The first discovery of early whale fossils with key ankle bones intact provides compelling paleontological evidence that whales are closely related to many living ungulates, a relationship already supported by molecular data. (p. 180)

A new group of hydrothermal vents found in the Indian Ocean are populated by communities of organisms that differ significantly from other such groups of vent systems. (p. 165)

The sharpest images ever taken of Jupiter's icy moon Callisto show a group of features never seen before on the remote body—icy, knoblike spires that show signs of slow but steady erosion. (p. 174)

Vestiges of soft tissue preserved in a 70-million-year-old Mongolian fossil suggest that some dinosaurs could have strained small bits of food from the water and mud of streams and ponds, just like some modern aquatic birds do. (p. 133)

Researchers monitoring small ground motions along faults in Southern California ended up detecting an altogether different phenomenon: the rise and fall of the ground as local governments pump billions of gallons of water into and out of the region's aquifers. (p. 119)