The Friends of Charles Darwin

The 12-metre-wide remains of a sea creature found by the Chilean navy are puzzling marine scientists, who think it may be a new species.

Biologists say they have found the first case of an animal that navigates by the Moon. It is only a humble beetle but the ability to use moonlight as a compass may be widespread in the animal kingdom.

The Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, south-west London has been recognised as a "unique cultural landscape" by the United Nations, which has given it World Heritage Site status.

The oldest seed plants known, the cycads, are now among the most threatened on Earth, scientists say. One of the worst threats comes from the trade in wild plants for the horticultural trade.

Remains of the earliest known sauropod, a relative of the largest dinosaurs to roam the Earth, have been unearthed in South Africa. The new species has been named Antetonitrus ingenipes. Antetonitrus means "before the thunder", marking the species' evolution into the brontosaurus or "thunder lizard" some 65 million years later. It weighed about 2 tonnes. But at 10 to 12 metres long, with a hip height of 2.2 metres, it was dwarfed by its later relatives.

Environmental activists in Ecuador have protested against US-led international naval exercises due to take place near the Galapagos Islands.

A study of clownfish, an anemone-dwelling marine fish known for its bright orange and white patterning, has found that hierarchical boundaries are so entrenched in their "culture" that subordinates control their size and growth rate to the millimetre. When the position at the top of a group becomes vacant, social climbers will go as far as changing sex.

One of the Earth's richest zones, the tropical forest canopy, is the target of a new scientific initiative. The organisers plan a network of treetop observatories to provide unrivalled insight into life high above the forest floor.

A loveless giant tortoise named Lonesome George is at the centre of an international effort to save his species from extinction through DNA. He is the only remaining giant tortoise from the Galapagos island of Pinta.

Climate change could imperil the unique creatures which have made their home in the inhospitable waters of Antarctica, scientists believe.

An urban bird is changing its song repertoire to adjust to the noise of the city. Great tits (Parus major) are singing at a higher pitch to attract a mate above the rumble of traffic.

It will make you go blind. It will make your palms grow hairy. Such myths about masturbation are largely a thing of the past. But the latest research has even better news for young men: frequent self-pleasuring could protect against the most common kind of cancer.

The rate of extinction threatening to engulf south-east Asia this century could be a "catastrophic" 20%, scientists say. They base their warning on the example of Singapore, where key habitats have shrunk by 95% since 1819.

A BBC team says it has shown there is no such thing as the Loch Ness monster. Using 600 separate sonar beams and satellite navigation technology to ensure that none of the loch was missed, the team surveyed the waters said to hide Scotland's legendary tourist attraction but found no trace of the monster.

You have heard of DNA and RNA, but what about TNA? It resembles its more famous cousins in almost every respect, except that it is based on a sugar called threose instead of the deoxyribose found in DNA and the ribose in RNA. Researchers have speculated that because threose is a simpler sugar than ribose, TNA could be a long-lost precursor to RNA.