Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity
- Animals
RNA from mummified woolly mammoth is the oldest ever recovered
Genetic details from the animal, named Yuka, give a snapshot into its last moments alive. The mammoth had been preserved in permafrost for 40,000 years.
- Environment
Nuclear weapons tests many decades ago have left a radioactive legacy
Decades of aboveground nuclear weapons tests, starting in the 1950s, lightly littered the planet with toxic fallout, which appears to have sickened some people.
- Fossils
Here’s why ammolite gems have a rainbow shimmer
The fossils’ fabulous colors arise from delicate assemblies of crystal plates.
- Life
Scientists Say: Taxonomy
This field of study does more than just organize living things. It also reflects the history of life's evolution.
- Fossils
Newfound fossil is not a teen T. rex but a whole new species
Now known as Nanotyrannus, this mini dino could have roamed the late Cretaceous alongside T. rex.
- Humans
Smoke-dried mummies found in Southeast Asia are the oldest known
The corpses had been slow-dried over fires 12,000 years ago — millennia before Egyptians began mummifying their dead.
- Fossils
Baby pterosaurs likely died in violent Jurassic storms
Two hatchlings with broken arm bones point to ancient storms as the cause of mass casualties now preserved in Germany’s Solnhofen Limestone.
- Fossils
Fossil teeth reveal some dinos were fussy eaters
The type of calcium in those teeth points to what herbivores preferred to eat — whether soft leaves, rough twigs or something else.
- Archaeology
Knotted strands of 500-year-old hair tell a surprising story
Used in a device called a khipu, the hair reveals the owner’s simple diet. Those data now suggest that in Incan society, even some commoners kept records.
- Plants
Potatoes and tomatoes share a surprising history
Today’s potato likely came from a chance cross between an ancient tomato and a spud-less potato-plant lookalike, research shows.
- Archaeology
This may be the oldest, most complete Neandertal fingerprint ever seen
The print appears in a red ochre dot, which a Neandertal left on the ‘nose’ of a facelike rock roughly 43,000 years ago.
- Environment
Watch out: Hail can get really big!
New data from hailstones suggest most of these icy chunks may not form the way scientists long thought.
