Ancient DNA News

June 7, 2024

Top Headlines

June 5, 2024 — Geobiologists reported a 550 million-year-old sea sponge that had been missing from the fossil record. The discovery sheds new light on a conundrum that has stumped zoologists and paleontologists for ...

Human Activity Contributed to Woolly Rhinoceros' Extinction

June 4, 2024 — Researchers have discovered sustained hunting by humans prevented the woolly rhinoceros from accessing favourable habitats as Earth warmed following the Last Ice ...

Gigantic Jurassic Pterosaur Fossil Unearthed in Oxfordshire, UK

June 4, 2024 — A team of palaeontologists has discovered a fossil of a gigantic flying reptile from the Jurassic period with an estimated wingspan of more than three metres -- making it one of the largest pterosaurs ever found from that ...

Bringing Back an Ancient Bird

May 28, 2024 — Using ancient DNA extracted from the toe bone of a museum specimen, biologists have sequenced the genome of an extinct, flightless bird called the little bush moa, shedding light into an unknown corner of avian genetic history. The work is the first ...

Latest Headlines

updated 6:06pm EDT

Origins of 'Welsh Dragons' Finally Exposed by Experts

May 30, 2024 — A large fossil discovery has helped shed light on the history of dinosaurs in ...

Musankwa Sanyatiensis, a New Dinosaur from Zimbabwe

May 30, 2024 — Fossils found on the shoreline of Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe represent a completely new dinosaur species. This remarkable find, named Musankwa sanyatiensis, marks only the fourth dinosaur species named ...

Florida Fossil Porcupine Solves a Prickly Dilemma 10-Million Years in the Making

May 28, 2024 — An exceptionally rare fossilized porcupine skeleton discovered in Florida has allowed researchers to trace the evolutionary history for one of North ...

Researchers Discover Hidden Step in Dinosaur Feather Evolution

May 21, 2024 — Scientists discover 'zoned development' in dinosaur skin, with zones of reptile-style scales and zones of bird-like skin with feathers. A new dinosaur skin fossil has been found to be composed of ...

Evolutionary History of Extinct Duck Revealed

May 20, 2024 — The study's findings show mergansers arrived in the New Zealand region at least seven million years ago from the Northern Hemisphere, in a separate colonisation event to that which led to the ...

First 'Warm-Blooded' Dinosaurs May Have Emerged 180 Million Years Ago

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 ...

Human Activity Is Making It Harder for Scientists to Interpret Oceans' Past

May 8, 2024 — New research shows human activity is significantly altering the ways in which marine organisms are preserved, with lasting effects that can both improve and impair the fossil ...

Revised Dating of the Liujiang Skeleton Renews Understanding of Human Occupation of China

May 1, 2024 — Researchers have provided new age estimates and revised provenance information for the Liujiang human fossils, shedding light on the presence of Homo ...

The Double-Fanged Adolescence of Saber-Toothed Cats

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 ...

Fossil Frogs Share Their Skincare Secrets

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 ...

RNA's Hidden Potential: New Study Unveils Its Role in Early Life and Future Bioengineering

Apr. 18, 2024 — The origin of life continues to remain a matter of debate. The ribonucleic acid (RNA) world hypothesis proposes that 'ribozymes' which store genetic information and possess catalytic ...

Digging Up New Species of Australia and New Guinea's Giant Fossil Kangaroos

Apr. 15, 2024 — Palaeontologists have described three unusual new species of giant fossil kangaroo from Australia and New Guinea, finding them more diverse in shape, range and hopping method than previously thought. ...

Geobiology: New Placozoan Habitat Discovered

Apr. 11, 2024 — Traces of DNA in the stomachs of predatory snails give a team og geobiologists new insights into the ecology of ...

Do Some Mysterious Bones Belong to Gigantic Ichthyosaurs?

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 ...

Early Dinosaurs Grew Up Fast, but They Weren't the Only Ones

Apr. 3, 2024 — The earliest dinosaurs had rapid growth rates, but so did many of the other animals living alongside them, according to a new ...

Ancient DNA Reveals the Appearance of a 6th Century Chinese Emperor

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 ...

DNA Study IDs Descendants of George Washington from Unmarked Remains, Findings to Aid Service Member IDs Going Back to World War II

Mar. 28, 2024 — New DNA sequencing technologies have identified the historical remains of George Washington's grandnephews, Samuel Walter Washington and George Steptoe Washington Jr., and their mother, Lucy ...

Rays Were More Diverse 150 Million Years Ago Than Previously Thought

Mar. 21, 2024 — Scientists have explored the puzzling world of rays that lived 150 million years ago and discovered a previously hidden diversity -- including a new ray species. This study significantly expands the ...

Higher Carnivorous Dinosaur Biodiversity of Famous Kem Kem Beds, Morocco

Mar. 12, 2024 — An international team of palaeontologists applied recently developed methods to measure theropod (carnivorous) dinosaur species diversity. The newly applied method uses both traditional phylogenetic ...

Modeling the Origins of Life: New Evidence for an 'RNA World'

Mar. 4, 2024 — Scientists provide fresh insights on the origins of life, presenting compelling evidence supporting the 'RNA World' hypothesis. The study unveils an RNA enzyme that can make accurate copies ...

An Evolutionary Mystery 125 Million Years in the Making

Mar. 4, 2024 — Plant biologists have uncovered an evolutionary mystery over 100 million years in the making. It turns out that sometime during the last 125 million years, tomatoes and Arabidopsis thaliana plants ...

Scientists ID Burned Bodies Using Technique Used for Extracting DNA from Woolly Mammoths, Neanderthals

Feb. 29, 2024 — A technique originally devised to extract DNA from woolly mammoths and other ancient archaeological specimens can be used to potentially identify badly burned human remains, according to ...

Change in Gene Code May Explain How Human Ancestors Lost Tails

Feb. 28, 2024 — A genetic change in our ancient ancestors may partly explain why humans don't have tails like ...

Ancient DNA Reveals Down Syndrome in Past Human Societies

Feb. 20, 2024 — By analysing ancient DNA, an international team of researchers have uncovered cases of chromosomal disorders, including what could be the first case of Edwards syndrome ever identified from ...

A Lighthouse in the Gobi Desert

Feb. 14, 2024 — A new study explores the weight great fossil sites have on our understanding of evolutionary relationships between fossil groups and quantified the power these sites have on our understanding of ...

Vittrup Man Crossed Over from Forager to Farmer Before Being Sacrificed in Denmark

Feb. 14, 2024 — Vittrup Man was born along the Scandinavian coast before moving to Denmark, where he was later sacrificed, according to a new ...

Some Pre-Roman Humans Were Buried With Dogs, Horses and Other Animals

Feb. 14, 2024 — Some people from an ancient community in what is now northern Italy were interred with animals and animal parts from species such as dogs, horses and pigs. The reasons remain mysterious, but might ...

The Hidden Rule for Flight Feathers -- And How It Could Reveal Which Dinosaurs Could Fly

Feb. 12, 2024 — Scientists examined hundreds of birds in museum collections and discovered a suite of feather characteristics that all flying birds have in common. These 'rules' provide clues as to how the ...

Surprisingly Vibrant Color of 12-Million-Year-Old Snail Shells

Feb. 9, 2024 — Snail shells are often colorful and strikingly patterned. This is due to pigments that are produced in special cells of the snail and stored in the shell in varying concentrations. Fossil shells, on ...

New Fossil Site of Worldwide Importance Uncovered in Southern France

Feb. 9, 2024 — Nearly 400 exceptionally well-preserved fossils dating back 470 million years have been discovered in the south of France by two amateur paleontologists. The discovery provides unprecedented ...