Wolf

Reindeer are loved the world over for their dark, expressive eyes, majestic antlers and magical association with Santa Claus. The moment you learn the cold, hard truth of how Christmas presents arrive under the tree is a harrowing one that blights many a childhood. But reindeer are more special than your cynical older sibling or classmates would have had you believe.

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in the U.S. reports a high percentage of red wolf genes in the genomes of coyote hybrids living in some parts of southwest Louisiana and eastern Texas. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes the find as a possible means of saving red wolves from extinction.

An international group of geneticists and archaeologists, led by the Francis Crick Institute, have found that the ancestry of dogs can be traced to at least two populations of ancient wolves. The work moves us a step closer to uncovering the mystery of where dogs underwent domestication, one of the biggest unanswered questions about human prehistory.

Life (as we know it) is based on carbon. Despite its ubiquity, this important element still holds plenty of secrets, on earth and in the heavens above us. For example, astrophysicists like Columbia's Daniel Wolf Savin who study interstellar clouds want to understand how the chemicals, including carbon, swirling within these nebulous aggregations of gas and dust form the stars and planets that dot our universe and give rise to organic life.

New Princeton research shows that prehistoric megatooth sharks—the biggest sharks that ever lived—were apex predators at the highest level ever measured.