September 18, 2017
Neolithic farmers impacted sedimentation
The Neolithic Revolution, also known as the Agricultural Revolution, started in the Middle East about 11,500 years ago when people moved away …
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Paleo
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252 articles · Page 4 of 11
September 18, 2017
Down to Earth With: Paleobiologist Gregory Erickson
As an undergraduate at the University of Washington, Gregory Erickson wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. He started out as an engineering major, …
August 15, 2017
End of ice age may have been too wet for megafauna
Between 15,000 and 11,000 years ago, dozens of ice-age megafauna species went extinct. Various causes, from climate-driven habitat changes to …
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 15, 2017
T. rex's bone-crushing bite
In a landscape rife with fearsome predators, Tyrannosaurus rex carved out a bone-crushing niche. New research analyzing the force generated by T. …
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 …
July 17, 2017
Horned dinosaur find a first for eastern North America
Fossils of horned dinosaurs called ceratopsids, the group that includes Triceratops, are usually found in either western North America or Asia. …
July 17, 2017
Massive trove of dinosaur tracks cataloged in Australia
In a remote region of Western Australia, paleontologists have documented the world’s most diverse assemblage of dinosaur tracks. The scientists …
June 19, 2017
Hangover echinoderms survived the Great Dying
The end-Permian extinction event was disastrous for a wide range of organisms on land and in the sea, with as many as 70 percent of terrestrial …
June 19, 2017
Precambrian rumblings of the Cambrian Explosion
The Cambrian Explosion, when the ancestors of most of today’s animal groups began appearing in the fossil record about 542 million years ago, was …
June 19, 2017
Bipedalism left its mark on human skull: Kangaroos and upright rodents show same signs
The transition to bipedal walking in our ancestors changed the hominin skeleton in many ways. New research looking at how upright walking …
June 16, 2017
Two ichthyosaurs become one
While dinosaurs ruled on land in the Mesozoic, dolphin-like marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs roamed the oceans. Paleontologists first …
June 16, 2017
Rearranging the dinosaur family tree
Dinosaurs have long been grouped into two major clades — Ornithischia and Saurischia — largely based on the shapes of their hips. But new …
May 23, 2017
Horned dinosaur find a first for eastern North America
Fossils of horned dinosaurs called ceratopsids, the group that includes Triceratops, are usually found in either western North America or Asia. …
May 17, 2017
Horses evolved to get along: Competition between species not main evolutionary driver
Horses have changed size and shape dramatically over the last 20 million years, evolving from small dog-sized creatures with multiple toes into …
April 26, 2017
Mastodon bones point to significantly earlier human presence in North America
In 1992, paleontologists from the San Diego Natural History Museum discovered a set of fossil bones, tusks and teeth from a single mastodon next …
April 20, 2017
Down to Earth With: Paleontologist Gerta Keller
The mass extinction that did in the dinosaurs is one of the best-known events in geology. It’s also one of the most contentious. For years, the …
April 19, 2017
First trilobite eggs found in fool's gold
Trilobites were one of the most successful groups of animals to ever scurry across the seafloor, thriving for more than 270 million years. But …
April 19, 2017
Did the first humans arrive in North America a lot earlier?
New dating of artifacts recovered from a site in the northern Yukon, on the Alaskan border, may push back the hypothesized entry date of the …
April 18, 2017
Tiny dinosaur-era marsupial packed a big bite
Newly described fossils from one of the earliest-known marsupials are shedding light on the evolution of mammals during the Mesozoic and …
April 18, 2017
Scientists crack the secret of dinosaurs' incubation time
Paleontologists have long thought that the eggs of dinosaurs — like those of their living bird relatives — probably hatched after short …
April 6, 2017
Lucy liked hanging out in trees
Lucy, the 3.2-million-year-old human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, is one of the most complete early hominin skeletons ever found. …
March 29, 2017
Dental plaque reveals later start date for hominin cooking
Ancient teeth have long been a source of information about ancient diets, mainly through analyses of isotopic compositions and wear patterns. In …
February 16, 2017
Tiny fish illuminates tooth fairy mystery
When kids lose their milk teeth, the roots shrivel up and just the outer enamel falls out — a process known as basal resorption. Now, the …