Paleontology
- Archaeology
Search for fossils from the comfort of home
The citizen science website FossilFinder.org lets anyone with an Internet connection look for fossils and characterize rocks at Kenya’s Lake Turkana Basin
- Animals
Snakes evolved from burrowing ancestor, new data suggest
A new X-ray analysis of inner ears is the latest to weigh in on whether modern snakes descended from a burrowing or a swimming reptile.
- Paleontology
Land life spared in Permian extinction, geologists argue
New rock layer dating in South Africa’s Karoo Basin suggests that extinctions of land species didn’t coincide with the Permian extinction around 252 million years ago.
- Paleontology
Ancient larvae built predator-thwarting mazes
Mazelike tunnels built by ancient insect larvae offered protection from predators, paleontologists propose.
- Paleontology
Vampire microbes sucked some ancient life dry
Hole-ridden fossils suggest that vampirelike microbes were among the first predators that targeted eukaryotes.
- Earth
New fascination with Earth’s ‘Boring Billion’
The Mesoproterozoic era, known as the boring billion, had very low oxygen, but it set the stage for the evolution of animals.
- Paleontology
Furry, spiky mammal scampered among dinosaurs
Early Cretaceous fur ball with spikes discovered in Spain.
- Paleontology
300 million-year-old giant shark swam the Texas seas
Fossil find shows oldest known ‘supershark,’ about the size of a limo, prowled the ocean 300 million years ago.
- Paleontology
New evidence weakens case against climate in woolly mammoths’ death
Hunters responsible for woolly mammoths’ extinction, suggests a chemical analysis of juveniles’ tusks.
- Paleontology
Dimetrodon’s diet redetermined
The reptilelike Dimetrodon dined mainly on amphibians and sharks, not big herbivores as scientists once believed.
- Plants
Early cyanobacteria fossils dug up in 1965
In 1965, early photosynthetic plant fossils were discovered. The date of earliest oxygen-producing life forms has since been pushed much earlier.
- Earth
Giant asteroid may have triggered deadly volcano eruptions
Increased volcanic eruptions coincided much more closely with an asteroid impact and the extinction of the dinosaurs than previously believed, a new study suggests.
