Trapped in amber: Fossilized dinosaur-era crab bridges evolutionary gap
Discovery pushes back when crabs came to land, freshwater to 100 million years ago. Enlarge Once upon a time, during the Cretaceous period, a tiny crab wandered out of the water onto land and somehow got trapped in amber, whi.....»»
How do Australia"s desert animals avoid inbreeding during dry spells?
Some Australian desert mammals use distinct strategies to promote evolutionary fitness in response to changing environmental conditions over short timescales, according to a new study......»»
Millions of gamers advance biomedical research by helping to reconstruct microbial evolutionary histories
Leveraging gamers and video game technology can dramatically boost scientific research, according to a new study published today in Nature Biotechnology......»»
Trapped in the middle: Billiards with memory framework leads to mathematical questions
Adding one simple rule to an idealized game of billiards leads to a wealth of intriguing mathematical questions, as well as applications in the physics of living organisms. This week, researchers from the University of Amsterdam, including two master.....»»
Nanoscale movies shed light on one barrier to a clean energy future
Left unchecked, corrosion can rust out cars and pipes, take down buildings and bridges, and eat away at our monuments. Corrosion can also damage devices that could be key to a clean energy future. And now, Duke University researchers have captured ex.....»»
Earthquakes may not be primary driver of glacial lake outburst floods
Glacial lakes form when meltwater is trapped behind a dam, usually glacial ice, bedrock or a type of moraine (terminal types being an unconsolidated pile of debris at the maximum extent of the glacier). When a dam fails, the resulting sudden release.....»»
The limits of ice: What a 19th-century expedition trapped in sea ice for a year tells us about Antarctica"s future
In 1897, the former whaling ship RV Belgica left Antwerp in Belgium and set sail due south. It was the first voyage of what would become known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration. It did not go to plan......»»
Fossilized dinosaur eggshells can preserve amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, over millions of years
As a scientist, lab work can sometimes get monotonous. But in 2017, while a Ph.D. student of paleobiology at the University of Bristol in the U.K., I heard a gleeful exclamation from across the room. Kirsty Penkman, head of the North East Amino Acid.....»»
Fox bones found in ancient Argentinian burial site might have been from a human pet
A team of archaeologists, anthropologists and evolutionary specialists from Argentina, the U.K. and Germany has found possible evidence of a tamed fox living with a human hunter/gatherer companion, approximately 1,500 years ago in what is now Argenti.....»»
Mysterious bones may have belonged to gigantic ichthyosaurs
Several similar large, fossilized bone fragments have been discovered in various regions across Western and Central Europe since the 19th century. The animal group to which they belonged is still the subject of much debate to this day. A study carrie.....»»
Jurassic shuotheriids reveal earliest dental diversification of mammaliaforms
Paleontologists have presented a new insight into the initial dental variations across mammaliaforms, providing a fresh perspective on the evolutionary past of these ancient beasts......»»
Dinosaur study challenges Bergmann"s rule
When you throw dinosaurs into the mix, sometimes you find that a rule simply isn't......»»
Salmon populations are struggling, bringing economic woes for California"s fishing fleet
On the docks at Pillar Point Harbor, fishing crews have been arriving with loads of freshly caught Dungeness crab......»»
Research shows animals can live alongside humans by being experts at judging risk
New research suggests animals can thrive in human-dominated environments by being expert judges of risk. Alexis Breen from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, and Dominik Deffner from the Max Planck Institute for Human.....»»
Computational tools fuel reconstruction of new and improved bird family tree
An international team of scientists has built the largest and most detailed bird family tree to date—an intricate chart delineating 93 million years of evolutionary relationships between 363 bird species, representing 92% of all bird families......»»
Researchers reveal evolutionary path of important proteins
New research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison decodes the evolutionary pathway of regulatory proteins, the molecules that help control gene expression......»»
Dungeness crab season in San Francisco Bay Area, Central Coast will come to an early end
The already-shortened 2023–2024 Dungeness crab season in the San Francisco Bay Area and central California will come to an end early, in slightly more than a week......»»
Ancient isolation"s impact on modern ecology: How deep biogeographic divides drive divergent evolutionary paths
A new study led by Michigan State University researcher Peter Williams sheds light on the profound influence of deep geographic isolation on the evolution of mammals. Published in Nature Communications, the research reveals how long-lasting separatio.....»»
Research unlocks supernova stardust secrets
Curtin University-led research has discovered a rare dust particle trapped in an ancient extra-terrestrial meteorite that was formed by a star other than our sun......»»
Biologists uncover new species of tiger beetle: Eunota houstoniana
Rice University evolutionary biologist Scott Egan and his research team have unearthed a new species of tiger beetle, deemed Eunota houstoniana, honoring the region of Houston, where it predominantly resides......»»
Research shows that five three-horned dinosaurs lived, and died, together
A team from Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands was looking for a Tyrannosaurus in the summer of 2013 in Wyoming. Instead, they found a Triceratops: the famous dinosaur with the three horns and the large neck frill. And then they found a.....»»