Fossils
- Animals
Speckled dino spurs debate about ancient animals’ colors
Structures found in fossil dinosaur skin may give clues to the creatures’ colors and how they lived. But not all scientists agree on how to interpret what they see.
- Animals
Dino brain found ‘pickled’ in boggy swamp
Scientists claim to have identified the first fossil brain tissue from a dinosaur.
- Animals
Mini pterosaur from the age of flying giants
Not all pterosaurs flying the Cretaceous skies had a wingspan as wide as a school bus is long. Some, new fossils show, were smaller than modern eagles.
- Earth
These may be the oldest fossils on Earth
Some mini mounds in Greenland may just be the earliest evidence of life on Earth, deposited a mere 800,000 years after our planet first formed.
- Fossils
Parasites wormed their way into dino’s gut
Tiny burrows crisscross the stomach of a 77-million-year-old dinosaur fossil. These may be tracks left behind by slimy parasitic worms.
- Chemistry
Identifying ancient trees from their amber
A Swedish teen’s analyses of a sample of amber may have uncovered a previously unknown type of ancient tree.
- Fossils
Baby titanosaur was a mini version of its parents
Fossils show that baby titanosaurs looked like mom and dad. They may have been active and independent from a young age.
- Fossils
How to tell if a T. rex is expecting
A chemical test of tyrannosaur bone can determine whether the dino was pregnant — and therefore a female.
- Fossils
Neandertal toe contains human DNA
DNA from a 50,000-year-old Neandertal woman’s toe bone shows humans left a mark on the ancient species — and much earlier than scientists had thought.
- Animals
Roadkill : Learning from the dead
Roadkill can be more than a smooshed-up carcass. Scientists study these highway casualties to learn more about wildlife and their environments.
- Animals
Picture This: Plesiosaurs swam like penguins
A computer model suggests plesiosaurs — ancient marine reptiles — swam like penguins, using front flippers for power and back flippers for steering.
- Earth
Bubbles may have sheltered Earth’s early life
For Earth’s earliest inhabitants, a bubble on the beach would have been the next best thing to a safety blanket.
