6+ hour, 50+ min ago   (306+ words) While Thrinaxodon liorhinus didn't yet have the sophisticated hearing equipment of modern mammals, it shows that eardrums began evolving much earlier than assumed. If you put a pair of headphones on one of the earliest creatures resembling mammals, would it…...

1+ mon, 3+ week ago   (333+ words) It's an unprecedented look into prehistoric anatomy. We know what fossils look like. For example, typical dinosaur fossils are bones turned to stone and preserved from the passage of time located, if we're particularly lucky, in large collections that can…...

2+ mon, 2+ day ago   (177+ words) In the mountains of Tibet, adaptations to punishing conditions, including higher oxygen levels and unique gene proteins, are recent evidence of evolutionary adaptations. Endless mountain expanses that seem to pierce the heavens make Tibet one of the most breathtaking places…...

2+ mon, 3+ day ago   (322+ words) Welcome to the family. Although only one species of hominin (a tribe of the subfamily Homininae) exists on the planet today'good ole Homo sapiens'the human family, throughout more geologically-recent Earth history, was comprised of a complex tableaux of members. And…...

2+ mon, 1+ week ago   (283+ words) An ancient group from central Argentina held on to their DNA, even with the exchange of culture and language. "[Our findings suggest] that the ancestry component represented by [the Jes's Mar'a individual] is the main Native American lineage in the…...

2+ mon, 1+ week ago   (337+ words) About 110 million years ago, two pterosaurs were probably wandering around the shore when they were snapped up by a hungry predator'one which apparently couldn't hold them down. Even the most ferocious dinosaurs sometimes bit off more than they could chew…...

2+ mon, 2+ week ago   (202+ words) Paleolithic tools found at the Namorotukunan site in Kenya suggest that early Homo species kept their technology going even through natural disasters. "Detailed knowledge of environmental patterns within this region allows us to explore the interplay between periods of environmental…...

2+ mon, 4+ week ago   (350+ words) In this 4.4-million-year-old skeleton, scientists may have found the missing step between climbing and walking. A 4.4-million-year-old female skeleton named Ardi may answer that question. Predating even the iconic Lucy by a million years, she belongs to the species Ardipithecus…...

3+ mon, 5+ day ago   (411+ words) After initially probing a 2,000-year-old sarcophagus in Naples with a micro camera, archaeologists were encouraged enough by what they saw to step inside this sealed tomb for the first time. But once they opened a passage inside the sarcophagus sealed…...

3+ mon, 3+ week ago   (136+ words) Current conditions in Japanese hot springs give clues as to how some of these ancient microorganisms survived and adapted. Understanding life on ancient Earth could also have implications in the search for life on other planets. "Our data," the authors…...