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News
Dodos weren’t stupid, and their skulls finally prove it
7+ hour, 17+ min ago (1073+ words) Analysis of dodo bird skulls has helped scientists understand how they observed and interacted with the world before their extinction. Call someone a dodo and nobody asks what you mean. The bird showed little fear of the people who landed…...
Famous names in human evolution may be due for retirement
1+ week, 3+ day ago (803+ words) A new study could reshape human evolution by placing Australopithecus and Paranthropus within an expanded genus Homo. Some of the best-known names in human evolution – including Australopithecus and Paranthropus – may be due for retirement. A new study argues that these…...
Mammal extinction followed the same rules for 130,000 years – until now
1+ week, 3+ day ago (797+ words) Traits that predicted mammal extinction for 130,000 years are changing, raising questions about how scientists identify species most at risk today. For 130,000 years, certain traits reliably predicted which mammals would go extinct and which would survive. A new study suggests that…...
Giant animals may explain how humans spread across the Americas
1+ week, 5+ day ago (1011+ words) Early humans may have spread across the Americas by specializing in giant prey such as mammoths, ground sloths, and gomphotheres. Near the end of the last Ice Age, the ancestors of Indigenous peoples spread from Alaska and the Yukon to…...
Scientists think they know how the first birds on Earth learned to fly
2+ week, 14+ hour ago (986+ words) A computer model suggests Archaeopteryx may have used two or three powerful leaps to build enough speed for flight. Bird flight did not appear in its modern form all at once. Early feathered animals still carried dinosaur features, so the…...
New hairy-leafed plant species confirms another of Darwin’s predictions
2+ week, 1+ day ago (986+ words) Saxifraga candelabrum is a newly confirmed carnivorous plant. Its sticky hairs trap small insects, while its flowers attract them with scent. Carnivorous plants are famous for dramatic traps, but catching an insect is only part of the story. To qualify…...
Ancient penguin bones hold climate secrets hidden for millions of years
2+ week, 2+ day ago (790+ words) Ancient penguin bones preserve chemical clues that reveal how Antarctica’s environment and climate changed millions of years ago. Fossilized penguin bones from Antarctica aren’t just remnants of an extinct lineage. According to a new study, they’re chemical archives, preserving clues…...
Earth may have had two separate origins of life
2+ week, 6+ day ago (996+ words) Life on Earth may have started twice. Bacteria and archaea, the two oldest branches of living things, each finished the chemistry that keeps a cell alive independently. The enzymes they ended up with do not match. Their shared ancestor was…...
One of the most complete fossils of a pre-Ice Age dog is found in North America and dated at 30 million years old
3+ week, 9+ hour ago (827+ words) Modern dogs are built for running long distances. Wolves, for example, can keep up a steady trot for miles because of their long legs and flexible joints. But the earliest members of the dog family were very different. A newly…...
Prehistoric mammals somehow migrated across a watery divide into South America, millions of years before the land bridge formed
3+ week, 11+ hour ago (1241+ words) Northern American mammals settled into Mexico about 10 million years ago, long before any land bridge had formed. Almost none of them crossed into South America for another three million years. Horses, camels, and saber-toothed cats spread south into what is…...