Odd Creatures: Fossils & Ruins

January 26, 2025

Top Headlines

New Tool Enables Phylogenomic Analyses of Entire Genomes

Jan. 23, 2025 — Electrical engineers have developed a better way to perform the comparative analysis of entire genomes. This approach can be used to study relationships between different species across geological time scales. This new approach is poised to unlock ...

Solving the Evolutionary Puzzle of Polyploidy: How Genome Duplication Shapes Adaptation

Jan. 23, 2025 — Scientists have developed a theoretical model that uncovers the dual role of polyploidy -- organisms carrying extra genome copies -- in evolution. Their findings reveal that polyploidy can stabilize ...

Rare Pterosaur Fossil Reveals Crocodilian Bite 76m Years Ago

Jan. 23, 2025 — The fossilized neck bone of a flying reptile unearthed in Canada shows tell-tale signs of being bitten by a crocodile-like creature 76 million years ago, according to a new ...

New Twist in Mystery of Dinosaurs' Origin

Jan. 23, 2025 — The remains of the earliest dinosaurs may lie undiscovered in the Amazon and other equatorial regions of South America and Africa, suggests a new ...

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Fossil Discovery in the Geiseltal Collection: Researchers Identify Unique Bird Skull

Jan. 22, 2025 — Around 45 million years ago, a 4.6 feet-tall (1.40 meters) flightless bird called Diatryma roamed the Geiseltal region in southern Saxony-Anhalt. An ...

Volcanic Eruption Caused Neolithic People to Sacrifice Unique 'Sun Stones'

Jan. 16, 2025 — 4,900 years ago, a Neolithic people on the Danish island Bornholm sacrificed hundreds of stones engraved with sun and field motifs. Archaeologists and climate scientists can now show that these ...

Asteroid Impact Sulfur Release Less Lethal in Dinosaur Extinction

Jan. 16, 2025 — Previous studies have posited that the mass extinction that wiped the dinosaurs off the face of the Earth was caused by the release of large volumes of sulfur from rocks within the Chicxulub impact ...

Pioneering Research Exposes Huge Loss of Glaciers in One of the Fastest-Warming Places on Earth

Jan. 16, 2025 — A new study has revealed the alarming extent glaciers have shrunk over the past 40 years in a global warming hotspot -- and the biggest retreat has ...

Early Humans Adapted to Harsh Conditions More Than a Million Years Ago

Jan. 16, 2025 — A long-standing question about when archaic members of the genus Homo adapted to harsh environments such as deserts and rainforests has been answered in a new research ...

Did Prehistoric Kangaroos Run out of Food?

Jan. 9, 2025 — Prehistoric kangaroos in southern Australia had a more general diet than previously assumed, giving rise to new ideas about their survival and resilience to climate change, and the final extinction ...

NASA Celebrates Edwin Hubble's Discovery of a New Universe

Jan. 15, 2025 — For humans, the most important star in the universe is our Sun. The second-most important star is nestled inside the Andromeda galaxy. Don't go looking for it -- the flickering star is 2.2 million ...

Ancient Genomes Reveal an Iron Age Society Centred on Women

Jan. 15, 2025 — A groundbreaking study finds evidence that land was inherited through the female line in Iron Age Britain, with husbands moving to live with their wife's community. This is believed to be the first ...

World's Oldest 3D Map Discovered

Jan. 13, 2025 — Researchers have discovered what may be the world's oldest three-dimensional map, located within a quartzitic sandstone megaclast in the Paris ...

New Fossil Discovery Sheds Light on the Early Evolution of Animal Nervous Systems

Jan. 10, 2025 — An international team of scientists has uncovered a fascinating piece of the evolutionary puzzle: how the ventral nerve cord, a key component of the ...

Cleopatra's Sister Remains Missing

Jan. 10, 2025 — anthropologists have analyzed a skull that was found in the ruins of Ephesos (Turkey) in 1929. It was long speculated that it could be the remains of Arsino IV, the sister of the famous Cleopatra. ...

An Earful of Gill: Evolutionary Origin of the Mammalian Outer Ear

Jan. 9, 2025 — A recent study has uncovered the surprising evolutionary origin of the mammalian outer ear, linking it to the gills of ancient fish and marine invertebrates. The research reveals that both structures ...

The Extreme Teeth of Sabre-Toothed Predators Were 'Optimal' for Biting Into Prey

Jan. 9, 2025 — Sabre-toothed predators -- best know from the infamous Smilodon -- evolved multiple times across different mammal groups. A new study reveals why: these teeth were 'functionally optimal' ...

When the Past Meets the Future: Innovative Drone Mapping Unlocks Secrets of Bronze Age 'Mega Fortress' in the Caucasus

Jan. 8, 2025 — An academic has used drone mapping to investigate a 3000-year-old 'mega fortress' in the Caucasus mountains, revealing details that re-shape understanding of the site and contribute to a ...

Herbivore or Carnivore? A Toolbox for the Study of Extinct Reptiles

Jan. 8, 2025 — Evolution has resulted in the development of both herbivores and carnivores -- but how? What type of food did extinct vertebrates eat? And how can we gain insight into the diets of these creatures? ...

Oldest-Known Evolutionary 'Arms Race'

Jan. 3, 2025 — A new study presents what is believed to be the oldest known example in the fossil record of an evolutionary arms race. These 517-million-year-old predator-prey interactions occurred in the ocean ...

Ancient DNA Unlocks New Understanding of Migrations in the First Millennium AD

Jan. 1, 2025 — Waves of human migration across Europe during the first millennium AD have been revealed using a more precise method of analysing ancestry with ancient DNA, in research led by the Francis Crick ...

A Festive Flying Reptile Family Reunion 150 Million Years in the Making

Dec. 19, 2024 — A new study finds nearly 50 hidden relatives of Pterodactylus, the first pterosaur. Joined by its newly discovered relatives, Pterodactylus's 'family' now encompasses tiny flaplings, a ...

Researchers Identify a Mysterious Fossil Seed to Reveal New Chapters in Climate History of Los Angeles

Dec. 19, 2024 — Scientists have successfully identified a previously unknown species to Southern California from fossilized seeds, revealing a drought-fueled dance between two species of juniper with lessons for the ...

Chart of Life Extended by Nearly 1.5 Billion Years

Dec. 19, 2024 — Fossilized skeletons and shells clearly show how evolution and extinction unfolded over the past half a billion years, but a new analysis extends the chart of life to nearly 2 billion years ago. The ...

Massive Volcanic Eruptions Did Not Cause the Extinction of Dinosaurs

Dec. 18, 2024 — While volcanism caused a temporary cold period, the effects had already worn off thousands of years before the meteorite, the ultimate cause of the dinosaur extinction event, ...

Lost Score Revives Sound of Music and Voices from Centuries Past

Dec. 18, 2024 — A fragment of 'lost' music found in the pages of Scotland's first full-length printed book is providing clues to what music sounded like five centuries ago. Scholars have been ...

Fossil Predator Is the Oldest Known Animal With 'Saber Teeth'

Dec. 17, 2024 — Scientists have discovered the oldest known animal with saber teeth: a predator that lived 270 million years ago. This animal, from before the age of the dinosaurs, was a dog-like creature that was ...

Butchered Bones Suggest Violent 'Othering' of Enemies in Bronze Age Britain

Dec. 16, 2024 — Analysis of the remains of at least 37 individuals from Early Bronze Age England finds they were killed, butchered, and probably consumed before being thrown down a 15m-deep shaft. It is the ...

A New Timeline for Neanderthal Interbreeding With Modern Humans

Dec. 12, 2024 — Neanderthal genes make up 1-2% of the genomes of non-Africans. Scientists analyzed the lengths of regions of Neanderthal DNA in 58 ancient Eurasian genomes of early modern humans and determined that ...

Unique Motor Control System of Anglerfish's Specialized 'Fishing Rod' Discovered

Dec. 12, 2024 — Researchers have uncovered in anglerfish a specialized motor neuron population for the first dorsal fin used for 'fishing'. When the first dorsal fin evolved from a swimming and buoyancy ...

Biological Diversity Is Not Just the Result of Genes

Dec. 11, 2024 — How can we explain the morphological diversity of living organisms? Although genetics is the answer that typically springs to mind, it is not the only explanation. By combining observations of ...

New Research Unlocks Jaw-Dropping Evolution of Lizards and Snakes

Dec. 11, 2024 — A groundbreaking study has shed light on how lizards and snakes -- the most diverse group of land vertebrates with nearly 12,000 species -- have evolved remarkably varied jaw shapes, driving their ...

Earliest Deep-Cave Ritual Compound in Southwest Asia Discovered

Dec. 9, 2024 — A cave in Galilee, Israel, has yielded evidence for ritualistic gathering 35,000 years ago, the earliest on the Asian ...

Getting to the Bottom of Things: Latrine Findings Help Researcher Trace the Movement of People and Disease

Dec. 6, 2024 — A researcher has uncovered evidence of intestinal parasites in a 500-year-old latrine from Bruges, Belgium, and while the finding may induce queasiness in some, it is expected to provide important ...