The field of paleo-inspired robotics is opening up a new way to turn back time and studying prehistoric animals.

Records from 500 years ago document floods, famine and death in 16th century Transylvania due to wild weather swings during the Little Ice Age.

This is only the second time the species has been recorded while alive. “I thought it was A.I.,” says fish biologist Kory Evans.

We have a natural fascination with time—how landscapes have been carved over millennia, how our bodies grow and sag with age, ...