ABC Science

HUMAN EVOLUTION: Interbreeding between Denisovans, Neanderthals and modern humans may have produced males with reduced fertility, an analysis of the genome of present-day people suggests.

SPORT SCIENCE: Cricketers who hold the bat the 'wrong way round' are seven times more likely to become professional batsmen, according to a new study.

SHIFTING AXIS: Ice deposits that formed in craters on opposite sides of the Moon three billion years ago indicate it may have once spun on a different axis.

MUM AND DAD: A female tropical fish bred in a UK university has developed a male sex organ, fertilised her own eggs and given birth in a rare case of self breeding in vertebrates.

PARADOX OF UNANIMITY: As the number of witnesses who identify the same suspect gets larger, the probability of correctly identifying a criminal decreases, suggests a new Australian study.

RAPID RELEASE: The rate of carbon emissions is higher than at any time in fossil records stretching back 66 million years to the end of the age of the dinosaurs, according to a new study

GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE: The genius of Albert Einstein lead us to gravitational waves - maybe someday another genius will work out how to make them, says Dr Karl.

EXPLODING STAR: The shockwave generated by the explosion of an ageing giant star has been observed by an international team of astronomers.

WATER WORLD?: Internal heating, fuelled by the natural decay of radioactive elements in Pluto's rocks and other sources, likely keeps an ocean of ammonia-rich water liquid beneath the dwarf planet's frozen surface, new data suggests.

WILDLIFE WARRIORS: Drones can provide a more precise way of monitoring nesting seabird colonies than traditional methods used in wildlife conservation, according to a new Australian study.

ONLINE DATING: If you're looking for the love of your life on online dating sites it may pay to take your time rather than rapidly swiping through profile pictures and making snap judgments about their attractiveness.

OLD MUM: A pregnant Tyrannosaurus rex has been found, shedding light on the evolution of egg-laying as well as on gender differences in the dinosaur

WHALE TALE: The population of southern right whales in the waters off New Zealand today is just 12 per cent of its size before whaling began, according to a new study.

CLIMATE CHANGE: New findings suggest carbon dioxide from increasing plant respiration in a warming world may not be as big a problem for global warming as some have thought.

GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE: It took a century of speculation and experimentation to discover gravitational waves, as Dr Karl explains.

EVOLUTION GAP: The fossils of a newly discovered, smaller ancestor of the Tyrannosaurus rex may hold clues as to why the iconic dinosaur rose to the top of the food chain, scientists say.

ENIGMATIC PATTERNS: The chance discovery of 'fairy circles' in Western Australia's Pilbara region is providing new insight into one of nature's enduring puzzles.

VIVID MIND: You don't have to have schizophrenia or take LSD to have a hallucination, and they don't always have to be scary either.

POLLUTION SOLUTION?: A newly discovered plastic-eating bacterium may hold the key to safely degrading millions of tonnes of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics dumped each year.

BROWN FAT: A special type of fat that probably evolved to help keep our ancestors warm on cold hunting mornings may also be important in protecting against diabetes, say researchers.