January 17, 2019
Earliest bird-like lungs found in China
Before birds took to the air, a number of anatomical features evolved that allowed them to get off the ground. While many of these features were …
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China
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34 articles · Page 1 of 2
November 8, 2018
Two new species fill gap in dinosaur family tree
Cretaceous rocks in northwestern China have yielded two new dinosaur species that help fill a 70-million-year gap in dinosaur phylogeny. The new …
September 10, 2018
Extinct gibbon found in Chinese tomb
About 2,200 years ago, a Chinese noblewoman was buried in a tomb with a menagerie of animals, including 12 horses, a leopard, a lynx and a …
September 10, 2018
Earth's first footprints
As far as we know, life originated on Earth about 3.5 billion years ago, and for roughly the first 3 billion years of that history all life was …
March 22, 2018
Pairing geoheritage and economic development: China's Guizhou Province offers a modern model
As I admired an immaculately preserved colony of 230-million-year-old crinoids lying next to an equally impressive skeleton of a sharp-toothed …
March 20, 2018
Acid rain triggered deadly Chinese landslide
On June 5, 2009, a catastrophic landslide killed 74 people in southwestern China. But a lack of recent earthquake activity or heavy rainfall left …
August 15, 2017
Asymmetrical fossil feathers fill in timeline of flight
To get off the ground and evolve into flying birds, dinosaurs got a lift from asymmetrical feathers, which are more aerodynamic than symmetrical …
August 10, 2017
Baby Louie dinosaur fossil gets a formal name
A baby dinosaur found fossilized with a clutch of eggs in China in the 1990s has finally been identified as an embryo from a new species of giant …
August 10, 2017
Dust influences pollution levels in eastern China
Air pollution often enshrouds cities in eastern China in a thick haze that impairs visibility and causes respiratory health problems. Emissions …
May 17, 2017
Monsoon shifts shaped early Chinese cultures
Rapid, climate-driven shifts in monsoon patterns may have shaped ancient Chinese societies, according to new research. And their history could be …
April 20, 2017
Geologic Column: My China syndrome
My obsession with China began when our son Jeffrey moved there 10 years ago. Since then, we have visited him a half dozen times, and the change …
February 16, 2017
Chinese air pollution clears up mystery of London's 1952 hazardous haze
In December 1952, a fatal fog crept through London for almost five days, smothering the city in a yellow haze that reeked of rotten eggs. The …
February 9, 2017
Discovered: One of the last-surviving Asian dinosaurs
Paleontologists have discovered a new species of oviraptorosaur, a group of strange bird-like dinosaurs without teeth. The species, Tongtianlong …
December 27, 2016
How to hide a dinosaur
Analysis of a finely preserved fossil dinosaur from China has revealed the animal’s erstwhile camouflage. It appears that the meter-high Early …
December 7, 2016
A story in the sediment: Emperor Yu's "Great Flood" may have been real
Ancient Chinese texts re-count the story of a great flood on the Yellow River some 4,000 years ago and Emperor Yu’s heroic efforts to dredge and …
September 13, 2016
Hammerhead herbivore pioneered vegetarianism in Triassic seas
New fossils found in southern China hint that the earliest herbivorous marine reptiles got off to a bizarre start: Atopodentatus unicus, which …
August 19, 2016
Down to Earth With: Hydrogeologist Shemin Ge
" graduated from high school in China, the country was still in the throes of the Cultural Revolution. During this movement, which lasted from …
July 20, 2016
Researchers profile magma chamber beneath North Korean volcano
An enigmatic volcano straddling the border between North Korea and China has been investigated for the first time by an international team of …
April 18, 2016
China's Red Deer Cave people may have survived until the last ice age
In the 1980s, a collection of bones from very small hominids was excavated from a cave in southwestern China, alongside a number of bones from a …
November 12, 2015
Chinese cave art reveals record of climate change
In times of drought, Dayu Cave in the Qinling Mountains of central China has remained a reliable source of water, and since at least the 16th …
September 21, 2015
Dinosaurs used the same nests repeatedly
Fossil dinosaur eggs and nests offer clues about dinosaur development and behavior: Based on past work, for example, scientists have thought that …
August 31, 2015
Benchmarks: May 12, 2008: Earthquake devastates western China
Just before 2:30 p.m. local time on May 12, 2008, a magnitude-7.9 earthquake shook Sichuan province in Western China. One eyewitness recalls …
August 21, 2015
Oldest birds unearthed in China
The discovery of two well-preserved fossils in the Sichakou Basin of northeastern China has pushed back the known evolutionary record of birds by …
March 9, 2015
Soft-bodied fossils cast in fool's gold
Most of the fossil record is composed of hard bones and shells — only a handful of places preserve fossils of soft-bodied organisms from early in …