Palaeontologists have found new evidence that the early ancestors of amphibians, reptiles and mammals did not have a larval stage with external gills like modern frogs or salamanders

An extremely unusual tectonic movement took place 15 minutes after the Tohoku earthquake in 2011, causing almost the whole of Japan to move 5 millimetres to the east

A planet-warming El Niño climate phase has begun, but while the phenomenon can influence Europe's weather through long-distance atmospheric teleconnections, the effects are often uncertain

As the sun expands over the coming billions of years, Earth will become inhospitable to any life more complex than a microbe – but that might take longer than we thought

Archaeologists have discovered traces of a wooden structure built 5000 years ago, 5 kilometres from Stonehenge, which appears to have been an even older monument for marking the summer solstice

We already know the vaccine against human papillomavirus, or HPV, greatly reduces infections and cases of cervical cancer, and now we have the first evidence it prevents deaths too