Crocodile fossils found in Portsmouth seawalls
A group of students who headed to the beach last year for some fresh air amid the gloom of the pandemic, chanced upon a crocodile bone in the old seawall that led to the discovery of other fossils......»»
The first Miocene fossils from coastal woodlands in the southern East African Rift
An international team, with participation by the Geochronology and Geology Program of the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), has published a paper in the journal iScience on the first Miocene mammal fossils found i.....»»
New South American site reveals extraordinary fossils from the end of the age of the dinosaurs
The discovery of a spectacular fossil site in Argentina is helping shed new light on life at the end of the Cretaceous, the time period just before the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct......»»
What tiny fossils can tell us about the changing climate
Adriane Lam's research allows scientists to more accurately predict future climate and zoological changes as the Earth continues to warm......»»
Examining size growth of marine crocodiles in the Jurassic period
The State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart has a globally important collection of marine reptiles with numerous specimens from the time of the so-called Posidonia Shale. The outstanding feature of the ca. 183-182 million year old fossils from sout.....»»
How building waste could be used to grow tomatoes
Highly processed building waste, which usually ends up in landfill, can be used to grow tomatoes, a study from the University of Portsmouth has found. The paper is published in Construction and Building Materials......»»
Race to find world"s oldest mammal fossils led to academic warfare in the 1970s
The hunt for the world's most ancient mammals descended into academic warfare in the 1970s, researchers from the University of Bristol have discovered......»»
Long-term lizard study challenges the rules of evolutionary biology
Charles Darwin said that evolution was constantly happening, causing animals to adapt for survival. But many of his contemporaries disagreed. If evolution is always causing things to change, they asked, then how is it that two fossils from the same s.....»»
Fossil snake traces: Another world-first find on South Africa"s Cape south coast
Snakes are familiar, distinctive—and often feared—reptiles. And they've been around for a long time: body fossils found in the UK, Portugal and the US stretch all the way back to the late Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago......»»
Feather-tailed possums in New Guinea were originally Aussies, according to fossil study
Analysis of Riversleigh fossils has revealed fascinating new facts about a tiny possum's ancestors. Scientists have long known that the miniature feather-tailed possums in Australia and the island of New Guinea—members of the marsupial family Acrob.....»»
New path for early human migrations through a once-lush Arabia contradicts a single "out of Africa" origin
Our species, Homo sapiens, migrated out of Africa multiple times—reaching the Levant and Arabia between 130,000 and 70,000 years ago, as exemplified by human fossils and archaeological sites found at various locations......»»
Ancient plant wax reveals how global warming affects methane in Arctic lakes
By studying fossils from ancient aquatic plants, Northwestern University and University of Wyoming (UW) researchers are gaining a better understanding of how methane produced in Arctic lakes might affect—and be affected by—climate change......»»
We finally know for sure what a trilobite ate
Tens of thousands of fossils later, we've found a trilobite with a full stomach. Enlarge (credit: Jiri Svoboda) Trilobites first appear early in the Cambrian and are one of the earliest examples of arthropods, the group.....»»
Fossils show widespread plant extinctions after asteroid wiped out dinosaurs
Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid the size of San Francisco crashed into a shallow sea off the coast of modern-day Mexico and plunged the world into an extinction event that killed off as much as 75% of life, including the dinosaurs......»»
Fossils in Morocco reveal the astounding diversity of marine life 66 million years ago, just before the asteroid hit
Sixty-six million years ago, the Cretaceous period ended. Dinosaurs disappeared, along with around 90% of all species on Earth. The patterns and causes of this extinction have been debated since paleontology began. Was it a slow, inevitable decline,.....»»
Caribbean parrots thought to be endemic are actually relicts of millennial-scale extinction
In a new study published in PNAS, researchers have extracted the first ancient DNA from Caribbean parrots, which they compared with genetic sequences from modern birds. Working with fossils and archaeological specimens, they showed that two species t.....»»
Ediacaran fossils reveal origins of biomineralization that led to expansion of life on Earth
Life on Earth began from a single-celled microbe, while the rise to the multicellular world in which we live arose due a vital chemical process known as biomineralization, during which living organisms produce hardened mineralized tissue, such as ske.....»»
Researchers discover a new species of larger benthic foraminifer from the Ryukyu islands
Foraminifera are tiny, single-celled organisms that live in the oceans. Their hard shells, made of calcium carbonate, can withstand the test of time and their fossils reveal a lot about Earth's history, including past climates and environments......»»
The earliest deep-sea vertebrates revealed by unusual trace fossils
Scientists have discovered a missing evolution puzzle piece in 130-million-year-old rocks. The discovery is a result of an international collaboration, in which the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (Portugal) is involved......»»
The modern sea spider had started to diversify by the Jurassic, study finds
An extremely rare collection of 160-million-year-old sea spider fossils from Southern France are closely related to living species, unlike older fossils of their kind......»»
Climate change threatens shaligrams, sacred fossils worshipped by Hindus and Buddhists for more than 2,000 years
For more than 2,000 years, Hinduism, Buddhism and the shamanic Himalayan religion of Bon have venerated shaligrams—ancient fossils of ammonites, a class of extinct sea creatures related to modern squids......»»