Meet Invictibellatrix amberina, the unconquered female warrior 鈥� a new species of predatory dinosaur related to Tyrannosaurus rex that hails from the Isle of Wight in southern England.

The fossil used to identify it 鈥� a partial braincase 鈥� has been lying in the archives of the Natural History Museum in London since it was acquired from a Reverend Reginald Hooley in 1924. 鈥淚t was sitting unstudied in the museum for about 100 years, which is very surreal,鈥� says , now at the University of Leeds, UK.

Morrison and his colleagues used CT scans to create a 3D scan of the fossil and compared it with features of other dinosaurs.

The closest match was the Argentinian megaraptoran from about 80 million years ago. So, the researchers suggest that the skull, originally found in 120-million-year-old rocks from the Lower Cretaceous Wessex Formation on the south-west coast of the Isle of Wight, is from a new species belonging to the Megaraptora group of carnivorous dinosaurs. If so, it is the first time a megaraptoran has been discovered in Europe.

A similar-looking dinosaur is known from a few million years earlier in the Wessex Formation: the 5-metre-long . However, the parts we have hint that it belonged to the sister group of tyrannosaurs and none of the fossilised remains of the two individuals directly overlap, so it is hard to compare them.

The genus name Morrison and his colleagues have given to the newly described fossil, Invictibellatrix, means female unconquered warrior. They estimate that it was an agile, two-legged carnivore that was about 3 to 4 metres long, some 1.5 metres tall and weighing between 200 and 300 kilograms. It is likely to have had feathers and claws 10 to 20 centimetres long for attacking small dinosaurs, lizards and mammals, says Morrison.

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Had we been around then, 鈥渉umans would have been perfect-sized prey, about a third of their body weight,鈥� he says.

At the time, the Isle of Wight was still firmly attached to both mainland Britain and the rest of Europe, and the environment would have been subtropical, says Morrison.

Megaraptoran fossils have been found in Asia, Australia and South America, and finding one in Europe would begin to tie their story together.

Morrison suggests that Invictibellatrix evolved from Asian megaraptorans that dispersed into Europe some 130 million years ago. Then megaraptorans spread from Europe to Africa, then to South America and Australia before the continents completely separated.

at Monash University in Melbourne says it is a shame more detailed comparisons couldn鈥檛 be made with Eotyrannus, which has previously been considered a relative of megaraptorans.

鈥泪蹿 Invictibellatrix is indeed a megaraptoran, it expands the palaeobiogeographic range of the group and plugs a significant gap in our knowledge, linking those from South-East Asia to Australia and South America via Europe and Africa,鈥� he says. 鈥淗owever, more fossils are required to support or reject this hypothesis.鈥�

Millions of trees seem to be dying in the US, both near the coasts and inland near lakes, thanks to rising water levels. The finding may force a re-evaluation of how much carbon is stored in forests, which are important carbon sinks for mitigating the more severe effects of climate change.

Rising sea levels and intense storms linked to climate change have driven widespread tree die-offs along the US Atlantic coast, creating known as ghost forests. North Carolina, for example, is thought to have because of waterlogged soil and higher salt levels resulting from rising seawater.

To see how widely this is happening, at the University of Virginia and his colleagues used aerial imagery from the US . They analysed images captured between 2012 and 2023 to map dead trees within 10 kilometres of the Pacific, Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the US, as well as along the US shorelines of the Great Lakes, down to a resolution of about 1 square metre.

They have identified more than 260 million dead trees and found that more than half of the mortality was concentrated in just 10 per cent of the mapped forests. These hotspots weren鈥檛 only in low-lying coastal forests prone to flooding, but also in high-elevation inland wetlands, far from salty water.

Over the decade they studied, tree mortality tripled in low-lying coastal forests, where water inundation was combined with increased levels of salt.

But mortality rates also doubled around expanding freshwater lakes, including the Great Lakes, and in inland wetlands, which have experienced more precipitation.

鈥淭his is the first map of ghost forests that covers the entire US. It鈥檚 also perhaps the first comprehensive study that takes the concept of sea level rise killing trees and applies it to more inland locations,鈥� says at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. 鈥淎s a coastal scientist, I immediately think of salt as the culprit. These authors have extended it to water in general.鈥�

at the University of Plymouth, UK, says it is striking how widespread the pattern is. 鈥淧rolonged inundation and salinity are already known to stress and kill trees, but the study suggests that water-related forest mortality may be more widespread than is usually recognised,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hat broadens the issue beyond sea-level rise alone.鈥�

Yeung and his colleagues found that between 2013 and 2020, high levels of precipitation and water runoff drove record-high levels in the Great Lakes, and they suggest that this led to sustained waterlogging, increasing the chances of nearby trees dying.

鈥淭he study provides convincing evidence that changing hydrological conditions are an important contributor to the mortality patterns, but I would be cautious about attributing every tree death directly to inundation or salinity,鈥� says Iwantoro, adding that tree mortality is often influenced by other interacting factors, including storms, drought, pests, local drainage and soil conditions.

He says the work adds to evidence that the water-related effects of climate change could accelerate ecosystem shifts.

As the climate warms, the melting of ice means global mean sea levels are rising at about 4.1 millimetres per year, and saltwater intrusion is expected to of the world鈥檚 coastlines by 2100. What鈥檚 more, climate warming also fuels heavier rain and snow, because for every 1掳C that atmospheric temperature rises, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere can increase by about 7 per cent.

This means that in coastal and lakeside areas, forests may retreat as conditions become more suitable for wetland vegetation, with knock-on effects on carbon storage, says Iwantoro.

Urban trees in south-east England can鈥檛 cope with the changing climate

In cities such as London, trees are already struggling with hot and dry summers. Botanists warn that we need to start replacing them with drought-adapted species

鈥淭ree mortality and decomposition releases carbon into the atmosphere, and if the forest does not recover, then these areas may not regain their capacity to sequester carbon, and it could represent a more long-term carbon stock loss,鈥� says at the World Resources Institute, a global non-profit.

However, the ecosystem that replaces the forest may also accumulate carbon, says Iwantoro. 鈥淭he important question is how carbon storage changes as the landscape transitions, rather than simply how much carbon is lost when trees die.鈥�

Avoiding sugary foods while taking a course of antibiotics might help protect the diversity of your gut microbiome.

The array of bacteria in the gut plays a crucial role in supporting our digestion and our physical and mental health. But this diverse community can be disrupted by antibiotics, leading to digestive problems, fatigue and flare-ups of skin conditions. Stopping such disruption is particularly important for people with cancer, because greater gut microbiome diversity has been linked to .

To dig into this issue, at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and his colleagues have studied 158 people with blood cancers. The participants were hospitalised for several weeks as they had chemotherapy to knock out their immune systems before an infusion of stem cells. To prevent potential infections, each person took at least one type of antibiotic.

The researchers monitored changes in the participants鈥� gut microbiomes by analysing stool samples. Crucially, they also knew exactly what people had eaten, and when they had eaten it. Each time a participant ordered a meal from the hospital kitchen, between 12 days before the stem-cell transplant and 49 days after, the food tray arrived with a questionnaire for recording the amount of each item they consumed.

鈥淲e were able to collect these frequently and fill in the gaps,鈥� says Peled. 鈥淪uppose a patient ate half a lasagne. We know the recipe and the standard serving size and the nutritional information of each ingredient. I think this is the closest anyone has ever come to precisely recording everything that goes in and linking it to what comes out.鈥�

The researchers recorded more than 40,000 food items, creating a dataset with a level of detail that is rarely possible in nutrition research. When they scoured it for patterns, they found that people who consumed more high-sugar foods while taking antibiotics ended up with a less diverse microbiome.

Having antibiotics in the 48 hours before the collection of a stool sample was linked to a drop in microbiome diversity. This varied from person to person, but for every 100-gram increase in consumption of food or drink that was high in sugar (equivalent to one large milkshake) during that time, that drop in total bacterial diversity was on average 24 per cent greater.

The combination of a sugary diet and antibiotic treatment also led to increased numbers of Enterococcus faecium bacteria, which can act as pathogens and cause severe hospital-acquired infections.

The sugar in the gut exacerbates problems caused by the antibiotics, says team member at NYU Langone Health in New York. By wiping out many gut bacteria, the antibiotics disrupt the balance of the microbiome, leaving a few 鈥渓ast man standing鈥� strains that aren鈥檛 necessarily the most beneficial to our health. 鈥淭hey have survived the assault and then we are feeding them with rocket fuel.鈥�

鈥淚t makes sense that potential pathogens are boosted by sugar,鈥� says at the University of Trento in Italy. This could directly favour pathogens that thrive on sugar but might not be able to break down fibre, and also boost them indirectly, because the beneficial bacteria they are competing with aren鈥檛 getting the fibre they need to recover from the antibiotic assault, he says.

Experiments in mice backed up the idea that sugar was responsible for boosting potentially pathogenic bacteria. Mice given the antibiotic biapenem while eating a high-sucrose diet had a 16.3-fold increase in the Enterococcus population in their guts by day three and a 33.4-fold boost by day six. Mice that ate the high-sugar diet without antibiotics kept their bacterial diversity.

Peled says they saw similar effects when mice were fed on a commercial fruit smoothie, which contained high levels of the sugar fructose.

New antibiotic could stave off drug-resistant gonorrhoea

Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the microbe responsible for gonorrhoea, is developing resistance to most antibiotics, which means we need new drugs to treat the condition. An antibiotic called zoliflodacin might be part of a solution

The work has implications for both inside and outside hospital. Doctors often recommend smoothies or milkshakes to people with cancer to boost nutritional intake. This recommendation might have to be re-evaluated if the individual is also taking antibiotics, says Peled.

Avoiding sugary foods while taking antibiotics could also be relevant to the wider world. 鈥淢any of us are motivated to find ways to protect the microbiome when we or our children are prescribed antibiotics. Limiting the intake of sugary foods offers a potential way to do that,鈥� says Peled. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very feasible, likely to be very low toxicity, very tolerable and very economical.鈥�

He points out that standard dietary recommendations involve avoiding excessive sugar intake, so it is something we should all be trying to do anyway.

A window opens for bacteria to recolonise your gut when antibiotics have disrupted the microbiome there, says Segata, who has shown that after a course of antibiotics. To encourage the return of a wide array of beneficial bacteria, he recommends eating a high diversity of plant-based foods.

Gazing at a flowing river while listening to classical music could lower the blood pressure of people in the emergency room. Luckily, as these landscapes and live orchestras are hard to come by in hospitals, virtual reality and playlists do the job.

Dangerously high blood pressure, known as hypertensive urgency, is common among people in intensive-care settings. Medication can prevent it from causing damage to the eyes, heart and brain. However, relaxation approaches, such as looking at and, have also shown promise.

Now, at the University of Health Sciences in Ankara, Turkey, and his colleagues have combined these two approaches to relaxation. The team recruited 130 adults who arrived in an emergency department with hypertensive urgency. These patients are often anxious, which can make their bodies release stress hormones that tighten blood vessels and further hike up blood pressure, says D枚nmez.

The researchers gave all the participants standard medication to reduce blood pressure. Half also viewed via a VR headset while listening to a from the likes of Debussy, Bach and Mozart. 鈥淥verall, the aim was to create a calm, natural and relaxing environment,鈥� says D枚nmez.

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Before treatment, the participants鈥� arterial pressure was about 130 to 138 mmHg, on average. Fifteen minutes after the intervention, it had dropped by about 12mmHG among those who only took medication, compared with about 16 mmHg for those also having the VR and music experience. The results were presented at the in Paris, France.

at the European University in Madrid, Spain, says that seeing such results so quickly is clinically significant. 鈥淚n an emergency department, even a relatively simple non-pharmacological intervention that helps patients feel calmer during the initial phase of care could be clinically valuable,鈥� she says.

After 30 minutes, the difference had shrunk, and by 60 minutes, the blood pressure readings of the two groups were about the same.

The intervention鈥檚 initial positive effect on blood pressure may be related to its impact on anxiety, says D枚nmez. Anxiety fell by a greater amount in the VR/music group, according to ratings using a questionnaire called the State Anxiety Inventory.

鈥淭he results are consistent with a growing body of work that shows that even virtual nature can help reduce stress, including reductions in blood pressure, in stressful situations,鈥� says at the University of Exeter, UK. 鈥淓xtending this approach to an emergency room setting seems like a wonderful idea, and hopefully results can be replicated and more widely implemented if confirmed.鈥�

The VR and classical music were delivered together, so we cannot determine whether the benefit came from the music, the virtual environment or both, says Salda帽a-Ortiz. D枚nmez says the team is planning to do larger studies with longer follow-up periods to disentangle this and see whether patients choosing their own music makes a difference.

A new cat species has been scientifically described 鈥� the diminutive, spotted tilcayo from Bolivia.

Several species of small cat in the Leopardus genus live in South America, including the ocelot, margay, kodkod, Geoffroy鈥檚 cat and the tiger cat or oncilla. The similar appearance of these nocturnal and hard-to-spot cats has made separating them into distinct species difficult.

This is particularly true of tiger cats, which are about the size of a house cat, and are found in Costa Rica in Central America, and across a vast swathe of South America including Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Historically, there have been many local and scientific names for them, but they all got subsumed into a single species, Leopardus tigrinus.

Genetic studies have since divided the species into four, resurrecting three of the species names that scientists once used before they were all lumped together under the name L. tigrinus. This process saw the official recognition of the in 2013, in 2017 and the in 2024.

Now, at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and his colleagues have analysed the complete genomes of 38 individuals from the Leopardus genus, including 26 tiger cats from across their known range.

The genomics revealed a fifth distinct species living in the Bolivian Yungas forests on the east slopes of the Andes mountains. The researchers describe it under a completely new name: Leopardus tilcayo, naming it after the local term used for this cat.

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鈥淲e鈥檝e discovered a new species of cat that had not been scientifically named before,鈥� says Eizirik, adding that this is the first time this has happened for a century.

鈥淭here are more cat species. Who can鈥檛 love that?鈥� says at the University of Missouri. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e hard to find and see, so it鈥檚 not surprising that some of the early taxonomy needs to be modified now we have more data.鈥�

L. tilcayo has a combined head and body length of between about 42 and 50 centimetres and weighs between 1.5 and 2 kilograms. The genomes revealed that it diverged from the lineage containing L. tigrinus and L. pardinoides nearly 1.4 million years ago.

Origin story of domestic cats rewritten by genetic analysis

Domestic cats originated in North Africa and spread to Europe in the past 2000 years, according to DNA evidence, while in China a different species of cat lived alongside people much earlier

Telling the new species apart visually is not easy. 鈥淭he five tiger cat species are all cryptic species. They鈥檙e morphologically very similar,鈥� says team member at University of Antwerp in Belgium.

The researchers also found that in the Peruvian Yungas forests, on the west side of the Andes, there is a distinct group of cats in the L. tigrinus lineage that they describe as a novel subspecies, L. tigrinus antisuyo.

There are so many barriers in South America that can geographically isolate animal populations from each other, including mountains and rivers, that more cat species may be waiting to be found, says Lyons. 鈥淚t鈥檇 be rather cool if we could find another species out there.鈥�

L. tigrinus is by the IUCN Red List, but the new species and subspecies will have to be evaluated and protected as distinct units, says Eizirik, especially as the forests they live in are shrinking as agriculture expands.

Wild adult chimpanzees have been seen passing tools to youngsters to help them learn and then coaching them, supporting the idea that teaching helps immature chimps acquire technological skills.

鈥淭o actually catch it on film is important and was very surprising for us,鈥� says at the University of Barcelona, Spain.

Chimpanzees are known to make and use a variety of tools, from leaf or moss sponges that soak up water to sticks used to fish for or , and even crafting simple spears for hunting. But how chimpanzees learn such skills is debated.

It is clear that the knowledge does get passed on. For example, one study showed an increase in the number of chimps in Uganda using moss as a sponge to soak up water from a pond. Work with captive chimps has also shown that the animals can pass on knowledge to others. The big question is whether individuals copy behaviour after observation, actively teach each other or independently come up with the same solutions to a task.

To see if they could answer that, Hernandez-Aguilar and her colleagues analysed 15 hours of footage from camera traps at the 鈥檚 biological station in Dindefelo, Senegal, taken between 2017 and 2025. The cameras were placed near 14 sites in the area where wild western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) had previously been recorded using tools, including fishing for algae, army ants and termites.

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In total, the camera traps recorded聽33 instances of tool transfer from one chimp to another: 19 when they were dipping for ants to eat, 10 during fishing for algae and four when fishing for termites. Generally, a chimp handed the key object to a close relative, and in 30 per cent of cases, this was from a mother to her offspring.

In one video, a mother, Soukki, inserted a dipping stick into an ant nest, then grabbed her baby daughter, Sa茂sa茂, and led her to the tool. Sa茂sa茂 pulled the stick out and ate the ants clinging to it.

鈥淲e found support for the idea that tool transfers are a form of teaching that experienced chimpanzees may use to facilitate the learning of young individuals,鈥� says team member , also at the University of Barcelona.

The team also gathered 30 minutes of footage from cameras at 11 sites where chimpanzees to crack them open. This is considered proto-tool use rather than tool use, because the stones are being used as an anvil rather than being directly held and manipulated.

In an example of this, a mother called F茅r茅 collected three baobab fruits and placed them near her infant son Fotti. A juvenile male 鈥� probably an older sibling 鈥� picked up a fruit and pounded it against some rocks while Fotti watched, then guided Fotti鈥檚 hand to a fruit. Fotti had a go himself, eventually managing to open up a fruit. 聽

The videos support the idea that other social mechanisms such as observation and supervised practice help youngsters learn to use tools, says S谩nchez-Meg铆as.

鈥淭eaching events are quite rare and difficult to study because only so many learning attempts are needed until an individual learns a behaviour,鈥� says at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany. 鈥淪howing across many forms of tool use that these tool transfers are indicative of a very simple form of teaching is very cool and nice.鈥�

During the observed interactions, the researchers noted that the teacher was forgoing food for the learning youngster鈥檚 benefit.

鈥淭his is an important observation because it fits the criteria for teaching used in animal behaviour research 鈥� that the behaviour benefits the pupil鈥檚 opportunities to learn, and is done despite having a cost to the teacher,鈥� says at the University of St Andrews, UK.

A genetically modified pig鈥檚 kidney kept a man with organ failure off dialysis for nine months while he waited for a suitable human donor鈥檚 kidney to become available. This suggests pig kidneys could act as a temporary measure amid lengthy organ waiting lists, but they may also work as a permanent replacement one day.

鈥淚 think it鈥檚 incredible in terms of the science behind it and what they鈥檝e achieved,鈥� says at Imperial College London, who wasn鈥檛 involved in the work.

For people with severe kidney disease, where these organs are failing and dialysis is needed, a kidney transplant provides the best chance of survival and better quality of life. However, demand for donor organs exceeds supply.

One possible solution is xenotransplantation, the transfer of organs from other animals into humans. In January 2022, a pig heart was transplanted into a person for the first time, but the recipient died several months later, possibly due to the presence of a pig virus. A pig liver transplant also occurred last year.

A pig鈥檚 kidney was transplanted into a living person for the first time in 2024. The recipient, Richard Slayman, aged 62, died 52 days later from cardiac-related causes. In the latest development, Tim Andrews, a 66-year-old man with end-stage kidney failure, opted to receive a kidney from a pig to avoid dialysis while he waited for a suitable human organ.

at Mass General Brigham hospital in Boston and his colleagues transplanted the kidney, which came from a Yucatan miniature pig, into Andrews in January 2025. The organ had been genetically modified to improve compatibility with the human immune system, such as by removing some sugars that we produce antibodies against and adding seven human genes.

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The transplant was initially a success, and Andrews 鈥� who also received immunosuppression drugs to stop his body rejecting the organ 鈥� came off dialysis and resumed normal life. However, after about six months, he was admitted to hospital with a methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection, which most antibiotics can鈥檛 kill. 聽

Riella and his colleagues reduced the immunosuppression drugs Andrews was on, but then damage started to develop in the kidney鈥檚 blood vessels. This progressed to organ failure, and the kidney was removed a record 271 days after transplantation. 鈥淗e had a kidney that lasted nine months, which is mind-blowing,鈥� says Riella.

Andrews went back onto dialysis for about three months, before finally receiving a suitable human kidney in January 2026. This marks the first time a pig kidney has been used as a temporary bridge to a human transplant.

鈥淪uch transplants may allow patients to avoid going through dialysis, which is so important because it causes so much wear and tear to the body,鈥� says Riella. 鈥淗opefully, maybe 15 years from now, pig kidneys will compete with a human kidney transplant, but you鈥檙e not there yet.鈥�

2024 saw the first living people to receive pig kidney transplants

Three people in the US received a genetically modified pig kidney in 2024, marking another step towards animal-to-human organ transplants becoming routine

The procedure is experimental, and Riella couldn鈥檛 give an estimate of how much it might cost. But in the US, there are about 600,000 people on dialysis, which can cost about $100,000 a year per individual, he says.

Riella says the team has now done five such transplants and two more case reports will be published this year, including one of a person who has already beaten Andrews鈥檚 record of nine months with a functioning pig kidney.

鈥淚 think these will be carried out more widely in the future, but it鈥檒l be a little while,鈥� says Willicombe, largely due to their probable high cost. 精东传媒s should also continue researching artificial kidneys, as well as ways to regenerate damaged organs and optimise donated ones, she says.