Odd Creatures: Fossils & Ruins
May 16, 2024
Top Headlines
May 16, 2024 In a groundbreaking study an international team of scientists has investigated the evolutionary patterns behind the development of sabre teeth, with some unexpected results along the ...
May 15, 2024 The research cracks the code on the iconic baobab tree's origin story, revealing their surprising origins in Madagascar and incredible long-distance dispersals to Africa and Australia. The study unveils how baobabs developed unique pollination ...
May 15, 2024 The ability to regulate body temperature, a trait all mammals and birds have today, may have evolved among some dinosaurs early in the Jurassic period about 180 million years ago. The new study looked at the spread of dinosaurs across different ...
May 3, 2024 Researchers uncovered compelling evidence that Earth's magnetic field was in a highly unusual state when the macroscopic animals of the Ediacaran Period -- 635 to 541 million years ago -- diversified and thrived. Their study raises the question of ...
Latest Headlines
updated 1:58pm EDT
May 1, 2024 A new documentary has recreated the face of a 75,000-year-old female Neanderthal whose flattened skull was discovered and rebuilt from hundreds of ...
Apr. 29, 2024 How did North America's saber-toothed cats hunt without breaking their unwieldy saber-like canines, which are vulnerable to sideways bending stresses? A paleontologist provides mechanical evidence ...
Apr. 24, 2024 Oncorhynchus rastrosus, a giant species of salmon that lived in the North American Pacific Northwest a few million years ago, sported a pair of front teeth that projected out from the sides of its ...
Apr. 29, 2024 Dinosaurs were likely as smart as reptiles but not as intelligent as ...
Apr. 26, 2024 Using environmental DNA analysis, an international team of researchers identified a collection of plants used in ceremonial rituals in the ancient Maya city of Yaxnohcah in Mexico. The plants, known ...
Apr. 23, 2024 Bioluminescence first evolved in animals at least 540 million years ago in a group of marine invertebrates called octocorals, according to the results of a new study. The study focuses on an ancient ...
Apr. 24, 2024 Researchers explain the genomic and developmental basis of the patagium, the thin skin membrane that allows some mammalian species to soar through the ...
Apr. 23, 2024 Palaeontologists have solved a hundred-year-old mystery of how some fossil frogs preserve their fleshy parts -- it's all down to their skin. Palaeontologists studied 45-million-year-old fossil frogs ...
Apr. 17, 2024 The fossilized remains of a second gigantic jawbone measuring more than two meters long has been found on a beach in Somerset, ...
Apr. 17, 2024 New research has highlighted an area in Arabia that once acted as a key point for cultural exchanges and trades amongst ancient people -- and it all took place in vast caves and lava tubes that have ...
Earlier Headlines
Apr. 15, 2024 A series of whole genome and gene duplication events that go back hundreds of millions of years have laid the foundations for tissue-specific gene expression, according to a new study. The ...
Apr. 15, 2024 Sport junkie or couch potato? Always on time or often late? The animal kingdom, too, is home to a range of personalities, each with its own lifestyle. Biologists report on a surprising discovery: ...
Apr. 10, 2024 Astrophysicists shed light on the relationship between the Milky Way and the Egyptian sky-goddess Nut. The paper draws on ancient Egyptian texts and simulations to argue that the Milky Way might have ...
Apr. 9, 2024 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 ...
Apr. 8, 2024 Genetic analysis finds evidence suggesting that acoustic fat bodies in the heads of toothed whales were once the muscles and bone marrow of the ...
Apr. 4, 2024 During archaeological excavations in the Schoningen open-cast coal mine in 1994, the discovery of the oldest, remarkably well-preserved hunting weapons known to humanity caused an international ...
Apr. 3, 2024 Genomic anamolies dating back to the time of the dinosaurs misled scientists about the evolutionary history of ...
Apr. 2, 2024 A new data crowdsourcing platform aims to preserve the sound of Romeyka, an endangered millennia-old variety of Greek. Experts consider the language to be a linguistic goldmine and a living bridge to ...
Mar. 28, 2024 What did an ancient Chinese emperor from 1,500 years ago look like? A team of researchers reconstructed the face of Chinese Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou using DNA extracted from his remains. The study ...
Mar. 27, 2024 In a remarkable discovery, whole milk powder manufactured in New Zealand in 1907 and transported to Antarctica with explorers seeking the South Pole was unveiled after more than a century. The find ...
Mar. 25, 2024 For centuries, the Cerne Giant, a figure carved into a hillside in Dorset, has fascinated locals and visitors to the area. A new paper proposes that the Cerne Giant can in fact be dated to the early ...
Mar. 25, 2024 A new study has challenged previously held views that brain preservation in the archaeological record is extremely rare. The team compiled a new archive of preserved human brains, which highlighted ...
Mar. 22, 2024 Spiders that disguise themselves as ants live in many locations around the globe but until now most had been able to avoid detection from fossil researchers as well as ...
Mar. 22, 2024 Archaeological analysis of a near unique animal cemetery discovered in London nearly 30 years ago has revealed there was an international horse trading network, orchestrated by the elites of late ...
Mar. 21, 2024 Scientists have uncovered the fossilized skull of a 270-million-year-old ancient amphibian ancestor in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The team of ...
Mar. 20, 2024 Researchers have uncovered intriguing details about the origins and spread of the bottle gourd, one of the oldest domesticated crops. Their work unveils the genetic diversification and population ...
Mar. 20, 2024 Detailed reports on thousands of artifacts pulled from 'Britain's Pompeii' reveals the surprisingly sophisticated domestic lives of Bronze Age Fen folk some 3,000 years ago -- from ...
Mar. 18, 2024 Dinosaurs get all the glory. But aetosaurs, a heavily armored cousin of modern crocodiles, ruled the world before dinosaurs did. These tanks of the Triassic came in a variety of shapes and sizes ...
Mar. 7, 2024 The oldest fossilized forest known on Earth -- dating from 390 million years ago -- has been found in the high sandstone cliffs along the Devon and Somerset coast of South West ...
Mar. 5, 2024 Fossils of a strange new species of marine lizard with dagger-like teeth that lived 66 million years ago, show a dramatically more biodiverse ocean ecosystem to what we see ...
Monday, April 15, 2024
- Evolution's Recipe Book: How 'copy Paste' Errors Cooked Up the Animal Kingdom
- Even the Simplest Marine Organisms Tend to Be Individualistic
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
Monday, April 8, 2024
Thursday, April 4, 2024
Wednesday, April 3, 2024
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
Thursday, March 28, 2024
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Monday, March 25, 2024
- Uncovering the Mystery of Dorset's Cerne Giant
- New Archive of Ancient Human Brains Challenges Misconceptions of Soft Tissue Preservation
Friday, March 22, 2024
- Research Uncovers a Rare Resin Fossil Find: A Spider That Aspires to Be an Ant
- Tudor Era Horse Cemetery in Westminster Revealed as Likely Resting Place for Elite Imported Animals
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
- Across Oceans and Millennia: Decoding the Origin and History of the Bottle Gourd
- Study Reveals 'cozy Domesticity' Of Prehistoric Stilt-House Dwellers in England's Ancient Marshland
Monday, March 18, 2024
Thursday, March 7, 2024
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
- Fossils of Giant Sea Lizard With Dagger-Like Teeth Show How Our Oceans Have Fundamentally Changed Since the Dinosaur Era
- Fossil Named 'Attenborough's Strange Bird' Was the First in Its Kind Without Teeth
Monday, March 4, 2024
Thursday, February 29, 2024
- Scientists ID Burned Bodies Using Technique Used for Extracting DNA from Woolly Mammoths, Neanderthals
- Slimming Down a Colossal Fossil Whale
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
- High Resolution Techniques Reveal Clues in 3.5 Billion-Year-Old Biomass
- Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats Has Long Been in Flux
- Butterfly and Moth Genomes Mostly Unchanged Despite 250 Million Years of Evolution
- An Awkward Family Reunion: Sea Monsters Are Our Cousins
- Did Neanderthals Use Glue? Researchers Find Evidence That Sticks
Friday, February 16, 2024
Thursday, February 15, 2024
Wednesday, February 14, 2024
- Anthropologists' Research Unveils Early Stone Plaza in the Andes
- Some Pre-Roman Humans Were Buried With Dogs, Horses and Other Animals
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
Monday, February 12, 2024
- Archaeologists Discover Oldest Known Bead in the Americas
- The Hidden Rule for Flight Feathers -- And How It Could Reveal Which Dinosaurs Could Fly
Friday, February 9, 2024
Thursday, February 8, 2024
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
Friday, February 2, 2024
Monday, January 29, 2024
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
- DNA from Preserved Feces Reveals Ancient Japanese Gut Environment
- New Pieces in the Puzzle of First Life on Earth
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
Monday, January 22, 2024
Sunday, January 21, 2024
Thursday, January 18, 2024
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
Thursday, January 11, 2024
- Oldest Known Fossilized Skin Is 21 Million Years Older Than Previous Examples
- Prehistoric Person With Turner Syndrome Identified from Ancient DNA
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Tuesday, January 9, 2024
Monday, January 8, 2024
- How Did the Bushpig Cross the Strait? A Great Puzzle in African Mammal Biogeography Solved by Genomics
- Evolution Is Not as Random as Previously Thought
Thursday, January 4, 2024
- The Snail or the Egg?
- Researchers Rely on Earth's Magnetic Field to Verify an Event Mentioned in the Old Testament
Wednesday, January 3, 2024
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Thursday, December 14, 2023
Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Tuesday, December 12, 2023
Thursday, December 7, 2023
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
Monday, December 4, 2023
- More Than a Meteorite: New Clues About the Demise of Dinosaurs
- Earliest-Known Fossil Mosquito Suggests Males Were Bloodsuckers Too
- Crocodile Family Tree Mapped: New Light Shed on Croc Evolution
Friday, December 1, 2023
Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Tuesday, November 28, 2023
Monday, November 27, 2023
Tuesday, November 21, 2023
Monday, November 20, 2023
Friday, November 17, 2023
Thursday, November 16, 2023
Tuesday, November 14, 2023
Monday, November 13, 2023
- Some of Today's Earthquakes May Be Aftershocks from Quakes in the 1800s
- Evolution of Taste: Early Sharks Were Able to Perceive Bitter Substances
- No Scientific Evidence for Cognitively Advanced Behaviors and Symbolism by Homo Naledi
Thursday, November 9, 2023
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Monday, November 6, 2023
- French Love Letters Confiscated by Britain Finally Read After 265 Years
- 450-Million-Year-Old Organism Finds New Life in Softbotics
- Long-Distance Weaponry Identified at the 31,000-Year-Old Archaeological Site of Maisières-Canal
Wednesday, November 1, 2023
- Hebrew Prayer Book Fills Gap in Italian Earthquake History
- Giant Dinosaur Carcasses Might Have Been Important Food Sources for Jurassic Predators
- Where Is a Sea Star's Head? Maybe Just About Everywhere
Monday, October 30, 2023
- Study Uncovers Hundred-Year Lifespans for Three Freshwater Fish Species in the Arizona Desert
- New Species of Mosasaur Named for Norse Sea Serpent
Friday, October 27, 2023
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
- Raining Cats and Dogs: Global Precipitation Patterns a Driver for Animal Diversity
- Origin of Ancient Mummified Baboons Found in Egypt
Monday, October 23, 2023
- Fungal Evolution Discovered: Mycena Can Now Invade Living Hosts
- Mummified Mice Discovered Atop Sky-High Andean Volcanoes