New UC Riverside-led research settles a longstanding debate about whether the most ancient animal communities were deliberately mobile. It turns out they were, because they were... more
New York state lawmakers on Wednesday passed one of the world's most ambitious laws aimed at countering climate change, under which fossil fuel power... more
Species on Earth are interconnected with each other through ecological interactions. Defaunation can erode those connections, yet we lack evolutionary predictions about the consequences of losing... more
Reconstructing Precambrian eukaryotic paleoecology is pivotal to understanding the origins of the modern, animal-dominated biosphere. Here, we combine new fossil data from southern Namibia with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to test between... more
The migration and interaction routes of prehistoric humans throughout the islands of Oceania can be retraced using genetic differences between paper mulberry plants, a tree native to Asia cultivated for... more
A new study shows how marine life around Antarctica returned after the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs. A team studied just under 3000 marine fossils collected from Antarctica to understand... more
Paleontologists have found two fossilized teeth of extinct cursorial hyenas (genus Chasmaporthetes) in the remote Old Crow River region in northern Yukon Territory, Canada.... more
Evidence from ancient rocks in north Alabama show the Earth's first forest spread rapidly, likely contributing to a mass extinction of shallow marine life some 370 million years ago. more
Underneath their tough exteriors, some crocodilians have a sensitive side that scientists could use to shine light on our ancient climate, according... more
Sea otters have very low genetic diversity, scientists report. Their findings have implications for the conservation of rare and endangered species, in which a... more
A new study shows that over the past 10,000 years, humanity has experienced a number of foundational transitions, or 'bottlenecks.' During these periods of transition, the advance or decline of... more
Newly developed geological techniques help uncover the most accurate and high-resolution climate records to date, according to a new study. The research... more
Sea otters have low genetic diversity, which could endanger their health as a species, a UCLA-led team of life scientists has discovered. The findings... more
Modern hyenas are known as hunters and scavengers in Asian and African ecosystems such as the savanna. But in ancient times, these powerful carnivores also roamed a very different landscape, inhabiting the... more
Scientists went looking for preserved collagen, the protein in bone and skin, in dinosaur fossils. They didn't find the protein, but they did find huge colonies of modern bacteria living inside the dinosaur bones. more
John Day, Distinguished Professor Emeritus in LSU's College of the Coast & Environment, has collaborated on a new analysis of societal development with Joel Gunn of the University of North... more
Newly developed geological techniques help uncover the most accurate and high-resolution climate records to date, according to a new study. The research... more
Geneticists exploring the dark heart of the human genome have discovered big chunks of Neanderthal and other ancient DNA. The results open new ways to study both how chromosomes behave during cell division and... more
Bad news, Jurassic Park fans—the odds of scientists cloning a dinosaur from ancient DNA are pretty much zero. That's because DNA breaks down over time and isn't stable enough to stay intact for millions... more
Researchers have used computed tomography (CT) scanning to examine and reconstruct cranial fossils belonging to two extinct species of monkey, Caipora bambuiorum and Cartelles coimbrafilhoi. The fossils were... more
When the crown jewel of industrial civilization—the automobile—was introduced in London, it was met with resistance. Wouldn't burning fossil fuels pollute the air? "Yes,... more
When the Kesharwanis decided to branch out and expand their family home, they came up with a novel way of dealing with an ancient giant fig tree in their garden—they built the... more
Bioarchaeologists report new findings from the ancient ruins of Çatalhöyük, in modern Turkey. The results paint a picture of what it was like for humans to move from a nomadic... more
A new study of climate changes and their effects on past societies offers a sobering glimpse of social upheavals that might happen in the future. The prehistoric groups studied lived in the... more
The transition from fossil to renewable fuels is one of the most important challenges of the future. The SUN-to-LIQUID project takes on this challenge by producing renewable transportation fuels from water and... more
A recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal PeerJ—the Journal of Life and Environmental Sciences highlights the fact that the economic benefits... more
Humans have been smoking pot to get high since the first millennium B.C. Archaeologists have found early evidence of cannabis use from wooden bowls... more
A shady refuge on a hot day could be more than a simple comfort in a warming world. Finding a cooler spot might save several species that would... more
A new video shows how climate change connected and disconnected Andean "sky islands" during the past million years. The innovative mathematical model used to make the video was based on fossil pollen records and shows how... more
Paleontologists have unearthed fossils of a giant trilobite species that inhabited Australian waters approximately 500 million years ago (Cambrian period). Trilobites are... more
Scientists have published an article describing the oldest axial fossils yet discovered for the genus Australopithecus. Dated 4.2 million years ago, these and other fossils recovered from the Assa Issie site in... more
Paleontologists have discovered the remains of an ancient Loch Ness Monster look-alike in freezing Antarctica. And just like the legendary Nessie, it wasn't the... more
Fossils of a giant new species from the long-extinct group of sea creatures called trilobites have been found on Kangaroo Island, South Australia. more
A recent survey on the world's plants found a shocking number have gone extinct—571 since 1750. And this is likely to be a stark underestimate. Not all plants have been... more
The CENIEH researcher Adrián Pablos is co-author of a paper which offers a methodology for assigning the sex to fossils of Homo sapiens and opens up the possibility of applying it to... more
Fossils of a giant new species from the long-extinct group of sea creatures called trilobites have been found on Kangaroo Island, South Australia. more
An unprecedented disease outbreak has pushed the critically endangered kakapo, the world's fattest parrot, closer to extinction, New Zealand scientists said Thursday. more
A chemical residue study of incense burners from ancient burials at high elevations in western China has revealed psychoactive cannabinoids. The finding provides some of the earliest evidence for the use of cannabis for its psychoactive compounds. more
Researchers have found that pterodactyls, extinct flying reptiles also known as pterosaurs, had a remarkable ability -- they could fly from birth. more
Archaeological remains of coastal occupation in the form of shell middens are commonly found on today's shorelines, and evidence for shellfish as... more
Monkeys living in South America are highly vulnerable to climate change and face an "elevated risk of extinction," according to a new University of Stirling-led study. more
Biomass materials such as wood are environmentally-friendly alternatives to fossil resources. As an example, wood is typically non-toxic and carbon neutral. Furthermore, wood can be produced in a sustainable manner by appropriate planting and trimming of... more
A breakthrough discovery reveals that pterodactyls, extinct flying reptiles, had a remarkable ability—they could fly from birth. The importance of this discovery is highlighted by the fact that no other living vertebrates today, or those in... more
We've all seen and marveled at them: perfect fossils of gargantuan dinosaurs or other exotic creatures from the ancient world. But the truth is, sometimes there's more than... more
Biorefinery technology uses biomass as a feedstock and converts it to energy and other beneficial byproducts. It is drawing attention as an eco-friendly and sustainable technology to prepare for depletion... more
Fresh evidence rewrites the understanding of the most intriguing archaeological burial site in western Finland. New DNA technology gives significant information on the bones... more
Fresh evidence rewrites the understanding of the most intriguing archaeological burial site in western Finland. New DNA technology gives significant information on the bones... more
A team of researchers with the Royal Botanic Gardens in the U.K. and Stockholm University has found that plant extinctions over the past two and a half centuries... more
The black softshell turtle is officially extinct in the wild, but a centuries-old Indian temple and its nature-loving caretaker are helping the creature make a tentative comeback. more
A meta-analysis of dietary information recorded in the bones of ancient animals and humans recovered from sites scattered across the Eurasian steppe,... more
Strengthening of political networks coincided with the intensification of agricultural production, resulting in the widespread adoption of millet by populations across Eurasia. more
Groundwater experts from around Australia have repeated calls for further investigations into the potential effects on heritage groundwater reserves in central Queensland if the giant Adani Carmichael coalmine gets the final regulatory go-ahead.Concerns the... more
Researchers from the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Seville have studied the archaeological evidence of prehistoric societies in the Neolithic Period in the Iberian Peninsula from the perspective of gender. According to... more
Evidence for the ancient, 1.2 billion years old, meteorite strike, was first discovered in 2008 near Ullapool, NW Scotland by scientists from Oxford and Aberdeen Universities. The thickness... more
Now, three northern nations are vying to stake their claim to part of the Arctic seafloor, a region chock-full of fossil fuels that lies under thousands of miles of water and ice. more
One of the world's most important plant families has a history extending much farther south than any live or fossil specimen previously recorded, as... more
One of the world's most important plant families has a history extending much farther south than any live or fossil specimen previously recorded, as... more
The beech-oak family Fagaceae dominates forests from the northern temperate zone to tropical Asia and Malesia, where it reaches its southern limit. We report early Eocene infructescences of... more
New studies by two research teams published today in the journals Nature Ecology and Evolution and Current Biology challenge decades of accepted scientific opinion concerning the evolutionary relationships of tree sloths and... more
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