenz equations that describe the nature of chaotic systems "“ such as the weather "“ have been turned into a beautiful real-life object by crocheting computer-generated instructions.

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The recent rise in obesity may be partly due to the reduced amount of time we spend asleep, according to new research from the University of Bristol, UK. Due to a lack of sleep, changes occur in two key hormones involved in regulating appetite that may lead to increased feelings of hunger.

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The biggest mass extinction of all time happened 251 million years ago, at the Permian-Triassic boundary. Virtually all of life was wiped out, but the pattern of how life was killed off on land has been mysterious until now.

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Scientists at Bristol University have found that a protein present in normal body tissues can prevent tumour growth.

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Monitoring the isotopic content of gases being emitted from the Mt St Helens right now will help predict whether the next eruption will be catastrophic, and when it might occur.

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Obscure mathematical ideas developed back in the 1980s could solve current problems of mixing fluids at the microscale and revolutionise the technology.

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Bristol University, UK, is to carry out a major trial that will assess the effects of diet and exercise on people with type 2 diabetes. This trial will be the largest diet and exercise trial in the world for people with type 2 diabetes.

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The current fashion in teaching doctors, which allows medical students to decide what they want to learn and how to go about it, is strongly criticised.

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A unique assemblage of giant fossil trees has allowed scientists to establish the time when mountains first became forested. The timing of upland "˜greening' has major implications for understanding global temps in the past, and will help refine models of present-day climate change.

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A single gene has been discovered that helps plants cope with stressful situations such as disease or poor environments.

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Diarrhoea could be diagnosed more successfully thanks to a new test. It is anticipated that this will lead to the development of a device capable of diagnosis at the bedside, saving both lives and money.

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Men who work alone may increase their stress levels by taking a coffee break in the belief that it will help them perform faster. On the other hand, men who work in teams could feel less stressed after enjoying a sharp intake of caffeine, but this may make them less effective.

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A new way of predicting whether skin cancers will spread to other organs is published this week. By measuring the density of lymph vessels surrounding a melanoma, scientists have been able to predict which tumours will spread.

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Coeliac disease (gluten intolerance) in children is much more common thatn previously thought, according to new research from Bristol University, UK. While fewer than 1 in 25,000 children is treated for the disease in the UK, the study shows it probably affects 1 child in 100.

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Rats housed in unpredictable conditions appear to have a more negative outlook than those housed in stable, settled conditions, according to new research published by scientists at Bristol University Veterinary School.

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Evidence from fossilised embryos of worm-like creatures that lived 500 million years ago shows that embryos developed then in much the same way as their living relatives do today. The implications are that embryological processes that occur today must have been established very early on in the evolution of animals.

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A hot debate in the Earth Sciences is finally resolved in this week's issue of Nature. Researchers from the Department of Earth Sciences at Bristol University show that large volcanoes do not contain material from the Earth's core. This overturns previous theories that conflicted with models of how the Earth's magnetic field is generated.

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Current methods used by GPs to work out an individuals' future risk of heart disease appear to overestimate the true risk by about 50%. Furthermore, 84% of the coronary heart disease deaths that actually occurred during the study period, were in men predicted to be at low risk.

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1) Future climate of north-west Europe; 2) How regenerative medicine will revolutionise healthcare; 3) Latest developments in preventing blindness; 4) Using computers to 'rebuild' the past; 5) New perspectives on Chinese history.