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......»»
New fossil assemblage highlights complexity of classifying silesaurid phylogeny
A set of fossils recovered in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's southernmost state, has brought an extra layer of complexity to the study of the evolutionary history of silesaurids, a family of dinosauriforms (dinosaurs and their close relatives) that live.....»»
Feathery moa"s fossilized footprints, ancient age revealed
Cosmogenic nuclide dating, a method commonly used in dating coastal areas and alluvial riverbeds for landscape reconstruction, is also useful for calculating the age of trace fossils, such as a footprint, where no remains of the animal are preserved......»»
Astronomers discover how tiny dwarf galaxies form ‘fossils’
When tiny dwarf galaxies age and begin to erode away, they can transform into an even smaller and more dense shape, called an ultra-compact dwarf galaxy......»»
Cultural artifacts serve as "cognitive fossils," helping uncover the psychology of the past
No two societies in history think exactly alike. In fact, the mindset of a given society throughout history can help historians unpack important clues about the effects of psychological shifts—such as more social trust or more openness......»»
A new trail to exoplanets: Team successfully detects ammonia isotopologues in atmosphere of cold brown dwarf
They reveal the origin of wine, the age of bones and fossils, and they serve as diagnostic tools in medicine. Isotopes and isotopologues—molecules that differ only in the composition of their isotopes—also play an increasingly important role in a.....»»
Fossils tell tale of last primate to inhabit North America before humans
The story of Ekgmowechashala, the final primate to inhabit North America before Homo sapiens or Clovis people, reads like a spaghetti Western: A grizzled and mysterious loner, against the odds, ekes out an existence on the American Plains......»»
Bizarre new fossils shed light on ancient plankton
A scientist from the University of Leicester has discovered a new type of fossil that reveals life in the oceans half a billion years ago. The tiny organisms, detailed in a new study in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Scien.....»»
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......»»